Not quite

Many bad things had happened in South Africa since liberation – the corruption of politicians, the corruption of dreams – but for Sibusiso Mlengetya, standing in the dark of morning in Durban with 17,000 other aspirants, voices lifted in the national anthem:

. . . Sounds the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom
In South Africa our land!

all could be forgiven.

It was the oldest and largest ultra-marathon in the world, the Comrades Marathon – 87 kilometres from Durban to Pietermaritzburg up the Valley of a Thousand Hills. As Alan Paton wrote, ‘There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo to the hills. These hills are grass covered and rolling and they are lovely beyond any singing of it’.

But ultra-running is not just about the beauty of the route, it is about aching hips and aching knees and tired muscles and the onset of nausea.

It was over half way through the race that Sibusiso found himself kneeling on the side of the road retching into the long grass as the inexorable tide of competitors flowed relentless by him. His hopes of a sub-ten-hour finish flowed away as well. Sibusiso knew the Comrades Marathon tradition – that the race director stands on the finish line and fires a gun at precisely 12 hours from the start time and all the competitors who have not crossed the line are stopped from doing so, are doomed to receive no recognition, to be relegated to that limbo summed up by those three dreadful letters which all runners fear – DNF, ‘did not finish’.

A kind man gave Sibusiso a piece of ice to suck, which did settle his nausea quite significantly. He carried on.

At the top of the infamous hill called Polly Shortts he sat down in the gutter, exhausted and sick but determined still.

Up the last hill. Three kilometres to go. Two kilometres to go.

Closer. Closer.

The crowd on the side of the road thickened and it roared.

Across the grass towards the finish. Into the finish chute – the crowd roared, they banged on the sheet metal of the barriers holding them back. Loud, amplified music competed with the baying of the crowd; floodlights gave a hallucinogenic cast to everything; a frenzy of excitement. The announcer yelled over the speaker system and the crowd with him – 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . .  7 . . .  6 . . . 

An insane kaleidoscope of colour and sound whirled around Sibusiso, he seemed to stagger down a dizzying tunnel, everything focussed only on that point ahead, that point that he had to reach.

The finish line in sight – the still point that drew him on.

. . . 5 . . . 4 . . .  3 . . .  2 . . . 1.

And the Lord said to John, ‘Come forth and win eternal life.’

But John came fifth and won a toaster.

Dhiraja

Father and Child

The autumn leaves crunched like potato chips under her feet as she walked along the moonlit sidewalk. One song observed ‘he’s lost for words again’ while another advised ‘always should be someone you really love’.  She sighed. The crescent moon was either half full or half empty.

Sister Jacinta witnessed the young woman lost in her thoughts on the street. She wanted to open the window and call out to her, to remind her of the light of the Lord for it looked like she needed it, to reassure her this too would pass, but she sat silently in the sturdy wooden chair, holding her beads. Catching sight of herself in the mirror she was taken by surprise. The wistful look on her face took her breath away. How had she let it happen?  She had subjugated herself to worship, separating herself from the needs of others who might divert her, she had found peace.  She did not know the young woman walking along in the moonlit street below, yet she had seen herself within her and felt a wistful longing that had whispered into her being and appeared on the reflection in the mirror.

Father Frank opened the door to the small stone room.

“Sister, it is time.”

“Yes, Father.”

Clouds began to cover the evening sky as the melodies continued to whirl around inside her, filling her with the experiences of others.  She didn’t see the man approach until he startled her.

“Good evening.” His dark robe blended into the evening, only the white collar reflecting the waning moon’s light betrayed him.  

“Father! I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you,” the young woman replied.

“Quite all right, child. We are in need of assistance at the monastery and I wonder if you might spare us a moment.”

Apprehension slithered inside, but she dismissed it. Where was her charity, after all.

“Certainly! How may I help?”

“Right this way.”

Autumn leaves turned to small stones as they turned the corner, down the cobblestone path to the archway. A flickering candle in a window high above both comforted and cautioned as she walked behind the robed man. She waited for words from a song to guide her.

Sister Jacinta opened the door.

“Welcome! Just in the nick of time.”

Jasmin Webb

Pigs in the dark (II)

‘Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!’ he said, unsure if she had seen the small shape running towards the edge of the road in the gloom and out into the path of the car.

She braked hard.

Anthony saw the rabbit skittering away across the lawns on the other side of the road.

It would have been an inauspicious end to the night. She had hardly sworn at all navigating in to town, nor during the usually traumatic period of finding a parking place.

Anthony had cried watching An Inconvenient Sequel – at the good things, at the bad things, at the incontrovertible doom of it all. When they left the theatre – with the other white people – the sky was a hallucinogenic trout skin of orange and blue.

Anthony knew about US police – Laquan McDonald: sixteen times; Ezell Ford: three times in the back; Tamir Rice: aged 12; Alton Sterling: while held down on the ground by two officers; Walter Scott: for a broken tail light; Philando Castile: for reaching for his driver’s licence … – they gun you down and then try to find a crime to pin on you as you bleed out at their jackbooted feet, so when, after the movie, they were walking from the Little Theatre along Park Avenue looking for dinner and fell in step with three heavily armed officers, Anthony was keen to say a polite ‘good evening’ and cross the road. However, with the relentless sociability of the Norman Rockwell version of the US in which his companion lived – she was having none of that. Conversation was required.

Anthony edged closer towards the curb as the discussion reached ‘Is there a reason you are Republicans?’ One of the blue-clad giants had had to guard president Barack Obama when he visited Magnolia’s Deli & Café to eat a sandwich on this very road and, no, he was not going to concede to his determined interlocutor that that person had been at least a decent person.

From an exposition of the importance of the ideology of personal responsibility and the pointlessness of compassion, the conversation made its way to the less provocative subject of the effect of lacing heroin with Fentanyl, and then – thank God – to good restaurants in the area.

One officer recommended a place further along the road – ‘Contemporary American cuisine – with a snappy feel’. This was how they talked to you just before they shot you in the back?

Anthony was glad at last to scuttle safely, rabbit-like, across the road to Sinbad’s Mediterranean Cuisine for malfouf and Lady Fingers.

Barnaby McBryde

One way ticket for an emotional journey please

In hindsight, Megan admits she was cocky by then, evidenced by her casual attention to ticket details, the not-a-problem-in-the-world stroll to Amsterdam Central where she had alighted just five days before. Easily time for a quick check of the departure board, she had thought, before a final coffee…

Puzzlement. 10.28 to Rotterdam, 10.32 to Paris, 10. 44 to Dusseldorf – no 10.37 to Berlin?  She stares again, then at her ticket.  Monday 7 November, yes, 10.37 departure, Amsterdam for Berlin. Everything looks right but there’s no such departure on the board.

Panic. 10.21. Who to ask? Where’s the ticket office?  There’s a queue, of course. In halting English the woman behind the counter explains that, yes, her train leaves at 10.37 but from Amsterdam South. This is Amsterdam Central.

10.25. Can she get a taxi? How far is it to Amsterdam South? Why didn’t she think to get Eva’s cell phone number?  In six hours, Eva will be waiting at the Hauptbahnhof for a guest who won’t arrive. A paralytic calm descends. Resigned to the mess she has got herself into, Megan stands frozen to the spot. Stupid, stupid idiot. There is simply nothing to be done.

“Excuse me.  I can help.” A man in a uniform approaches, radiantly blonde and as tranquil as an angel.  “If you run, you will just catch the 10.28 to Rotterdam. Get off at the third stop. Your train to Berlin will stop there also, six minutes later.”

Gratitude rises through her body like spring sap. She wants to wrap her arms around this man, this saviour, a railway timetable savant.

“Run, you don’t have much time. Back to the platform.”

Megan seizes her pack and, gobbling incoherent words of thanks, flies back the way she had come just minutes before. The train is waiting. She falls into the closest compartment and has only just found a place to stand amongst the students and business commuters, when the doors close and the train glides into motion.  Count, count, count is her mantra. First stop, three students laughing and jostling each other.  Doors close and the train pulls away, passing the underskirts of Amsterdam with not a canal or bridge in sight.  Second stop, and a woman with two children and a baby buggy struggles into the carriage.  The doors stay open while she seats the children and then returns to the platform for a wheeled suitcase. Come on, come on…

Third stop and Megan is ready, alighting before the doors are fully open.  The clock on the platform reads 10.43. Six minutes now, as her angel said…

10.45. A train stops at the platform with barely a whisper. It can’t be, not yet.

“Berlin?” she stutters to the uniformed woman who springs from the door.

“Yes, yes, please get on quickly.”

Doors close. A seat. Relief.

Rosemary McBryde

In the nick of time

It was 5 o'clock, the cat had been fed, the dinner was cooking and the fire had been lit, sending out a nice warmth into the living room.

On top of the woodburner she had put a small container of bits of a greasy ointment so it would all be in one jar. This was in a waterbath and safe from harm. Being someone who multitasks she sat down to her laptop and continued doing her Duolingo German lesson.

All was going well, when suddenly there was a whoooosh as flames leapt up towards the ceiling. The tin in the waterbath had somehow tipped thus spilling the melted ointment all over the hot plate of the woodburner. Never did you see her move so fast out to the kitchen to get a wet teatowel and smother the flames. Thankfully it worked but even in that time smoke was rising to the ceiling and about a metre in depth. Then began the clean up, getting rid of the mess on the hot woodburner plate and opening doors and windows to get rid of the smell and smoke.

Thoughts came to her mind. "What if I'd been down in the garden picking silver beet for tea or up in the front bedroom doing a bit more jigsaw?"

Shakily she sent a prayer up to the Lord that she had been where she was, knowing that much more time doing nothing about the flames it could have been fire engines and much mess and destruction and what neighbours would have cared?

It came to mind that TV ad about how fast fires can take hold. She thought, “That’s silly, it’s a scare tactic, fire couldn't move that fast” BUT IT CAN!!!

Luckily it was caught in the nick of time.

Margaret Hawkey

You're welcome

And here I was, with my plastic bag full of mischievous knick-knacks from the grocery store that closed  7 hours ago. A train of thoughts traveled through my mind, some that were a little too odd for my mind to dismiss.

Where are they?

The question was the first of my doubts. In the beginning, I had brushed it off. But that was 30 minutes ago.

Okay, I admit, I was a tad early. That didn’t alter the fact that they were supposed to arrive 10 minutes ago.

I saw a figure stumble across the empty street, slugging his steps carelessly. I turned my body to him, watching as he reached the other end. My eyes stay fixed on him, a slight fear growing inside that he might just dash this way. His figure, shapeless and large - twice the size I am. He reaches to run his hands through his hair before reaching for his waist. I stand upright, ready to run, only to see him drop his hand and walk the other direction without glancing back.

I sighed.

Where are they?

I decided to stare at the empty brick wall to my left. I heard something run up behind me, a rat I assumed, or a squirrel.

Where are they?

“Hey, kid,” I flinched at the sound of a clear yet low voice. It sounded comical, made up, yet I didn’t dare turn around. “Ya got any money on ya?”

“No,” My voice trembled a little. I felt something cold against my neck.

“Don’t mind if I check, d’ya?” I shook my head, raising both of my hands.

Where are they?

The man tapped against my pockets, down my back. He was quite quick in his movements, rather gentle too. I breathed in a little.

“What ya got in ya bag?”

“Spray cans and tissue rolls.”

“Doing your mam’s grocery, eh?”

“I’m a good boy,” I reply without thinking. “I mean-“

He chuckled, cutting me off. I shut my lips and gulped. A shudder ran down my spine as he tapped the metal against my neck a few times.

“You know George, you really are a daft dimbo sometimes,” I spin around to see Charles, holding back his laughter and a metal ruler in his hands.

A choir of laughter followed by howling and name-calling came right after, and despite my initial terror, I smiled too.

“I can’t believe you-“

“I came just in the nick of time, didn’t I?”

Katya Tjahaja

September

It's one of those phrases that gets used a lot.  The Artistic Director and I were having a discussion about it, with no idea what it means or where it comes from. So for your September starter, see what you can do with In the nick of time.

Stories to rosemary.mcbryde@gmail.com by 30 September.  Happy writing, dear contributors.