The Drakensburg Boys Choir-2025.06.21

 'Lee, in 1997 while the cold winds cut swaths through the cavernous, south facing, shadow- sprawled, brutalist Braamfontein, I queued for hours outside the Computicket office. That day I missed Maths 1, Applied Maths 1, missed the sold-out giant, raisen-packed chelsea bun from the cafeteria in Senate House, and missed out at ogling the hot stock from med school on the Library Lawns. It was a demanding effort, wrought with immense anxiety, excitement, and fear, if tickets were sold out. After all that effort, I could sigh with relief. I got 'em .I got those tickets, those haloed, golden tickets. Tickets to see the greatest showman on earth, the biggest selling artist on the planet, Michael Jackson. With tickets in hand, the endorphin payload gushed through our cerebellums, we were riveted to the adventure playing out in our minds, a night we'd, surely, never forget'.

20 years later, I stirred my coffee granules to dissipate into a dark muddy broth, while a gentle AC breeze billowed through the last strands of hair I owned. I got online, checked my emails, click clicked, and DuckDuckGo'ed 'Drakensberg Boys Choir'. Scrolled for a date, clicked for 4 tickets, and 'submitted' the request. Pay by card. Bing. You got mail. 

Without delay, I rapidly made the call using my minutes. ' Lee, Lee I got us, I got us tickets to see the Drakensberg Boys Choir. Finally, Lee, we have arrived'.

The big night arrived. We packed our snacks, tighted our bottles of bubbles, and hit the M1 south. 

Bursting through the timber swing-doors of the Johannesburg Theatre, screaming internally with bunsen-burning fire in our bellies, we cooly, calmed down, nestling into our red velvet chairs. The opening act. The.Opening.Act. A primary school choir singing lekker liedjies. I could accept this, we all need opportunities to shine bright like a diamond.

But then came another laerskool, and another hoerskool, and a primary school, and an old school, and a new school. We were being schooled, and our patience was wearing thinner than Ghandi's flip flop. My biltong sticks were done, my mouth was salt-pan dry and right for a land speed record, my bubbles were burst, my kids were sapped.

1,5 hours later, deflated as a pool lilo in mid March, my family and I, we're all hanging onto our chairs like limp lappies. 'When is it going to end?' was scrawled across our mugs.Even the guy next to us, was seen death scrolling for guns on his new Iphone 16 max while his son watched Paw Patrol, his earpods turned high to deaden the drama.

The DBC finally checked in, when we wanted to check out. But we decided to hang in there for one last soiree. We steeled ourselves for the 'shortened programme'. 

Their enthusiasm, their talent, their voices, their upbeat demeanour managed to resus us. but the drag of the hors d'oeuvres just desiccated us.  Friday morning sat around the coffee shop we frequent. Contemplating shattering the silence, I blurted out to the guys, 'jees, okes,we went to see the Drakensberg Boys Choir' 

With stares as blank as a white board, eyes glazed over like cherries, coffee dribbling down the chins of them all, their life blood eventually returning, they quipped, 'why?', and went on discussing the pool temperature.

A Vivid Memory of A Day in Nursery School

On this day in 1984, the morning and the late morning were book-ended in real hurt.My career in nursery school typically oscillated between golden, happy days, and dark Mordor-like days. This day, as my parents dropped me at the school, I bawled tears of anxiety, bawled tears of separation. and as I passed through the heavy, dark and creaky gate, the tears I cried drenched my favourite two-toned t-shirt.

As my teacher took me by the hand, consoling me, I entered the linoleum-floored classroom.

The smell of fresh poster paint cleaves to the inside walls of my nostrils as it's slapped onto card by tiny nimble fingers that have been up noses, plunged into play dough, and sprawled across white walls. The deep, congealed, blood red, the ocean dark blue, and the Namaqualand bright daisy yellow bottles of paint line the window sill through which the winter sun-light pierces casting a prism on the white notice board. A ziggurat of Hazyview-scented, freshly-cut pine-wooden building blocks, their veiny grain giving grip to small hands, knock and tumble as us kids build and bash empires. Kids push baby prams, and others go shopping with small trolleys. It's the Shibuya Junction, their order, our chaos. 

As the last bite of our apricot jam-and-buttered sandwich is soaked into our skins, and the nuclear glow of the Oros orange juice, held precariously in the scuffed plastic cups, courses through our little child-veins emitting a halo around our bodies, and the wave of hyper energy fires our thrusters, the steel school bell for playground-time ding-a-lings. We break out of close quarters, hurtling towards the playground screaming in pent up excitement. Some kids skittle towards the sand pits, others towards the split-pole bus, some bee-line for the car-carcass and others, to the swings. Friends grab each other's hands dragging one another like rag dolls excited to share experience.

Me, i walk out of the steel-framed glass doors cooly, a wind howling through my GHD straight hair. The velcro on my North Stars wrapped tightly across my feet fitting snug and ready to race. The white piping on my silky Road shorts giving me fashion runway street cred. Having eaten my jam-stained isosceles-triangled bread slice, I walk beyond the stoep into the morning sunshine. My favourite red-coloured t-shirt clings to my skin. I head to that car and sit on the mustard-coloured leather seats, the scent of which reminds me of my grandpa Bing's giant Triumph. My hands caressing the perfectly smooth, circular steering wheel. I'm dreaming that i'm in a JP Special F1 car, smoking a cohiba. As other kids came to invade my space, I exit the car door. and I continue to drift alone - me and the mentos-coloured, spiked caterpillar on the green leaf of the tree hanging heavily above the playground. 

As i moseyed on to anywhere, stopping at points to draw circles in the dusty sand with my toes, I pass by the swings. Just as i walk on, the air around me turns to a sucking sensation, things turn to silence, and with that ominous feeling a pair of flailing legs and feet in red leather sandals approached me at 300knots an hour on the up swing arriving to panel me and my torso, sending me skidding across the worn patch of grassy sand, the gravel burn tearing at my palms, at my dignity.  Being floored, my being deflated as a popped squash ball left limp in the corner of the court, I got up off the dirt and bawled my cool-blue eyes casting a river down the playground.

My teacher rushed to pick me up, hugged me gently as I wetted her camisole. 

It was a field of dreams. but after four decades, it's still embedded.

'Take nothing, leave only footprints' - 2023.12.22

Simba and I sat beneath the acacia tree, me with an icey beer in hand, a vanilla-flavoured Steri Stumpie in his. Behind us was pitched our permanent tent. Before us, the grill-ready grey, lava-hot coals of the bbq. Above us, countless pulsing bright stars, numerous constellations and the Milkyway galaxy. Infront of us, anything we hoped for, or dreamed of and a beautiful, peaceful future. 

Embedded in the African bush at the Camdeboo National Park that night, we chatted, nibbled grilled chicken, showered, and flipped the switch for the best sleep of our lives.

It was only the marauding mosquitoes and the creeping critters that bothered us as they nipped at our skin...or so we thought.

The sun rose, we cooked the coffee, hurled our bags back into the boot, shut the doors, turned the ignition and before the night's dew could dissipate, the crunch of gravel beneath the tread turned to smooth tar as we headed the 8 hours back to Johannesburg.

Being able to hear the crack of a twig beneath my feet, to feel a gentle breeze blowing, and to smell hints of fresh pine, increased my spirits. I was living a pipe dream. December silence and serenity. It was left to me to unpack the car as we arrived in our evacuated hometown.

Gripping the luggage handles, the bags parted, split in two by a whipping, snaking, leathery black tail. Aghast, stumbling backwards, I released the handles as if they were a fiery live wire. 'Giuseppe!!!' I exclaimed, 'Giuseppe'!!!

Seeing the tail being sucked into the car like the length of spaghetti in the Tramps mouth, the skin on my back crawled over my shoulders.

With the adrenalin in my body boosted like a Soda Stream, I yanked at the bag handles revealing an exaggeratedly large watermelon-sized hairy, bristling, grizzly-backed striped rat. The peaceful silence that was, was no longer as I screeched from here to kingdom come. 

I calmed myself down, pulled my drenched shirt off of my back, tied my shoe laces and raced up to the apartment.

Rushing up the stairs, my heart thumping like a Lez Zeppelin drum solo, I shouted, 'Lee, Lee, you won't believe what I just saw'.

By candle light that load-shed night, my face glowing from the flickering candle, I believed, and convinced my wife that the rat had evacuated the vehicle. Surely.

Having settled my wife's strummed nerves, feeling a lot more relaxed, I was eager to read my eyes to bed. And so unzipping the luggage in which my book was stored, and lifting it, what fell from between the pages my eyes could not immediately decipher.

Scratching my chin in thought, I recalled a moment of our lives.

"I was once told that when our young lad spent a meal at a friend's house, even though he didn't want to eat the hotdog, he nevertheless took it so as not to embarrass the host. Later that day, while back at home, his au pair found the stray sausage buried in his trousers pocket. What a mensch'

Zooming in on the detritus, my senses buffered, came to, and then immediately suffered an assault. A grotesque blob of bio hazard sat at the bottom of my bag. 3 baby rats cleaving to one another. dead. With the high pitch of a female Michael Jackson fan, I screeched, 'Giuseppe'. From the bottom of my belly, bile bubbled up like a chocolate fountain at a 90's girl-friends pyjama party to tickle my tonsils.

Just managing to swallow hard, I then saw a fourth baby rat, alive, cleaving to a now holey t-shirt of mine. By this point, I had reached my limit. With my hand over my mouth, my eyeballs sweating wet, I picked up my legs and raced the contaminated bag to the outdoors bin casting the lot. Hands on knees I heaved and breathed and downed the half litre laying on the floor. 

That night the sun set, and was replaced by a bright full moon shining its cheesy grin. Peace and tranquility had been restored to suburbia. Our family fell asleep.
The camera panned across the building, then zoomed out. 
Just as the credits were about to roll and the theme song was to play, the innocent silence was aggravated... by an angry, rabid gnawing...........   

A Visit to The Mapungubwe Visitors Centre, Mapungubwe National Park 2023.08.09

 Me and my bud Bones studied under the wonderful, exciting, yet demandingly tough tutelage of Peter Rich. It was his zany lectures on the Master Architects and their buildings, and stories of his escapades and pilgrimages to the greatest buildings of the world that invigorated me to scour the globe for adventure, experience and googly-eyed architecture.  

It has been a while since I ventured, but having had a gap in between jobs, I, with Ray, took a couple of days out to journey to a building that took us off the beaten track.

The building to which we travelled is called the Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre. It is located to the north of South Africa in the Mapungubwe National Park which borders Zimbabwe and Botswana.  The building won world recognition when it was awarded 'Best Culture Building of the Year' at the 2009 World of Architecture Festival.

It was designed and master-built by my lecturer and mentor Peter Rich, and moulded from the earth by the hands of the local community embodying the spirit of our Wits education-the romance of architecture, the utilisation of local materiality, use of local expertise, upskilling the locals, on-site design, and community engagement.

The landscape surrounding the site is vast and desolate,rocky and brittle. The red ochre earth is fertile to not much but the low lying shrubbery which peers enviously up to the tall, majestic, though alien-like boabas, some of which are the oldest in the world. The sky on our visit was deep blue harbouring lengthy stratus clouds eager to dock, clock and offload some much needed rain. The lengthy ribbon-like racing strip of road alongside the site is vast, never ending and monotonous.

Against the grain of this setting emerges an extraordinary outcrop. And from that extraordinary outcrop tumbles an extraordinary edifice. The Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre. 

Morphing technology with local endeavour, its voluminous, sail-like vaults flag its presence from afar as it pokes its head high above the hilltop. As the building begins to cascade down into a valley like a slinky down a ziggurat, the play of levels, stairs and ramps keep visitors moving, enticing all to explore. Elevated platforms and lengthy walkways are formed to offer unimpeded views of bulbous baobabs sitting squat across the lunar landscape. The collision of landscape and building creates hidden nooks and frames opening up portals to immense vistas. The building's colours and heavy, grainy texture coarse and rough like an elephant's skin, mimic the autumnal-coloured Mopani trees that inhabit the expansive landscape, giving one the sense that it was always there.

 The architect dragged a pathway which swoops and swings around the building affording ogglers views of the Centre from all angles, heights and distances. The amphitheatre, a centerpiece, becomes the backdrop for supermodels in Jackie O sunnies to fill their Insta feed.

In the amoebic-shaped reflection pools, we can see further the hand of Peter's sketches coming to life as the walls of the pools weave and meander as free-hand pencil lines.

Although it appears organic, there is an exciting underlying formal geometry at play.

Peter designed not so much a building as a landscape raised, inflated and thinned to create a playful, tactile and engaging edifice to reveal the story and the rich history of the Mapungubwe Kingdom. Ray and I were fortunate to experience this.

Gold Reef City: The Log Ride

That year's birthday, my best friend's folks were taking us to Gold Reef City for a day of tangible fun, excitement, fear and flurry. There the scents and smells of sweet candy floss, sticky glistening toffee apples, fear, vile bile and pavement vomit overwhelm the highveld air. Vibrant colours expressed in the jars of technicoloured candies, jellies, textured toffee, short breads, lengthy lengths of rope liquorice, and shining roller coasters fill in the white spaces of an already kaleidoscopic setting. And the sounds of screams, giggles, whistles and yodels of children, teens and adults reverberate through the small historical mining 'town'.

Kids love rides, I don't. The Tea Cups, the Bumper Cars, the petting zoo, those I can tolerate. Roller coasters?. Not for my jellied gut. But to be able to be part of the conversation on the playground, to fit in, to get a girl, I'd have to roll one ride. That ride was to be, The Log Ride.

Queued for a substantial amount of time in the hot blazing sun, the length of the line shrunk like an unattended lit cigarette, and eventually the sausage-shaped ride bobbed and weaved its way in readiness for its excited, nervous and palpatatious passengers.

The barrier gate opened, and the conductor readied himself by inflating his giant pink cheeks to blow his silver whistle hailing us to board the rudimentary ride- a fiberglass-hollow carved and painted to appear as a lumbered log. No cushioning, no foot holds, a 'water ready' Fiat Uno, a Titan submersible.

As his whistle screeched, the passengers scattered like skittled pins rushing to their intended seats. Beginning from the back, us joyriders slotted one by one filling row by row like dominoes. I was stood standing waiting my turn having learnt my manners at government school. Being the last man, there were no pickings but for the gaping seat at front and centre.

Frightened, and white, shaking and shivering, clattering, and teary, clambering over stray knees, I got on board. 

Our giant painted boerewors began slowly moving as it was over taken by the water's flowing current. Shifting along arcs, bends and curves as the moat meandered, the log knocked and bumped against walls in the dark. Ghouls and ghosts haunted us, witches soared high up above, their broom sticks brushing our foreheads, tickling us to squeal like pigs. 

The boat breached the darkness and entered the light of day. 

A short stint and it stopped. Like the jolt of landing gear emerging from the bowels of a Jumbo, the log shuffled and hooked itself onto a conveyor belt-like contraption. click click click the ride began to rise ecking its way up the ramp, the ascent sending my heart crashing against my rib cage. The log reached its fulcrum, pivoted and with immense speed hurtled down the shoot with break neck speed towards a pool of water, our screams and cries in tow. 

With my lungs filled with fearful screams, I trying to gasp for air. I wanted this to all end.
Boom!!, we hit the bottom of the ramp and a gush of water engulfed us all. The front line absorbing the brunt.

With the forced stop, my head flicked back like a stationary punching bag being pummeled by Fury and on the return flicked forward belting the rim of the fibreglass log. I heard a crack. Disembarking the Log, I stroked my tongue along my once Wrigley's-sharp smile to find a gaping hole framed by the crenelations of half an incisor.

As I smiled a sense of relief, bravery, self confidence and a will to succeed bounding off of my face, my friends cackled shouting, hey, Alfred E Neuman, that you?

A Parking Paystation

Having sat watching a late night flik, my wife and I punctured the envelope of the mall into the dark, tar-heavy, covered parking lot.

Before us stood Arthur C Clarke's HAL 9000 reincarnate, a parking paystation.

Intimidating, complex, expressionless, sharp and shiny, its monolithic steel form sits squat and heavy.  Mona-Lisa-like, it follows us with its beady LED lights, there is no escaping it for it is the gatekeeper to the light beyond this cavernous hollow.

The monochrome green screen bleats and blinks yanking us within range of its gravitational pull. Moving closer kicking and screaming, fumbling and shaking, I step up to The Death Star patting my body down, searching desperately for the parking ticket. I find it in my pen pocket sharply bent and mildly creased. I gulp hard and loud as the wad of gob slippy slides rapidly  down my gullet plummeting with a deep splash into my sparkling-water-filled belly.

Like a blindfolded kid at a pin-the-donkey party, I begin thrusting, shoving my piece of origami into each of the multitude horizontal slots seeking one, just one opening that'll accept the ticket. Is it the coin slot, card slot, ticket slot, paper cash slot,credit card slot, scratch block, kep pad, tariff thingy, or the gaping cash back slot?. My brain rotates on my spinal column like Jordan spinning a basketball atop his ET finger.

Meanwhile a dense thick snaking queue of fellow mall rats begins to swell behind me, my head pivots to see this swath of shaking, impatient bobble heads. I am under pressure trying to act Cool Hand Luke playing for time. It's a game of Whack-A-Mole. I want to cry as my hands clam up. And then finally the machine hoover's it up. 'Bingo', I shout.

Success, and after a moment of processing, Robocop indicates the amount, it's a perfect tenner.

Deep inside my ipod pocket, I find a rusty crumpled greenback.

Top slot, bottom slot,side slot, my stomach's in a knot. Again, which darn slot is it?

With my hands now in full flight swishing around like Yehudi Menuhin conducting New York's Philharmonic,I stuff the tenner into the top slot jamming the thing in as I would my forgotten swimming trunks into my carry-on luggage. 'Just. get. in', I growl under my breath. A tear squirts out my eye. I want to die right now. The machine rages, and rejects the green back. I pull it out, iron it with the back of my hand, straightening the corners. I crisp the tenner like I'm licking a rollie, aiming it again for the slot, it takes hold, I yodel 'yes', like I just holed out at Amen Corner at Augusta National.

My armpits drain every iota of hydration from my sapped body. Terminator 2's T-1000 ejects my parking ticket. I cleave to this ticket with hands upon knees. We exit.

Malcolm Gladwell's 10 000 hours does not apply to paying at parking machines, bamboozling me everytime. This User Experience is a game of Russian Roulette, thank goodness i spun the barrel right.

A Short Story about a Frog 2022.02.18

Dan and Lee spent a weekend in the bush. It was an hour's drive from their home.
Leaving behind concrete, tarnished tar, speeding selfish taxis, abusive Ubers, and city smog they were greeted by the scent of Body Shop lush brush, Mountain Dew clear skies and the rich earthly dust of dirt roads. Their eyes drank in the wide open skies and the liquid OJ of the setting sun. The massaging gentle wind breezed through their hair washing over them, cooling them to relax.

As the moon ballooned, they flicked on the lights and like positives to negatives, a humdrum of creepies from short bugs with big wings, tall skinny stick insects with bow legs, leathery lizards, alpha bravo geckos, furry moths, praying mantis and unsightly critters with many hairs, skittled and crawled out from each of their lairs.

Lee squeaked and squealed as the insects arrived on the scene moving in rhythm to Michael Jackson's Thriller. Each one bobbed and weaved in unison, nipping, biting, creeping, and crawling.

With this flurry of bugs there was no way of plugging this dike.

The weekend flashed. Sunday arrived.
Dan's alarm buzzed, he bounded out of bed, humming a Rolling Stones tune, grabbed a fluffy white towel, bee-lined to the shower, motioned to flip the mixer to warm, and there below his feet a small black blob, frightened, skedaddled along the skirting zipping beneath the ball and claw of the bath. Suppressing his screech by biting his clenched knuckles so Lee'd be unawares, he let black Frog be for keeping this little secret between 'you and me' would be their little triumph.

He then packed his shirts, her dress and jeans, both pairs,
and tossed the bags into the back of the Ecosport, bounced around on a game drive, then headed south to The Big Smoke.

Back in suburbia, Dan unpacked the luggage. Holding up each item he remarked, 'Clean, not so clean, clean, not so clean, folded, needs ironing'. Pulling out a ruffled towel, it was not alone. As a pilot ejecting from a shot down fighter jet, Black Frog burst itself from the bowels of the bag careening towards earth. Karma.

The echoes of 'Frog' sent Simba lurching into the room. Grabbing the little critter, he held it gently in his cupped hand and rushed for the door.

Once upon a time, Dan, Lee and family lived on the 4th floor of an apartment building.

Frog in hand, Simba hurtled down the corridor like a barefoot rugby player down the left wing when another kid approached. Eager for show and tell, Simba gooied anchors, ignored all instructions to keep his hands clasped, peeled them open, and Frog lurched out. Dropping to the floor, it scurried away seeking salvation beneath a door of a plumbing duct. Inspecting the duct, Dan witnessed Frog cleaving for its life like a stretched Fizzer- one foot on a drain pipe, and one foot dangling from death. Alex Honnold reincarnate.
Frog had no sure footing.


The End

The Amatola Trail, Eastern Cape 2022.03.18

 While I was a freshman in highschool, sat behind a wooden flip top desk  in English class, we were tasked to write an essay on whatever we desired, however it needed to be 'personal experience'. Now, at 13 years old I had had very little personal experience other than sunday ice cream outings to Carvel, and honestly, I didn't even know what  'personal experience' even meant. 

And so, excited like a fat boy eager to bury his head in a sugar dusted jelly donut,  I rushed home, reached for my yellow BIC pen and began scribing my opus. 

It would be the late 80's early 90's, I would be clothed in khaki pants with side pockets and a matching colour-coordinated button-down shirt with yellow Camel Trophy badges emblazoned on my shoulders. I'd be wearing military utility boots. I'd have hitched in my velcroed top pocket my Swiss army knife from before The War, a soft pack of Camel filter fags, a box of timber matches, a picture of my girl back home, a pack of elastoplast plasters for the unforseen tyre puncture and, I'd be buckled into the driver's seat of a mustard-yellow Land Rover Defender 110, revved up, and torqued down to navigate and usurp the densest, wettest, muddiest terrain in a tropical jungle in Borneo in the elite Camel Trophy Challenge.

Thoughts of adventure of leaving my suburban home and tackling the mangled forests of Borneo excited me to write. My brain was all consumed by the idea of getting dirty, of roughing it. My writing hand took its cue from my imagination and began gushing streams of consciousness across the lined foolscap sheet of white paper. Blue ink dripped with excitement, adventure and daring.
As a kid clutching a winning Willy Wonka ticket, I was Michael-Jackson-fan hysterical  to submit come Monday morning.

Having plonked my creativity onto the teachers wooden desk alongside a red apple, it was, after a week, returned to me... as a blood curdling failure.The teacher's red ink, splattered across the sheet like a Jack the Ripper crime scene, dripped off of the edges of the page weighing heavily on my submission. As I stood dead still, the world stopped, and silence blanketed the classroom. I was in a slasher scene of a friday the 13th horror movie but it was just a monday. It was a horror show, and I was being hatched with a blunt rusty meat cleaver.

Some 30 years later that rugged diesel powered hard edged mustard body of the Defender morphed into me, it's hard working BF Goodriches became my Hi-Tec boots, its halogen lights, my LED lightweight Pestl headlamp. It's iron-clad winch my erg-powered forearms, the modified suspension my rickety knees, and its roof rack, my 60litre Deuter backpack.

Though not in a Landy, it'd be my legs, my arms and my brain that'd get me through the most gruelling hike I'd ever endured. I was about to gain experience, personal experience.

The Amatola hike is a gruelling 6 day trek through rain forests covering 100plus kays with an elevation of 5000m. It is South Africa's toughest hike and it makes the Otter Trail a walk through the cheese section of Woolies. Cool, breezy, cheesy, creamy easy.

The Amatola hike is set in the Amatola mountains in the Eastern Cape inland. It begins and ends in Hogsback, a tiny little village that sits as a relaxed, tye-dyed, hippified, foot to the Amatola mountains. With its veins gushing with halucongenics, it's in stark contrast to the stress that awaits me embedded in the Amatola Trail. 

Immediately we are enveloped by the embrace of the forest. It's trees loom, it's vines dangling as Rapunzel's plaited locks reaching down to the forest floor, its shards of grass have us entangled as we puncture the bubble of this biome. A daylight darkness shrouds the interior. Shafts of sunlight pierce the canopy, striking the ground to light our path. The cracks of twigs under foot rifle through the silence, sending hares scurrying, and frogs leaping-the only other movements in this still womb.

In this moisture saturated environment, this greenhouse, mushrooms burst from the rich dark soils packaged in Dr Seussian colours, larger than your garden variety, and easy to pluck. Hallucinogens are in abundance. Radioactive-glowing-green moss carpets fallen trunks like the dash boards and steering wheels of drifting box-car BMW's softening edges and offering comfortable seats for moments of relax. 

The path we take each morning sees the detailed geometric webs of spiders strung precariously between mangled trees like slackliners tied tight across crevasses. Crayola colours splash across the backs of spiders.Red, black, and yellow specks like a Pollockian painting. These 8-legged arachnids sit still awaiting unsuspecting insects to come ploughing into their snare. As our troop marches forwards we machete our way through the swathe. 

The hike courses through fast and slippery downs, up slow, cog-turning steep rocky inclines. Slipping, bruising, cutting, oozing, the blood drains from us as our bodies are pierced by jagged rocks. Our lungs expand, soaking up the oxygen-heavy forest air.Punching through the forest walls the trail plateaus, from here we see the light of day, fluffy clouds and the expanse of the trail. From up here we scout the villages below, white rocky outcrops, mottled nguni cattle and babbling brookes.

Waterfalls careen down the ravines of the mountains, plummeting with rapturous ferocity into a series of pools that slink across the trail down the mountains edge. The pools of ice-cold water that pepper the hike give us the opportunity to refresh as we unbundle our gear and make the plunge revitalising our spirits to go forth and trek on. 

Rain on the trail slowly soaks our clothes, seeping towards our skin, catalysing goose bumps to prick up and ice bite. I see no joy in dancing in the rain. so i put my head down and pick up the pace towards the rudimentary,though dry, overnight hut. Foam mattresses sag on wooden frames await exhausted bodies.There is no stress, my mind is at rest for there is no thinking other than the number of rusks i'll be dunking at sunrise.

Towards the ends of the hike, we skirt the crown of the mountain, its rock face bears down heavily above us minimising us. Against the face of this wall of stone we are as minute little dwarves of Thorin's Company.

The trek took us way back to when life was simple and we had to work extra hard to achieve. No amount of tech could get us further, faster or higher. No amount of space saving weight reducing aluminium could assist us in gaining ground. Only the steel of our minds, the elasticity and strength of our muscles and the grit of our teeth would allow us to conquer the toughest hike in the country. Here we hiked dirty, we hiked raw. We hiked like it was the 1800's, a period of unchartered territory, a period of paving new paths, of cutting across swaths of overgrown brush, fallen trees, rocks littered haphazard as a kids fallen lego's.

The eastern Cape landscape from the air looks agrarian, peaceful, slick and clean, easily surmountable, easily caressed  and beautifully drawn. the patchwork of farms and forest glow emerald green and sparkling. Scrolling into the terrain of the Ciskei reveals itself as treacherous, and rugged as Mordor.

As I sat down outside the backpackers on a stone slate floor, my scuffed boots sidled alongside me caked in mud, sweat, rain and salty tears,my hiking shirt encrusted in 5 days of grime, my toenails reflecting a Hobbitt's curling over days of dirt, I sat hugging my knees, shell shocked, maybe crying, reeling from PTSD  from the experience i just endured.

as i shoot my hand up, seeking attention, i inquire, 'ma'am, may I resubmit my essay?'

A Short Story about a High-school Crush

Layla was the apple of my eye. Not only was she strawberry-sundae delicious, she was the hottest girl of our school in her age group and probably of every age group in the school. She had dark rich 85% cocoa chocolate colour hair curled in the style of Veronica Lodge, she tucked her white button down shirt into her blue school skirt, and rolled her socks down. 
She carried a tiny school pack, neat and square.

While I played in the Sunday League, she sat atop the Premier League. 

Being in the B team of any sport I played, studying Latin, and having less than nimble fingers when it came to playing snake on my Nokia 6110, opened very few doors in me being boyfriend material. But still harbouring the confidence and exaltation of three years prior as I walked off that cricket field in my black blazer, I decided I'd throw any caution, and any reputation i had to the wind, and ask Layla to accompany me to the Matric dance. 

Munching my triangulated snackwedge and watching Britney and Justin star in Mickey Mouse Club after school I grabbed with two greasy hands the tomb-like White pages. I thumbed through the G's, punched the phone number with my index finger I thought was 'it', scratched a heart shape in red koki around the number, and set the following Monday to make the call.

The whole week waiting in fear, but in anticipation, from science to Latin class, I etched 'DC 4 LG' encircled by a heart cementing my love, on every wooden desk I sat at with my red Swiss Army pen knife. Finally Monday eve arrived and with the hairline cracks in the irises of my eyes oozing blood, and my palms dipped-in-water wet, I dialed her digits. As the ringer rang, with heaps of anxiety, I drew imaginary circles with my toes turning the shaggy rug to a heap of knots.And then she answered. 'uhh uhhh', my voice pitched high, 'Layla, hi, hello, is that you?'

Across the wires, with a little delay, a little silence, 'Oh no, I'm afraid not, it's her aunt, here, let me give you her number'. Panicked to scrawl the number down, I thanked her and with that the slow puncture of relief relaxed me. Having achieved very little regarding my goal, I'd wait a full week to try again.

That following week I agonised. With the feeling of having Bruce Lee do repeated roundhouse kicks inside my stomach, squealing every time he did a full 360, my stomach churned for a full week before I made the call again. The waiting strained me, strained my gut. I barely ate, I barely slept. I barely had control of myself.The next Monday my heart racing Monte Carlo, I dialled in. 

Now Layla's brother was ranked like number 1 in jock status at school. His crowd, they were built like mine-craft characters-square jaws, square muscles, square fists, with six packs harder than the fender of a Ford pick-up. They ate tuna and rice every day, and pumped iron till their veins popped, and their hands calloused. They commanded such respect that they had the First-Years polish their rugby boots till the glint of their Aquafresh smiles reflected in their leather uppers. These bruisers 'owned' the stairs by the quadrangle, it was their lair. No one could sit on the quadrangle stairs. And no one could pass through unless you offered up your tuckshop sarmie as collateral. On trying to gain access, the pasty kid would extend out his arm clawing the polony roll, turning his face in fear, he'd shy away trying to hold back from blubbering in public. There they'd grab it, biting, tearing off three-quarters of the sandwich like Ozzy biting the head off of a bat, leaving the sweet kid with a tomato-sauce drenched stubby stump of a roll. The teeth marked polony, a remnant of its former whole, clung to the carbohydrate like Alex Honoldt cleaving for dear life to a creaking overhang on El Capitan. Though the bun was slobbered in gob, the kid would cringingly swallow the remainder. But access to the stairs was his.Though he'd go hungry. He'd appeased the big cheese.

Now I loved number 1's sister. and no matter what, I was gonna call her.

'Hello, hi, is that Number 1, it's me, Dan Chaity?', 'Chaity?,Whadda you want?'Can I chat to your sister?' Borderline stunned, he says, 'hold on', and sets the phone down. 

I hear ruffling, I hear voices, I hear footsteps. clop clop clop.'Bud, she's busy. She asks, 'whadda you want?'.'Uhm, I'd like to take her to the Matric dance'.Again he sets the phone down, and in moments returns."Chaity, Sean the Love Machine has asked her to the dance.''oh oh okay', i croaked, 'no problem, see you at rugby practice tomorrow.'

Plunging the off-white receiver into its cradle, my back drenched, I slump back into the wicker chair, grabbing the ice cold coke before me, I drain its contents in one gulp,and let out a huge... sigh. Just as I conquered the can, I felt I'd conquered the call.

I didn't win, but I inflated that limp ego like Chucky the Clown blowing up a balloon noodle.

Short Story-A School Boy Cricket Match

 Back then when summer days were spread thick across the loaf of life, Wednesday's smell of freshly mowed cricket fields, the ripe scent of fresh cut orange quarters and syrupy lecol juice, joyously flared my nostrils.

On half-day Wednesdays, as the school brass bell rung the end of the day, we shouted, 'Match day!'and on that day, we played cricket against KES.  

Having lost the toss, King David was sent in to bat.

The KES bowling attack was furiously ferocious. and before the opening bat could doff his cap and say 'centre, please sir', his middle stump was doing Simone Biles flik-flaks across the village green.

The sound of rattling wickets echoed, and the holler of 'howsat?' reverberated against the hallowed halls of the KES Res disrupting square meals and latin conjugations.

Amidst the devastating fall out, I padded up, and made my way to the crease. Blocking, cutting, charging, I smacked the shine off the red Kookaburra leaving it pasted to my linseed-oiled rapier. I caressed that little red cherry to all corners of the ballpark making bolognaise sauce of their front line seamers. 

Thinking i was a cat, I lobbed a delivery down the gullet of a boundary fielder. Tucking my bat under my armpit, I strolled back to the hut, punching myself in the ribs. 

At the change, I was top scorer for King David. 8

Fielding next, we had no chance defending the paltry 40. Off the first delivery they made our fielding placements look like a leaky reusable nappy.

Standing at the Jonty Rhodes position, nervous and shaken as a Bond martini, a ball was rifled at me. Hurtling at me at a rate of knots, I stuck my hands out at the ready. The earth stopped spinning, silence settled across the field, and only the sound of the seam, and my hard swallow could be heard in the surrounding Houghton and Hillbrow areas.  (mainly Houghton, cos Hillbrow was partay-ying). The ball bladdy well stuck.

That Wednesday I was a headline even on mainstream media news reels. 

We grabbed our flings and apple juice cartons and went home to Sunny Side road to celebrate.

Tossing my grass-stained kit in the washing machine, and inspecting my bludgeoned bat, my day of glory had ended. 

The Fish River Canyon 08.08.2021

Zip, tear, tighten, press, push, squeeze. Undies past your knobbly hairy knees, socks over toes, pants past your bones. Belt buckled, zipper up, button-down shirt thrown over your back. Buttons and holes lined up, collar popped. Boots on, laces tied bunny ears. backpack bulging slung over your shoulders. Hip support locked in. The slack is tacked. Peering over the edge, the earth plummets. Final photos. We drop off the precipice deep into the yawing canyon, leaving behind a sky blue as the iris' of an icelandic's eyes.

The colour palette of earthy brown hues, goose greys and charcoal blacks, rusts and reds, we leave behind a world of shiny, glossy, swipey metallic.

Once we leave the height of the canyon, our swashbuckling journey begins as we lay eyes on the whipping Fish River. Still as Evian, we catch the river in its eerily quiet wintery months. These are the remnants of the gushing summer. The River swings and swoops back and forth along the canyon's floor as Indiana's bullwhip. We keep it close to us, never straying too far from this life blood.

The sedate River responds to movement by reflecting the hiker's daily march, the lapping lips and tongues of wild horses, the swoop and dive of ravenous raptors, the flitting fish that never made it downstream and the swimming Namibia guy, his belly a barrel, his bulky legs pistons, and his skin tanned coffee by the countless hours of daylight exposure.

The landscape on which we tread is forever changing. The dirtied rim of the subsiding river, as the blazing sun sips, is revealed as concentric circles on rounded pebbles. The now exposed rocks form fields we need to hop, balancing like pirouetting ballerina's.

The crunch of boot tread on the course gravely terrain, scrape, clink as an aluminium pole pierces a crevice.   

We hurdle rising rock formations, graze our knees on sharp outcrops, we cut across swathes of sinking river sand so soft its arms tear at our legs pulling us downwards,as we find ourselves immersed in a battle between the moon's gravitational pull and the doughy dirt. The heavy heave as lungs expand and contract as we lunge, drop, squat and pivot.

Regardless of the immense physicality of the hike, the silence, the peace, the freshness is serenity. It allows for mindless contemplation, stressless thinking, soulful reflection ...until...

Bang! it's popped like a grass blade to a balloon by the bouncing crew that we meet en route. Their flower power outfits and leisurely laissez faire attitude abound. Where we're kitted for survival, they're kitted for lounging lazily around campfires smoking kilograms of mary jane and singing REM songs. We share little but passing 'Hi's' and then they're off, oddly, like mountain goats.

The dampened sounds of our chatter are soaked by the serrations of the towering Manhattan-like walls of the cavernous Canyon. We are aware of the sun tracking across the sky. As it peers from behind the Canyon walls, googling at us, we rise. Rising, no thing protects us from the streaming scorching sun beams during the long day, and as we pitch our tents at day's end and the sun crash lands, the lengthy shadows drawn turn icey. 

After 5 days chasing the mileage, we returned with beaten bodies, a feeling of achievement andbody odour so rancid it could strip paint. As we recovered in the post-hike hot springs, that was time for our bodies to experience some euphoria.

  

Mr Wolf taught me Latin, taught me Life

 I recall as a fresh primary school leaver visiting King David High School on a Sunday, Mr Wolf got up to the lectern and began speaking glowingly of Latin.  He told us that should we choose Latin we would be considered elite. What he didn’t tell us was the abuse we’d be subjected to, the ridicule and the insults.
I chose art.
But soon enough yearning to be like my brother I chucked the charcoal, punched a hole in the palette and joined the Latin class. Being elite trumped abuse.
There in that class, I made sure I sat front centre, conjugating, doing declensions and sipping the suds of Mr Wolf's far-from lugubrious Latin lessons. I didn’t care much for any other subject but for this most archaic of languages. I went on to do Latin for matric and I got a ‘B’ for Blah!

But more than letter’s, Mr Wolf, through his passion as a teacher, through his caring demeanor and love for the language of Latin he helped to open my eyes to a new, different type of world beyond the walls of suburbia. His teachings exposed me to architecture through learning about the Coliseum, Roman baths and ova’s; personalities, through his translations of Caesar; poetry through Homer’s Iliad; endurance, stamina and hard work, through Hannibal’s marches; and political structure through the senate, and the people of Rome.

I managed to pass school after Mr Wolf bludgeoned me with fierce words, jolting me into ‘picking up my socks’. Since then, I hadn’t seen Mr Wolf.

Until some twenty years later…Scouring through the dairy section of the local Pick n Pay, trying to find myself the densest thickest fullest creamiest cream I could find, suffering chilblains from everything I touched and seeing my extremities turn blue from the icy coolness of the refrigeration, my attention now diverted, I caught glimpse of ay Mr Wolf. With a bright luminescent light reflecting off the linoleum, skewing my vision, I couldn’t make out whether it was Jeffrey or Elliot. But I didn’t care, cos I ‘knew’ it was my Mr Wolf. Like two gunslingers, he, at the bottom of the aisle in the yoghurt section, and me, at the top end in the cream section, we stood stuck.

Gaining composure, my excitement grew like a fat boy’s seeing a sticky sausage. Dragging my tongue across the store, racing towards him, I caught the Wolf’s attention. ‘Mr Wolf, Mr Wolf’, I yoddled.  Stopping me dead like a harpooned whale, he responded, “It’s Jeffrey’, you’re looking for Elliot’.

I needn’t have seen my Mr Wolf in the 20 odd years I’ve left school, but his impact on me and the memories I harbor are branded onto my cerebellum, never to be erased.  I recall him as though it was just yesterday that I sat in that science lab conjugating verbs.

His lankiness and his length, he towered physically, he towered emotionally. What a giant of a man.

My Theatre Story

Way back when, when my long grey socks touched my knees and my stiff grey shorts had a seam down the front, my straight-jacket like black Bata shoes were tougher than the skin on Willie Nelson's neck never softening to allow my feet to bend, and I bawled my eyes out every time my dad dropped me at the creaking gates of school, i was chosen, albeit as part of a desk top study, to be in the foreground of the primary school play.

During this period of my life my hobbies included gardening, alone; playing mechano, alone; baking crumpets, alone, and gaming 'single player' tv games, ofcourse, alone.

With a gaping hole where my 2 front teeth used to park, and long helmet-like shaggy-rug hair akin to David Bowie in Starman, I was no 'looker', and to add injury to insult, I had the confidence of a deflated whoopee cushion, but for some strange reason, there i was row 1 column A on the teacher's Excel spreadsheet. 

Rehearsal took place in the school hall, on stage, beneath a giant spot light. 

We were geared in blue jeans and red tee's, and our hair was greased up in hair gel stiffening it like a debutant rodeo rider. 

I was part of the scene where about eight of us did a dance to Bananarama's, 'I'm your Venus'.  In this scene, we'd have a comb in our sock and we'd brush our hair like Elvis. We'd be the glistening stars of the show. But for the life of me I couldn't co-ordinate the actions with the lyrics.

Seeing as i was co-ordinated as Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot, i was gently slowly replaced moved towards the blurry edges of the background into deep dark deserted theatre anonymity. My star receded, dissolving like a dunked disprin, eventually becoming an inanimate extra in a scene from an Italian restaurant, never to step foot on a stage ever, ever again, ever. 

206 and Dave Matthews 28.06.2021

 The first time i ever saw a credit card being used for an alternative purpose other than paying for Woollies veggies was one late Tuesday eve while sucking hard on a Black Label brown-bottled beer. I was settled in the more relaxed room where sat a pool table and billows of smoke bubbled around bobbing heads. The background beats being spun by the disc jockey were sweet, slow and seamless. I scoured the room to find a seat, pulled the stool, sat down and let the bar lean on me. With my hands clutching the ale, I watched all that played out before me. There, sat a bit away, was a long-haired kid. With his chequered Vans, ripped Diesel jeans and parachute material track top, he fit right in like cream stains at a strip joint. As a mad scientist, he meticulously, cut up a heavy heap of powdery blow into short sharp lines readying it to be sniffed deep into his cerebellum.

206 was a bar club perched on the snaking Louis Botha avenue in Johannesburg in the mid to late 90’s. Louis Botha was no desirous place to hang out yet it harboured this contrarian locale far away from the polished hoods of BMW’s, ice cold Absolute and 3 tiered collars.

206 spawned a counter culture giving air and space to alternative sounds, hipster attire and a left-of-centre crowd seeking paths, thoughts and substances less beaten. 

Garth, his handle bar ‘stouche bent just right for ding dong donuts on a two stroke, his plaid shirts fitted right for lumber jacking in south Dakota and his gravelly voice suited to scaring the bejesus out of under-age drinkers, sat bouncer, opened the front door to usher me in. I waded through the densely packed bar clustered in tables and chairs set haphazard like lily pads in Paris. A band plays, and her howling sends me scuttling through the rabbits warren of rooms and themes eventually spitting me out into the open air courtyard where a sweet scent lingered like a zeppelin in the air as the corduroy-clad crew puffed the magic dragon. Set in the corner, a haphazard hole in the wall, sat the bar. And there at the bar sat Dave Matthews.

In ‘95 or so, my older brother introduced me to music. From that year, I’d spend hours listening to cd’s he’d suggested, hours working tables in an Italian restaurant to buy cd’s he’d suggested, and hours scouring CD Warehouse for new cd’s he would suggest and then one fine day he came to my room spinning a cd on his index finger like Michael Jordan would a leathery basket ball. Leaning on the door post, he said, ‘Listen to this, boet.’ It was his copy of the Dave Matthews Band’s debut album, ‘Under the Table and Dreaming’.

I went over to the pc, double clicked on Solitaire, de-pressed the eject button, dropped the disc on the opened tray, pushed gently to close the tray like a tech beast would, and then hit play on Microsoft’s media player. As I flipped the first card, a 3 of spades, popped the black ear buds into my ear, I became inebriated.

The following Tuesday, I threw on my newly acquired surplus army pants and a general’s jacket, grooved my hair to the side, grabbed the well worn Under the Table and Dreaming album, a fat koki pen and revved that Mazda hard till I arrived at 206. This, all in the hope that i’d bump Dave.

Greeting Garth, he rubber stamped me and I bee-lined it for the outside courtyard. 

Ploughing through the dense sticky smoke like Indiana, slashing my hands, pushing aside the detritus, there was a clearing, and there in the clearing sat Dave. I stood still.

Naive as Tusser’s cheese, I approached him, I greeted him. 

Bumbling, he was liquidated but I didn’t care. ‘Please, Dave, sign my album’.

Clutching at my cd cover, he grabbed hold of the fat tip and scrawled, ‘Dan’. Then he drew a peace symbol, and continued with ‘Dave Matthews’.

As a fat kid licking an ice cream sundae with a dipped flake I reclaimed the album, tucked it deep into my jacket pocket and haven’t let it out of my sight since. 

Big City Dreamin'-28.08.2019

It’s August and the city sweats, poring from the street’s manholes. The sun’s rays cut swathes down the deep corridors of Manhatten. The trees burst with green foliage. Shorts are tight and skirts are high. The soft hand-cropped grass tickles the feet of picnickers and Frisbee tossers on the rolling greens of Central Park.  The ice cubes of an iced coffee clang against the plastic cup, rustling, jingling our thoughts to dipping our toes in the city’s lakes. The cooling clouds swirled above, bashing into one another like go carts releasing rapid relieving rains.

Dry cover comes from the tropical Trader Joe’s, a supermarket brimful with busty buxom oranges beaming sunshine and happiness, tomatoes red ripe and chocolate bars stacked like Lego. The staff adorned in the colours of Hawaii operate like sunflowers tracking the sun as patrons paddle their hands. The background music the mix tape of my life turns our lips to beam apple wedges. With a packed paper bag, we rise up the escalator to be cast back onto Amsterdam Avenue.

Flicking lights, and bleating cabs, they stop and start, collect and deliver. A card swipe and a hailed uber. The driver pulls in, and pulls out shuttling cardboard cutouts. 

The cyclists and their leather shoulder bags slung tightly across chests. They’re coming and going, they’re zipping by, cutting swathes through parks, peddling single speeds flicking the ringer as a walker steps the curb.  

As the time struck 1900. We descend the stairs, the rushing sound of a tinny train heaves bellows of heated air gushing past us, sending skirts to bellow and hair to flail. We swipe our metro card, flik past the turnstiles and await our time on the platform, toes curled over the edge, anticipating. 

Airpods in and the Rolling Stones roll, soft cover novels thumbed and bent, ready for the metro ride back here and back there. It’s a game of pong. The underground snakes and shuttles, burrowing its way beneath the earth. Activity happens above and activity happens below. This night, above ground and many storeys up, it was at Madison Square Gardens. We got out. 

Out of the top pocket of my plaid shirt sat two tickets. Rising storeys high at the mercurial MSG, we sat in the nose bleeds for a desirous date with the effervescent Billy Joel. He and his ebony and his Ivory. From the records sitting on the platter in Johannesburg, to the live sounds in Manhatten. What a journey. 

The neon lights glow, beating the dark away. The wet sidewalk casts a glare of what’s going on anyway. The side walk cafe sees emptied pints and limp fags. The pool of vomit is a story of a debauched night past. The reflection in the rear view mirror flips past like an ipod shuffle. Memories. 

Dropping the dented coin into the slot, the lights bleat activity.

Pulling back on the spring loaded handle, the weighted metallic goon rolls back passively waiting to be propelled lifewards. 

Creak creak. The spring is squeezed. The spring is coiled.The hand is released. 

The spring unfurls, rapidly flinging the mirrored sphere into the playing field. Game on New York City.