A brown dog walks along the sun path, red tongue to the ground, panting. In the brightness of the sun, he sits, on the veranda; in the half light, the veranda, a space that frames
the house, wraps the wall bricks in a half wall that is no longer white, marks
of time deflect the paintwork. He is motionless, no sound but a sibilant hiss,
he does not need to lucubrate, ancient laws rule the detail of his gestures, he
blinks his eyes, eyelid bends, moves his feet, one ankle crosses over the
other, first the right foot over the left foot, then the left foot over the
right foot, mechanical rules govern his actions, they are known actions, they
do not need intention, he is free from intentions when he crosses first the
right foot over the left foot, then the left foot over the right foot, he perfunctorily
crosses one ankle over the other; free from any purpose that may emerge from
outside of him for there is no-one outside of him, they are inside, inside the
house, hard, for time has made an unbreakable mark. Soon time will no longer be
the master, events will occur, however insignificant they may be, a
discrepancy, confusion, a warp. He is a statue made of shining opalescent imitation
marble, he is hollow, his blood is dry, he sinks into the sunken couch, the
right foot moves, the skin of his right ankle brushes the skin of his left, he
crosses his feet again, he is more comfortable, he follows the text, reciting
phrases that must be fulfilled. The cushions on the couch are pink, in places
where the sun has not faded them they are red, arterial, a new colour scheme,
pink and red decorate the couch as they decorate the hard flesh, the blood has
dried now, a lipstick necklace on pink almost purple skin. A movement, he sits
upright, then he turns towards the wall that is on the west side of the house
and looks at the mirror that hangs there, silken silver striations reflect from
his retina, he stretches his optic muscles, taut, he can see the mirror and in
it a reflection of a ghastly clown, it cavorts on the wall behind him, black
and grey, a ghostly swarm of clowns prance before him, a sophistry, a shadow conceals
many things, or nothing at all. He stands up, movement, his movement now is more
than it has been for seventy two hours and forty one minutes, three days; the
one day separated from the next by twenty four hours, a day, any day for there
is always time in a day. He laughs, another movement, his mouth gapes open, his
reflection is decomposed, saliva trickles down his chin, he reaches out his
arms to catch the clown, the image reflects off his retina, a ghostly image,
inchoate, a nebula in the half shadow of the veranda light. He grows senescent as
the hours pass, seventy two hours and forty one minutes have gone by, three
days, the one separated from the next by twenty four hours, he is waiting and
he will wait for forty eight hours more. Behind him, about half a metre to the left
of the couch, the couch that is pink and red, an ill combination, sick, is a wooden
door, it is half open, sometimes it moves, wheezes open, close, open, close,
open. It is the wind, not he or any other human action moves the door for the
wind is blowing hard, I am not in a good mood, I have never met anyone so
stupid in my life. He reaches to the floor, another movement in the seventy two
hours and forty one minutes, he takes a cigarette from a cardboard box, he puts
his hand into the right hand pocket of his short blue trousers and takes out a
box of matches, there is a scratching sound as he pulls the wooden stick over
the grey piece of tar, then there is a fire light, an incandescent flame, the smoke
curls around his head, he holds the white pencil shaped cigarette in his right
hand, between the middle and the index finger, it shortens as he raises it to
his mouth and sucks in the smoke, it becomes shorter and shorter, shortening. In
the smoke a word is written, two words, three words, archaistic, desuetude,
unsanctified, necrosis, a noun, a verb, the smoke does not distinguish between
these grammatical formalities, it merely makes the words and then they
dissipate, are decapitated, deliquesce into the air, into the sky that is blue,
the sky that has been blue for more than seventy two hours and forty one
minutes, before this time, for a mere twelve hours there was no sun, not a dome
of orange in a blanket of blue, a sky covered by smoke and clouds, before this
time the sky was not blue it was grey. The winter is coming, the wind that
blows is cold, it wraps itself around him, the wind is cold, a real winter sky
day, but he is unconcerned about the cold winter wind, he is wrapped in a smoke
blanket that is thick, detached from the couch on which he sits. He looks into
the mirror again, it shows a word, now the clowns have slackened, limp, the bodies
were limp, now they are firm, two spirits dance a tango in the mirror, a red
rose held between red lips. He counts the minutes, he looks at his watch, it
stopped at four o’clock, I do not know why it stops, maybe it will start again,
it sometimes does, randomly, but he looks at it nonetheless, four o’clock. He marks
out the time, space time; he watches time go by in the space where he sits.
Time, like the clock on his wrist that has stopped, four o’clock, sees all, it
finds things out, it finds things out against his will, it finds out what is
behind the door that is now half open, somewhere between closed and open, soon
the winter wind will blow it open, or closed again, but now it is half open,
and time will tell, destroy what is behind the door, hard, then soft, then rotten.
I have lived in this house my whole life, the years that I have lived, twenty
five years in the same building, behind the same walls that are almost white,
half white, I know where the light switch is, where the dining room table is,
where the chair that my father sits on to rest is, where my mother cooks the
lunch time meals. Seventy two hours and forty one minutes before now he got up
from the dining room table that in the night is lighted by one long candle, flickering,
the long table behind the chair on which his father sits, reclines, rests,
sleeps. He walks to the light switch that is next to the door that will, should
he open it, open onto the veranda. It is dark outside; there is only a slit moon,
a new moon and the stars are not bright tonight, the winter is coming, cold now,
because he has switched off the light it is dark in the room, only the one candle
on the table flickers. The kitchen leads off the room that is part dining room
part sitting room, the door is the same colour as the off white walls, so it is
not distinguishable from the walls if it is closed, but he knows where it is as
he has lived in this house for his whole life, twenty five years. He goes into
the kitchen and takes a knife from one of the dresser drawers, he goes back
into the room where his father sits on the chair and rests, or sleeps, or
merely thinks the same things that he thought about a few minutes in the past,
a few hours, a few days. He walks behind the chair and puts the knife to his father’s
neck, he cuts a deep wide cut, his father does not struggle, he is asleep, then
he moves out of the room and walks down the passage towards the bedroom, the
bedroom in which he was conceived, was a shadow, is a shadow as his black figure
hugs the wall, his mother lies on the bed, on her back, a faint sound emerges
from her open mouth, her hair is matted and torn, he puts the knife to her neck
and makes a mark, a long bloody mark. I like the irrevocability of this event. Phenomenon
takes their course; it is merely a matter of reading the text, following the
day before and the day before that. The brown dog walks past him and through
the door that is now no longer half open, it is fully open. It walks up to the
chair on which his father lies, sleeping, a red line decorates his neck and red
colours his shirt. The dog licks a hand that rests on the arm of the chair, it
lies down and moans. The land on which the house is built has been made into a nursery,
not a nursery in which children are taken care of, a nursery where plants are
taken care, there is a sign on the main road that reads NURSERY, the sign is on
the right hand side of the road, or the left hand side, depending upon which
way a car is travelling, it is a small sign, a piece of clapboard, faded, two
words cover it NURSERY/NURSERY. Repetition, it is always necessary to repeat
words, a repeated word does not lose its meaning instantly, it loses it only
after the second word has been thought. He repeats the movement of raising his
hand, his fingers to his lips, the smoke words lose their meaning as they curl
upwards in the winter air, up to the blue sky that seems neither able to
conceal or reveal. The sign that reads NURSERY is barely visible now, it is not
visible to him for it is behind the green tree at the end of the road that
leads to the house, it has faded, words, like the smoke, are ephemeral,
mutable, time is capricious, it finds the elements that it will mark, mark space,
make a mark on clapboard for clapboard is not durable, it has no will to live,
longer, no inveterate stability, the line that severs a neck into two parts,
two halves, it too will disintegrate, fade, from bright red to pink, the
distempered pink of the unhealthy, a contagion, a mark that marks it, the words
that make the colour are not pure, they are grey, as he is grey, grey in the
half light of the veranda. But even in time past when the words were black and
the sign was white, not many people would travel up the long winding road to
the nursery, maybe two or three a week, a select few that knew about the
flowers that grew in the garden, thorny plants, succulents, aloes, the thorny
leaves make a stain, a yellow mark, on anything that is light, a lightener, a
mark on white skin, a mark on the handle of the knife. The upright flowers, red,
orange, yellow, elongate, reach to the blue sky in the cold wind for these
plants are a winter flower, they die in summer when others procreate, they
sustain birds in the cold. He smokes; he traces the words that the smoke forms,
sanguine, decollated, God is a Havana smoker, words of others, words are always
other, never owned, owned by no-one. He moves his head, he looks at his legs,
long legs in short pants, his legs are stippled, shaded, stained with the juice
of the plant, the juice of the living leaves, he turns his head to look at the
door that leads into the house, it is closed now. He waits for the sun to reach
down to him, to reach down to him again, for as the hours pass the sun moves,
it moves so that it will light up the half light of the veranda, cover him in
hot rays, particles of light, he waits for the sun to move and then it will be
night, the sound of a siren, a car. I cannot be alone for much longer, someone,
a person, a mechanical toy, will arrive, maybe before the sun has set, maybe
when it is dark and the sun is on the other side of the world, maybe after the
hands of the watch that does not move have reached the hour that is the same
hour as it has been, four o’clock, but the hands of the watch move now, a
random movement of five minutes, he will not be alone forever for forever is
another day, another night, another circle of the sun. For three days he
watches the smoke in the winter air, he moves only to stretch out his right
leg, or sometimes it is his left leg, to kick the brown dog that sleeps now
inside for it is cowered, he moves his arm and reaches for the white cigarettes
that lie on the floor at his feet, his eyes move only to watch the smoke make
the words evanescent, ephemeral, mutable, the blood mark, there’s a stake in
your fat black heart, and the villagers never liked you. Three days or seventy
two hours or four thousand three hundred and twenty minutes, different words,
the same time, words are secure, they frame the world as the veranda frames the
building, as the smoke frames his head and makes words, dividing time into
words makes the words longer, the time shorter, the other way around, an arbitrary
measurement, backwards or forwards, security in the cold air of the winter
season. Will it ever rain? He look at the watch that seldom moves the time, he
turns his head and looks at the door that is closed, behind the couch that he
sits on, above the door is a sign, a wall embroidered painting, children
dressed in purple and white stand demurely, still, a man called Jesus says God
shelters those who enter, below the picture is a table, a wooden table scared
with marks, a cut, a cut out cardboard piece of skin, the hands of Jesus point
sideways and downwards, four o’clock. Then after three days he rises, he walks down
the three stairs that lead from the veranda to a stone path, he follows the
path crossing the brown green garden, he enters a tin shed, a corrugated iron
building, it has no frame and it has no door, he picks up a can in his left
hand, a plastic can, the words POISON/ DANGER, he walks across the grass that
is brown green, it is winter and it will soon be more brown than green, now it
is brown green for it has not had time to fully dry out, change colour, he moves
from one plant to another, at each plant he stops and pours liquid from the can
onto the plant, it drips down the succulent leaves and onto the winter flower. He
kills the maggots that invade the plants, makes a war to survive these invaders
of the plants; there is nowhere else they can invade. He pours the poison, he
tips the poison onto the leaves, holds the bottle forward so that the liquid
trickles down into the crevice that lies between the leaf and stem, drops down,
settles, he move onto the next plant and the next, he closes the plastic
bottle, he wipes his hands on his short pants, his blue short pants that are
blue as the sky is blue. A peacock walks between him and the thorns, a peahen, monotonous,
grey follows the magnificent bird, it makes a harsh sound, resurrect me, Mary
resurrect me, Mary, he raises his head and look up to the sky, the open blue
sky, nothing except blue, nothing behind it. He looks at the sky, he looks for
rain, a cloud but there is no cloud, nothing to cover him or the bird that
makes the harsh sound, resurrects me Mary. A purple crested Lourie flies, the sound
of purple wings, purple feathers, it beat its wings against the walls of the
cage, the steel grey wire walls, it stretches its wings, it flies from one side
to the other, time moves rapidly when a bird flies, he watches the bird fly, it
flies from strand of wire to strand of wire. An African grey parrot blinks
behind the same grey wire, red blood beneath its silent tail, no movement, it cracks
a nut and says goodbye, goodbye to anyone that walks past and he walks past,
past to poison the plants, goodbye to the equatorial jungle, it mimics a clown
who is about to die. The brown green grass hisses against his legs as he walks,
naked calves. He walks back to the house, he touches the yellow wooden table that
is to the right of the half open door, for the wind has blown it half open now,
no longer closed, half open, he caresses the table with both his hands, he feels
the scars on his fingers, the cut tree planed tree smoothed tree, the yellow
wood table, he puts a finger on a hole. He puts his finger through the hole on
the table and the sharp point of the needle that his mother used for
embroidering material pricks his finger, it bleeds, God welcomes those who
enter this house. The brown dog walks from the house, it paws the cement in
front of him, a cat jumps onto the table, its pink tongue licks a paw, then one
paw at a time it climbs onto the yellow wood, entering a scar, its claws in the
wood, a smooth finish with sleek fur. He watches the cat walk across the table
and make a sound, a growl, his father had cursed this cat, shot at it once, picked
up a gun, opened it, checked the bullets in the breach, lifted it, pointed it
at the cat, the dark black head did not move only its pink tongue pressed a
plate licking grease, stained fat from a plate, the bullet hit the table, the
sound before, time delayed, a sound of breaking wood before, after, splinters,
scars, one minute, the cats head spit open. Be careful, the table may scar, sand
paper to smooth the splintered wood, dead eyes watching. He puts a finger into
the hole in the table; a dead cat leans against him and rubs his arm, aroused. I
have no time, I am waiting, waiting for them to come, waiting of the sound of a
car on the gravel, the sound of a voice asking the price of an aloe, a
shattered voice that looks inside the house as he shows the dead, all it takes
is time, it is the same time for anyone, between yesterday and tomorrow there
is no place for the present, it is today, time ticks, the watch on his arm has
stopped, arbitrarily it stops, sometimes at seven or at eight, or four o’clock.
He walks onto the veranda and sits on the red and pink couch, faded, the brown
dog lies a his feet, its muzzle is painted red, he leans down to the floor and takes
a cigarette from the packet, the last cigarette, a picture of a black and white
girl on the blue box dares him to look again, find all the parts of the picture,
a thin line of ants marches towards the door as if to go inside, the dress of
his mother is bunched up above her waist. He strikes a match and lights the
cigarette, he feels the smoke in his lungs and watches the words that the smoke
makes in the bright blue air, eyes of glass, blue, brown green grass. He draws
the smoke into his lungs, goodbye the African grey parrot says, goodbye,
goodbye, he turns to the brown dog, goodbye.