Friday, December 01, 2006
His Family
They were neatly edging towards being labelled "hazardous:do not approach, you will grow three extra toes (and a testicle if you're a girl) on contact".
Friday, September 08, 2006
He knew his morning was shot...
... when the new sign for the smoking room read, "Cancer Loves Company".
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
domestic scenes... (1)
"Mommy, mommy, the ceiling is sweating."
And indeed it was.
Drops of moisture had globulised on the cheap paint. Jelly bubble-wrap, quivering gravid, threatening to drop its load as soon as we called bed-time.
"Marky! Where's that bloody landlady's number? It's been three weeks since she promised to do something about the damp in here. We're not goldfish."
And indeed it was.
Drops of moisture had globulised on the cheap paint. Jelly bubble-wrap, quivering gravid, threatening to drop its load as soon as we called bed-time.
"Marky! Where's that bloody landlady's number? It's been three weeks since she promised to do something about the damp in here. We're not goldfish."
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
She said ...
- He used to tell me the same thing - that we'd be perfect together. I told him just because I liked Metal Gear Solid doesn't mean we should procreate.
- 'Love' and variations thereof should be classified as disorders. The key thing is to never be needy. If ppl can't see that you're fucking fantastic, then best you treat yourself with more respect and tell 'em to fuck off. Likewise with him, if he doesn't catch a wake-up soon, I'm leaving him to sleep through the best thing that never happened to him.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Friday, March 03, 2006
Friday, February 24, 2006
bullet control
suck your thumb in ambient red. the universe ends at a point just before a crimson curtain fall.
time will soon betray and all this will be no closer than the time you missed the falling star by eyelashes. but for now, seconds sliding into their peers, is the lull, the ebb and flow of a living, giving heat. this is all you know. for now.
till one who once knew what you knew, since forgotten, takes metal to time-slapped palm, and a single shard of hurt to heart.
and while you suck your thumb in ambient red, the world forgets to take its lithium.
and an ob/gyn with a six-chambered heart and whose bedsidemanner is reassuring steel, performs your unscheduled ceasarian.
time will soon betray and all this will be no closer than the time you missed the falling star by eyelashes. but for now, seconds sliding into their peers, is the lull, the ebb and flow of a living, giving heat. this is all you know. for now.
till one who once knew what you knew, since forgotten, takes metal to time-slapped palm, and a single shard of hurt to heart.
and while you suck your thumb in ambient red, the world forgets to take its lithium.
and an ob/gyn with a six-chambered heart and whose bedsidemanner is reassuring steel, performs your unscheduled ceasarian.
Monday, February 20, 2006
the beginning of an end
“They will kill you for this love,” she cried in the anguish of a woman about to miscarry. “You will die! And for this woman…this whore,” her words spat a cold venom.
I shut my eyes and muted her torture. With the room heavy and the air so stale and oppressive, to breathe was to asphyxiate. “Peace mama, I will not ask for your blessing, only for your tolerance and understanding”. Unhearing, she melted in her desperate pool of grief.
As I walked towards the door, I passed the colourful framed aayah that hung on the wall. They were the signs of what my mother believed I had forsaken. “In the name of Allah, the most compassionate, the most merciful”. I still believed He would be.
I shut my eyes and muted her torture. With the room heavy and the air so stale and oppressive, to breathe was to asphyxiate. “Peace mama, I will not ask for your blessing, only for your tolerance and understanding”. Unhearing, she melted in her desperate pool of grief.
As I walked towards the door, I passed the colourful framed aayah that hung on the wall. They were the signs of what my mother believed I had forsaken. “In the name of Allah, the most compassionate, the most merciful”. I still believed He would be.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
buddy talk
I've been your friend since you puked up on me in grade school, I can tell you this. You buddy, make roadkill look attractive.
-Sheesh, I know i'm not the best looking guy around...
Well, thank God you don't harbour any of those delusions.
-But she only wants to marry me because of the money.
A woman's gotta love you for something. Be grateful.
-Sheesh, I know i'm not the best looking guy around...
Well, thank God you don't harbour any of those delusions.
-But she only wants to marry me because of the money.
A woman's gotta love you for something. Be grateful.
Bradley gets her name wrong at breakfast.
Maybe it was the way her thumb slid evenly over the business edge of the butterknife, or the manner in which her mouth smirked up manically at the left towards the mole on her cheek. Either way, Bradley knew, that in five short seconds, his cajones would join his appendix in a doggy bag.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Monday, January 23, 2006
Alfred at No 30, Streetview Terrace.
There was another crazy person at the door.
This one had a pink plastic garden flamingo in a sleeper embrace under his right arm, while he authoritively left-palmed a faux-cheetahfur bound filofax. Looking very much like a sunday morning tv-evangelist with a god-struck devotee and a well-thumped bible, Alfred thought, squinting cautiously through the peekhole.
Yesterday's one was an attractive brunette wearing electric-blue Manolohs.
She held the doorbell button down for exactly one full minute, paused for a minute, pressed for a minute. Pause, press, pause, press, pause, press. Alfred confirmed the timing with the stopwatch on his mobile phone. She kept very good time, Alfred thought, she didn't have a watch on, nor did it look like she was counting the seconds. Alfred found this quality quite the turn-on. He always liked women with good timing, they were usually excellent dancers. She continued her finger two-step for fifteen minutes.
He was just about to open the door to invite her in for a cup of something-whatever-she-liked, when she reached into her coat pocket and stuck a green post-it on the buzzer. And with that, she walked down the long passage, her tapered heels tapping the tune of New York, New York.
And with a mach three heart, Alfred had leaned against the door wistfully, feeling like he'd loved and lost.
Back to today's nutjob.
The man with the pink flamingo and kitschy filofax, did in fact, look quite reasonable. No manic person could pull off the aura of self-confidence with such surety.
But the filofax gave him away.
Which compos mentis these days hauled that antiquated organisational tool around, Alfred wondered. Every normal person he knew used Blackberrys.
The man ignored the press-here-for-attention sign and went for the door knocker instead. The one-two-two-two-three thudding caused Alfred to flinch. His eye was flush against the peekhole and the stern vibrations channeled an unpleasant current through his eyesocket.
The crazy man didn't linger when it was obvious Alfred wasn't planning on letting him in. It took four more of his power knocks to come to that realisation.
With an air of why-do-i-waste-my-fucking-time-with-these-lesser-mortals, the crazy man opened his filofax and removed a pink post-it note. He stuck this to the grateful knocker and went on his way.
Alfred slid down the door, and sat leaning against it, staring at the portmanteau his great-aunt Margolia brought back from her travels in Liverpool.
That made 15 blank post-it notes in total. Four of them personally delivered by the crazy people (the other two hand deliveries were made by twins dressed as Batman and Robin), five stuck on his fetish magazines in the postbox, another five left flapping against the tyres of his car and one emailed to him as a jpeg attachment.
What could it all mean, thought Alfred.
Just what, could it, all mean.
This one had a pink plastic garden flamingo in a sleeper embrace under his right arm, while he authoritively left-palmed a faux-cheetahfur bound filofax. Looking very much like a sunday morning tv-evangelist with a god-struck devotee and a well-thumped bible, Alfred thought, squinting cautiously through the peekhole.
Yesterday's one was an attractive brunette wearing electric-blue Manolohs.
She held the doorbell button down for exactly one full minute, paused for a minute, pressed for a minute. Pause, press, pause, press, pause, press. Alfred confirmed the timing with the stopwatch on his mobile phone. She kept very good time, Alfred thought, she didn't have a watch on, nor did it look like she was counting the seconds. Alfred found this quality quite the turn-on. He always liked women with good timing, they were usually excellent dancers. She continued her finger two-step for fifteen minutes.
He was just about to open the door to invite her in for a cup of something-whatever-she-liked, when she reached into her coat pocket and stuck a green post-it on the buzzer. And with that, she walked down the long passage, her tapered heels tapping the tune of New York, New York.
And with a mach three heart, Alfred had leaned against the door wistfully, feeling like he'd loved and lost.
Back to today's nutjob.
The man with the pink flamingo and kitschy filofax, did in fact, look quite reasonable. No manic person could pull off the aura of self-confidence with such surety.
But the filofax gave him away.
Which compos mentis these days hauled that antiquated organisational tool around, Alfred wondered. Every normal person he knew used Blackberrys.
The man ignored the press-here-for-attention sign and went for the door knocker instead. The one-two-two-two-three thudding caused Alfred to flinch. His eye was flush against the peekhole and the stern vibrations channeled an unpleasant current through his eyesocket.
The crazy man didn't linger when it was obvious Alfred wasn't planning on letting him in. It took four more of his power knocks to come to that realisation.
With an air of why-do-i-waste-my-fucking-time-with-these-lesser-mortals, the crazy man opened his filofax and removed a pink post-it note. He stuck this to the grateful knocker and went on his way.
Alfred slid down the door, and sat leaning against it, staring at the portmanteau his great-aunt Margolia brought back from her travels in Liverpool.
That made 15 blank post-it notes in total. Four of them personally delivered by the crazy people (the other two hand deliveries were made by twins dressed as Batman and Robin), five stuck on his fetish magazines in the postbox, another five left flapping against the tyres of his car and one emailed to him as a jpeg attachment.
What could it all mean, thought Alfred.
Just what, could it, all mean.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Jim at the licensing department
Jim van de Vuuren wears a really bad toupee. Probably the worst artificial hairpiece to have ever been manufactured. Jim appears ignorant of this. Jim is a loud man, direct, maybe even rude.
Jim tends to gesticulate extravagantly, palms often flung out as if to indicate how weighty the world is upon him.
Jim believes himself to be an important man, if it weren't for him, the drivers' licensing department would crumble into insignificant iotas.
Even though Jim's sphere of influence extends no more beyond that of the mandatory eye-testing, yes, Randfontein would be sorrier without his dedication.
He has an eye for the ladies, yes, Jim does. He likes the young, nervous ones, first-timers, floundering with their applications. He likes to think himself a good man then, almost benevolent, when he overlooks their failure to make out some of the checkered boxes while they peer into the eye-testing machine. While they sit, eyes manacled to the black plastic, Jim stands close, sometimes stroking their hair during the test. He likes the feel of feminine silkiness and the residual softness of shampoo.
Jim tends to gesticulate extravagantly, palms often flung out as if to indicate how weighty the world is upon him.
Jim believes himself to be an important man, if it weren't for him, the drivers' licensing department would crumble into insignificant iotas.
Even though Jim's sphere of influence extends no more beyond that of the mandatory eye-testing, yes, Randfontein would be sorrier without his dedication.
He has an eye for the ladies, yes, Jim does. He likes the young, nervous ones, first-timers, floundering with their applications. He likes to think himself a good man then, almost benevolent, when he overlooks their failure to make out some of the checkered boxes while they peer into the eye-testing machine. While they sit, eyes manacled to the black plastic, Jim stands close, sometimes stroking their hair during the test. He likes the feel of feminine silkiness and the residual softness of shampoo.
Friday, January 13, 2006
good intentions
Oblivious to the greater social ramification, Ling and Charles Curr, named their newborn 'Wan'.
Ironic Johnny Ho
Johnny Ho is nine years old and gets paid $2 a day processing white rubber "make poverty history" wristbands in a Beijing sweatshop.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
acknowledgements
For English teachers the world over, especially Mrs Thompson who lit the match in 1991 and Ms Parry who fanned it 9 years later.
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