The man inhales smoke from his Benson & Hedges cigarette. Just as a conversation between the cashier in the Jumbo liquor store and a man buying his morning’s supply of Black Label reaches crescendo. At the exact moment a taxi driver uses a green robot as a spontaneous offload point. And a silver Toyota Corolla swerves into the adjacent lane, missing the taxi and a woman with a baby on her back by a millisecond—still enough time to blast the hooter and floek out the window. The robot turns red. The taxi pulls off. Chasing the taillights of the fokken Corolla. Another drag. The man breathes in deeply and, this time, puffs out sand. He’s made of the land. Anywhere else, he’s slightly off kilter. Like he’s there but also not. An apparition. His eyes are drawn to an immense cumulonimbus passing by. He tracks it across the sky… until the great cloud looks like it will swallow up the pink elephant mascot glued to the roof. This is Africa, after all. A quick shrug and the man looks away, leaving Jumbo to accept his fate. He flicks his addiction onto the pavement, squashing the remaining embers out with his takkie. And walks away.
Author & Storyteller: Andrea Zanin
Andrea is a writer, wife, mother and dreamer; also the author of this website. She moved to London in 2006 to earn £s, travel, see bands and buy 24-up Dr Martens—which she did, and then ended up staying. Andrea lives in North London with her husband (also a Saffa) and five children. She loves this grand old city but misses her home and wishes her children could say “lekker” (like a South African) and knew what a “khoki” is.
