HEAD LAND. A true story - kind of

It was late one Friday night when my girlfriend of two months, Adrienne King,
called me up as I sat brooding over a Green Lantern comic, rubbing my brow in irritation at
the latest outfit-change they had foisted on poor Hal Jordan. I was seventeen, Ady nineteen – but then, I (usually) felt mature enough to handle the difference.
"Lyle! Having a good time? Listen, there's something I want to ask you."
I pushed away from the bed so I could hear Ady, Skid Row wharbling on the tape deck behind me.
"What’s up, Ady? going to try for the beach tomorrow…Umdloti?"
"Well…" she said, "I have another idea. You know I'm heading home for the varsity vac, for a week? So I'm going tomorrow, and...I know we haven’t been going out for long, but I want you to come. They're all keen to meet you down there." Swaying slightly, I considered. Home for Adrienne was a clutch of ramshackle houses on a river mouth somewhere south of Port St Johns, on South Africa’s ‘Wild Coast’. My only memories of that part of the country were banana trees swaying in the breeze above rich brown earth…I think my folks had taken me down there once. Ady’s "They" was the extended clan of family, friends and backpackers who headed for Kora Mouth every holiday, from all over the country, and some from the States.
"Yeah," I said, "but aren't there stacks of car-jackings down there? Crime? I read in a YOU magazine that-" She laughed. "Lyall, I've lived down there half my life, and I'm not missing this trip!
Anyway, who says it's safer in Durbs? Someone was stabbed at varsity res just last week."
I lit up a B & H and turned up the fan, eyeing the door. Safe. My parents were still deafening themselves with Phantom of the Opera on the far side of the house.



I had doubts about the ‘Wild Coast’. You heard such horror stories. Certainly in YOU magazine.
And now, in these times, everything was so unpredictable. Most whiteys I knew were holed up in their duplexes clutching passports and family contact numbers in Sydney and London. Everyone talked of leaving.
But then...imagine, me and Ady. In paradise. and if I didn't go, maybe she'd always see me as some kind of coward. This was a girl who had parachuted, climbed mountains, fixed her own car engine. What had I ever done? Read comics and listened to Radio 5. I needed to live a little. Ady’s place was only five hours away, not in the depths of the jungle. I shook off the symptoms of my National Anxiety Syndrome and took the plunge.
"OK, fine. Maths studies can wait! “At 4pm", she said, "from 'Maritzburg."

The next day found us clutching a variety of bags, fishing rods, dive gear and water bottles on the tarmac, next to a low hanger at Oribi Airport. In front of the hanger squatted a small plane that seemed to be made of tape, rust and glue. I eyed it dubiously. A tall man came round the side with a shock of orange hair and retro aviator shades.
I registered the electric cord holding up his shorts, as he proffered a
hand.

"Travis King, Ady's dad and your pilot. This is my plane, Jinx.
You must be Lynton." Ady laughed, throwing her arms around him.
"Lyall, Dad! Lynt was a year ago." That's nice, I thought. Great start.
Soon, we were jouncing along the runway and fluttering up into the hazy sky.
My stomach kept heaving and I had to wipe the sweat off my palms, while Ady
fell into a doze. She was like some sort of cat, able to sleep anywhere.
I tried to keep my mind off the creaking noises coming from the left wing.

" Mr King, will we fly right down to Kora Mouth today?" I yelled. He squinted out at the tumbling hills of cloud around us. "Nope. First we land at Umtata. Then you drive down to the coast!"
We wouldn't land until well past dusk. Then, drive down to the coast. At night? Probably about 100km of tar
and an hour’s worth of rutted dirt, in APLA territory. Quite possibly my girlfriend's father was a lunatic.
In any case, by 6pm we were transferring all our stuff into a rusty, low-slung '81 BMW, at a rambling house
outside Umtata. Sporadic gunfire echoed out from across the dam, and Travis laughed.
"Those guys knocked out two of my windows just last week!"
Wherever else we were going, I didn't want to spend another moment
here. Soon we were on the dark Port St Johns road, Ady's hand on my leg and the water-skis jabbing at my headrest. The BMW felt more like a giant, meandering ship with a dodgy rudder, than an actual car. I peered out into the dark. After three cigarettes, two deep potholes, and near collisions with
ambling cattle and goats, we reached a turn-off into the night.
We veered into a sludgy puddle on the first bend.
It had rained recently and parts of the road lay under water, while the rest was rocky and
hard-packed. Banana trees crowded the sides, and every now and then things blundered through the undergrowth.
Once, a green and black snake actually dropped from a tree branch onto the bonnet, before slithering off in a tangle. This was all a bad idea, I thought. But Ady's hand on my leg gave me a sense of false bravado.
It was kind of fun. A bit of adventure for the wimpy dork who had always dreamed of being Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway would have laughed at danger!
Then the headlights died.

"Damn, this always happens", said Ady, as she rooted under the dash. "But, it's fine." She came up holding a dive torch triumphantly. "If we go slowly, this will get us the last 20km".
So we inched along like a giant, blind beetle - it's either that or die in the bush, my hysterical mind shouted.
After an hour of cursing at the stubborn car, I shot it up a long steep hill, out of the greenery and onto a grassy knoll. The dust settled. The car sank gratefully onto its springs.
And then all I could hear was the crashing surf. We fell out of the car, dragging assorted debris with us, and I nearly caught my breath. Across the horizon stretched dark water, lit down the middle
by a pendulous yellow moon. We were high above the sea, waves smacking the jagged rocks somewhere far below.
I turned on my heel to take in the garland of lights dotted over the next rise.
Those would be the cottages, sandwiched on a spit of land that jutted out between the sea and the wide dark spread of a river mouth. We just stood there for a while, Ady humming to herself.
"Wow, it’s so awesome Ady. And you have lights. Electricity!” I suddenly felt more confident.
This was not, after all, the isolated asshole of the world.
“Ja, lover boy” said Ady, turning to me. "Had lights for a year now. We're starting to get things sorted out.
Uncle Bruce even has a helipad on his roof. He made millions in the beef industry. Flies down every holiday.
Let's go. We leave the cars here, and carry all the stuff down. Road's hectic."
I was astonished by the landscape that glowed in the moonlight around us, and by the small citadel that watched over it. Did she say a helipad? It felt like we were perched on some wind-buffeted eyrie, around
which all the waters of the world broke. We were six hours and yet a million miles away from Durban.
As we walked down the hill lugging scuba gear, water bottles and what have you,
silhouetted figures yelled out in greeting from the porches of surrounding cottages. People streamed up the hill to help unload the car. There were dogs and children running about, the smell of smoke, and everywhere the sound of crashing waves. Soon I was face down on a giant musty pink bed, the sounds of the sea
mingling with shouts and music, until I slept, deeply.
Sunday. I prayed I wasn't about to break my neck, as I clung to the ski rope stretching out ahead of me.
It was high tide on the Kora River. Adrienne's sister, Jo, gunned the speedboat’s Yamahas and shouted back
"Three, two, one-GO". The line snapped taught in my hands.
I jerked out of the water and shot forward between muddy banks. Somehow I kept my feet, as we flashed up the river. What a rush! Somehow I had got my feet on top of the water. I was doing something I had never done before.

"Hey", I yelled, "this is not too"- the thought went unsaid as I ploughed into the river, legs pinwheeling.
I felt my back creaking and the air went out of me. I came up gasping, to see the silvery belly of some fishy beast
rolling in the water off to my left. Shark?? I thought wildly, as the boat swung around to fetch me.
Soon I was hauled onto the deck, the King sisters cackling.
Clearly my face had a very worried look on it. "Yeah, there's sharks, bru", shouted Jo. "Mostly sandies, but a couple Zambo's too! That one was just a baby. They haven’t eaten anyone since 1986.”
I failed to feel comforted but nevertheless, I would ski again. I was determined to show Ady I could ‘hack it’ out here.

The days just flowed. We hiked for miles up and down the coast.
At night, we drank ourselves silly in a shebeen on the hill, listening to the head man tell us old stories about creatures said to prowl the mangrove swamps, or recount how hapless victims of the local chief’s wrath,
back in the 19th century, had been thrown alive from the top of nearby Executioner’s Rock.
We helped the locals rebuild a clinic that had blown down and whiled away the days and nights without ever looking at a clock. Travis King came hurtling in one morning, driving a battered Alpha all the way to his front door.
Ady took photos. I sketched. We basked in the peace of it all.
The world was happening in an alternate reality.

One morning we took the speedboat across the river, ran it up a sandbar, and found a secluded cove to tan in.
Me, Ady, her sister. As I lay in the shade reading a dog-eared Stephen King, I suddenly
remembered the fat wad of tobacco in my rucksack, secured from a Norwegian weirdo traveler at the jetties the night before.
He had literally melted out of the mangroves and thrust this thing
on me, refusing payment, and then buggered off again, trailing whisky
fumes. I didn't even know what the stuff was. Could have been banana leaves.
I had been too hammered to argue. The whole episode seemed like a dream now, but what he had given me was real. I grinned as I brought out the stuff. A big green wad of leaves rolled in a reddish paper.
It felt dense. Hell...we were on holiday. Life felt bloody great. When in Rome...

"Come on..." . I arched my eyebrows in a devilish manner I knew she thought was 'cute'. I could see Jo was keen. She was always up for anything, no concept of 'sensible' whatsoever. This was something new, and we were on holiday dammit. Ady giggled. The battle was won.
A couple of hours or an eternity later, me and Adrienne were swinging from a mangrove branch, feet dangling in the shallows, and yelling hysterically about giant squid and where they might still exist. Clouds had begun to glower down over the valley, but inside our heads, the sun shone brightly. Through the happy fuzz of my awareness, two things happened. Firstly, I dimly saw a white crescent bobbing in the breakers out
beyond the river mouth. Secondly, a figure came leaping and falling over the brow of the dunes, down towards the river, like some wild jungle creature. It was Jo. "The boat! The boat! It's out to sea. Anchor came loose!"

We barreled up over the sand and raced towards the sea. The waves looked furious, and wind whipped spray off the
rapidly departing, very expensive boat. We had to swim. If "Gen" sank because of us, it would be unforgivable. We had got too lax. Too damn comfortable. With my dopey mind on Ady’s green bikini I had forgotten everything else. Stupid. Stupid! The two girls were good swimmers, but I just flailed madly at the water lungs heaving. My pulse was off the chart. We reached the overturned hull and immediately began retching on the petrol spreading out from the twin Yamahas.


"Turn it!" yelled Jo, "before it swamps!"
We heaved down on the boat, and all we got for it was palms scraped raw on the asbestos siding. Blood began to flow down my arms. Not good. This water was teeming with sharks. The current battered us, and I worried we'd grow too tired to do anything but cling to the boat.
Through the spray I saw people running down from the cottages, yelling.
Jo's head banged sharply against the pitching boat, and within seconds, our new battle became one to just keep
her afloat. My eyes were raw and stinging from the dope, the salt and the petrol. Frightened, I threw my arm out and seized on what I thought was one of the emergency oars. As another wave rammed us side-on, my arm came up out of the water, and I just had time to hear Ady yell "Don't, the trigger guard's off!", before a bolt shot out of the spear gun I had seized on. It whispered over Jo's lolling head and ricocheted off the boat. What a fool! I thought.
Then I heard a steady thud-thud-thud as "Uncle Bruce’s chopper loomed over us. A lifebelt smacked up water next to me, two more hitting nearby, and as I choked on a mouth full of petrol, I felt myself hauled from behind.
People had swum out to us. I saw Jo being dragged away from the boat. My head was leaden, my arms were cramping up. The last thing I saw before blackness hit was the boat dipping gently down into the grey sea.

I came around on the beach, my face full of wet sand. As people swarmed around us with towels and blankets,
I turned back, retching seawater, to look at the marching rows of grey swells, and out beyond
them, more and more. No boat.
A few hours later, Jo lay sleeping in Doc Jackson's cottage.
A vet by trade, he seemed quite capable of putting five stitches in her head. Ady and me sat looking out of the windows of her Dad's place, as sheets of rain came drifting off the sea. Conversation was minimal.
Combination of a dope hangover and the misery of realising we had just thrown R90 000's
worth of boat away. I had a feeling that when we got back to civilisation, things would be different.
I was right - It's been about five years now since I last spoke to Ady.



Travis King's entry into the room was accompanied, almost comically, by rolling thunder.
"You kids are going back to Umtata. In the chopper. Once this rain sets in, you can get stuck down here for weeks. So get packed. Ady, I'll talk to you later. Jo's staying for now." He tramped out, clearly not the sunny pilot who had flown us down. As water tumbled from the sky, we hastily packed our scattered things, and ran up to the cottage on top of the hill, where the chopper was already beginning to rumble.
We lifted off in a spray of water, the nose dipping as we headed out over the delta, towards Umtata.
Ady looked over at me and smiled, but I felt that my time in the sun was probably over. It was time for me to go back to school in any case. To my room. To my comics. Too much reality, all this.
I looked back once, to see the river unwinding towards the sea, and the cottage lights winking through the grey.

some poems about animals

1.

Tortoises are slow.
Especially in snow.

If they are claustrophobic,
every day is stressful.

2.

The sloth takes hours
to make a cup of tea.

Then it is cold
and not worth drinking.

3.

Imagine if you were a bird that was afraid of heights.

4.

A whale, being clever,
has an idea for a lever...
but a lack of digits and thumbs
makes it glum.

5.

Hark to the sound of the howler monkey.
Evicted weekly on account of noise,
his neighbours are constantly
throwing their toys.

6.

There once was a dodo
and then there wasn't.
They were not quite as cunning as for instance the fox.

7.

A lion's tongue can lick the the gloves off your hand.
So if you have one for a pet,
keep it at arm's length,
though playful it may be.

8.

This oyster is bored and would like to move,
maybe see a bit of the world.
Unfortunately, he is stuck to this bit of the world.

9.

Ethanay the fish was interested in hang gliding.
So she invented a dry suit to go on land.

The patent was stolen by an evil salamand.

10.

If you have a tiger under your bed,
it's best to be careful where you tread.

Some people might say it's best kept outdoors
but the thorns can be rough on a tiger's paws.

11.

Porcupines are nervous when on blind dates.
Maybe because of their prickly nature,
or just because they don't know what to say.

12.

Dung beetles don't have it easy.
Some call their living sleazy.

13.

The sole today feels somewhat flat,
for it is a dreary Sunday
and he has lost his hat.

14.

A butterfly fell in love with a bee.
But alas - his dancing ability was somewhat lacking.

THAT MONKEY BUSINESS

Don't know why i wrote this. i just love spider monkeys. And gibbons, but this is a story about a spider monkey:




One day in 1997, Akphat the spider monkey decided to escape from his pen at the New York Zoo and return to Thailand.

He curled up on the floor of his cage like a dead spider, and waited.

When the zookeepers eventually opened his cage and prodded him with sticks, he shouted "Hooooooo," clambered over their backs and ran for it.

He vaulted the zoo wall like a Swiss high jump champion, to the cheers of watching Foons, Aquatic Lemurs, Ricklebacks and Sneeps.


The monkey then set off through the streets of New York, looking for Thailand. By mistake, he ended up at Toyland, where he was promptly hired as a package repairer, due to his nimble fingers.

His job was to repair Japanese robot toy packages damaged by
over-curious children who always tried to get at the toys inside.

While employed at Toyland, Akphat read two business manuals, one on banana farming, and the other on classical composition.

Akphat thought for a bit, thoughtfully. Since nearly all his family were in the banana trade, he opted to pursue a career in classical music.
He resigned on the spot, bit the store manager's shoe, and walked out.

Akphat applied for a position as conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and got it.

He was a roaring success, due to being able to wave his arms like windmills and bend them in four places.

Journalists who interviewed him found him eccentric yet endearing. He would always gnaw on the hems of their trousers during interviews. His most famous recorded comment was "Hooooooooo!"

Then Akphat suddenly disappeared from the social scene,
missing a vital recital of the "Messiah" one night.

No one heard of Akphat for years after that, although he did write to the Foons back the zoo, who were keeping mum on the issue.

Recent rumours place him on the Cambodian border, involved with a group of Shaolin chameleon monk warriors .

His alleged appearance on the Letterman show last week, was, alas,
A clever internet hoax staged by digital pirates from Butan.

According to sources, his closest friends are now a Scottish hermit called Trimaran, the Most Devout Dervish of Moragia,
and a small stuffed bear called Dent, all of whom were (allegedly) seen with Akphat himself, attempting to hitch a ride through the Biaritz area, in France.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH: Movie review published Sunday Times, 2007

It’s the end of the world as we know it...as published in South Africa's Sunday Times, 2007.

Al Gore’s brave, uncompromising stand
on global warming:

An Inconvenient Truth

Stars: Al Gore
Director: Davis Guggenheim

Durban’s freak waves, monster storms in the American Midwest and recent earthquakes in Japan are indicative that all is not well with our planet. And a huge part of the problem, if you believe Al Gore, is rampant global warming. This is essentially a beefed-up edit of his personal slide presentation – a presentation he has pitched a zillion times worldwide.

Just so you know he’s not capitalizing on his past fame as vice president to make a quick buck.

Al Gore is serious about global warming, and after watching this, you’ll see why.

There is scientific evidence that as Carbon Dioxide emissions rise, so do global temperatures – and this leads to innumerable problems, from melting ice caps to gigantic hurricanes. The earth’s five hottest years have all occurred in the last century.
Polar bears are drowning, due to diminishing ice in the Arctic. Global warming is no longer pie in the sky; it’s a visible threat.

Al Gore is a self-depreciating, charismatic advocate for change, and what he has to say here comes across with the ring of truth. Clips from his presentation are complemented by footage of the kind of weather you really don’t want on your doorstep. It all makes you think why Al Gore isn’t the current American president – until you see that the U.S. is allegedly the world’s biggest emitter of CO2. Disturbing - but vital - viewing.

Special Features:
Music video, commentaries.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? A REAL DREAM I HAD ONCE...

I opened my eyes in the gloom.
A rocky seashore, swept by lashing wind and spray. Dark clouds pressing
down on the horizon. The sea, hard and angular with jagged ridges, the
colour of a dull knife. My side ached from where a boulder had been
pressing into it.

I winced and looked around me, to see three of my closest friends
picking themselves up in a similar bewildered fashion.
There was Steve, my oldest friend. Craig, a guy I had known at school
for some years, and Candice Brand, the first love of my life. The sex
pot.

"Where are we, Dunc?" said Steve, his voice all but lost against the
angry air.

"I don’t know," I said ? and truly, I didn’t. Didn’t know where the hell
I was, or why I was here with these three people. What the hell was
this? I had no memory of any previous moment. This was as real and as immediate as life got.
I was here, on some desolate shore, looking into the teeth of a storm. I felt the rain. Saw the flickering lightning away over the tableaux of
water. Felt my friends around me, just as scared and shocked by all of
this as I was.

"I’m hungry," said Candice plaintively. She looked like a three year
old in an abattoir, completely shattered. God, I hadn’t seen her for
years. Why was she here with me?

"Well, we can’t stay here!" I shouted. "We have to get to shelter. We’ll
die out here! Let’s just move along this shore until we find something,
or someone."





So, we did. We walked. We stumbled over shards of rock, and closed our eyes to slits against the wind that kept trying to pry them apart and hurl salt into them.

We didn’t stop. We didn’t freak out. How could we do anything except
walk blindly, on and on? We had no concept of where we were or what had happened before we woke up. We may as well have been baby crocodiles, crawling from the yolk, finding our way by pure instinct to the nearest water. For lack of anything better to do, we walked.

After what seemed like hours (it was hard to tell, my watch had smashed against a rock before I ever woke up) Craig wiped his eyes free of water and lurched up onto a small ridge. He pointed away up the shore, into the deepening gloom.
"There! There! A light."

The rest of us topped the ridge and followed him down into a small
inlet. Up on the other side of it, there was indeed a pale yellow glow,
blurry but there, without a doubt. It seemed to float above the shore.
God, at last, something to fix on.
Maybe there was someone who could help us, tell us where we were, when we were.
We ran as fast as we could, staggering almost comically on the
treacherous, slick stones of the beach, that threatened to hurl us to
the ground with cleanly snapped ankles. Soon we found ourselves out of the cursed wind, leaning up against a pale green lighthouse that towered up into the night, impervious to the elements.
It looked like it had been there a long time, and this was backed up by
various graffiti messages etched into the wall:


"Helderberg 1827. Awash on reef, cargo lost,
last known locale German South West"
and
"My name is Diana. If you pass this way, tell me where to find you.
Am going on."

With a deep shiver, I saw there were names and dates and pleas for help,
stretching right around the base of the tower, an uncountable number.
Where were these people now?

Some of the writings were fresh, others
lost under a coating of salt, some just bleeding down the wall like
rust.

"Hurry," said Candice. My three friends huddled behind me, pushing
towards a door, about five feet high, set in the wall.
"OK, OK, don’t push!"

I heaved at the door, and it creaked inwards. Not locked. Maybe someone was here. Inside, silence, but for a distant roar beyond the walls, and the drip of water somewhere high above. The four of us began to climb a long, winding stair, lit by faint flickering bulbs set into the steps, and covered my mesh wire. On the first landing, still no people, but a sign:

ONE WAY

Odd. But we went on. We had to find someone. Anyone.
I almost raced up the last two flights of stairs, driven on to the top,
the others clattering behind me.
Finally, a door with a ribbon of light under it. Not even thinking to
knock, I pushed the handle and fell into the room, wet. Shaky and out of breath.
The others came behind me. As they swept into the room a cold wind
seemed to come with them, and rush around the room, hurling papers off one of the two desks I saw shunted against the wall. Then it died down, and we were there, looking across the room at an old, grizzled guy with a newspaper clutched in one hand, and his coffee in the other. His mouth was an O of perfect surprise.

"Please…” I said, my voice almost a whisper, "we’re lost. We’re lost
out there.
Can you help us?"

The old timer, backed away against the wall, his face a mask of fright,
as if we were some crew of storm demons come down to torment him on a streak of lightning.
His hand was white were it clutched the coffee mug.
I moved towards him, my hand outstretched - clearly we were having
trouble communicating. "No!" he cried, "stay back. Get away!" He was by now almost one with the
wall. Around us, green lights blinked quietly on humming screens.
Outside, the storm hurled spray against the panes.

Somewhere above, a giant light hurled out rays into the swallowing dark. No one moved.
At last, very slowly, the old man moved to a chair on the far side of
the room and sat heavily.
"Why do they keep coming?" he said softly. "When can I go home to my family."

"Look", I told him. " We just want to know where we are. We’re utterly
lost. I don’t even know how we got to this place,"

"None of them do" said the man. "They come to me for answers.
Well, boy, here is the answer you seek. The sooner I tell you, the
sooner you might take your chill from this room and leave me be."

Angrily, he thrust his paper down flat in front of us, and smoothed out
the crumpled front page.
"There is your answer!" He stepped back, and we all crowded around to read the Globe newspaper, dated 16 June, 1993 (some six years back, by my addled reckoning).



RUNAWAY FIRE KILLS FOUR
Port St Johns, Transkei, South Africa.

A runaway fire enveloped a backpackers here early on Saturday morning.
According to the owner, dry weather in the area had led to many bush
fires and uncontrolled blazes in recent weeks. It is believed that a
group of young holidaymakers from Natal were trapped and burnt to death
in the blaze, which started when a bier of paraffin-soaked wood was
toppled during an argument between two of the travelers.
One eyewitness, who did not wish to be named, told this reporter that
"There was no chance. There’s only one door on that damn place, and the
fire spread from the front room.
There was so much smoke I couldn’t see. I managed to smash a louver
window at the back and jump out into the lane. I pulled two people after
me, and the Ozzies (sic) got out through a side window, but those other
four…I think they were drunk. They never made it."

The four dead are known to be
Candice Brand, 18
Steven Drake, 21
Craig Serkis, 22 and Duncan Fine, 22

Below the article, a black and white photograph. The four of us, taken
in Durban one new years. Smiling, and draped over each other with the abandon of youth.

With a dread shock, I realized what we were looking at. An obituary of
sorts.
Around me, the others were pale white. Almost ghostly. Candice gaped at me, a tear running down her cheek (or perhaps it was sea spray).

"You see", said the lighthouse keeper. " You cannot be here. You’re
dead. Dead!"

At the point, the room seemed to close about me in a red haze. I was
suddenly outside myself, looking at my own horrified face. As I
watched, an old-style curlicued border appeared around me, with a legend
stenciled on it:

THE END.


I watched my mouth open, and a scream issued
from it such as I have never heard, a long, anguished wailing against
the impossibility of what was happening. "Noooooo!!" I screamed,

- and was still screaming blue murder when I bolted upright in my bed at home,
drenched in sweat, as the scream hoarsely died away in my mouth.

This was in July of 1999, and I never, ever forgot that dream.
Nor will I ever. It’s etched in my brain.
Do I still have an appointment to keep on that distant
windswept beach one day?
Do you?

Pet Death Syndrome

P.D.S.
Pet Death Syndrome


My neighbours in Vredehoek, Cape Town, often ask why I don’t have any pets, considering I love animals so much. Usually I just fob them off with a vague comment like “I’m still looking into it” - but the real reason is more involved and rather tragic. Here’s why I can never allow myself to take responsibility for anything more animate than a Basil plant.

It all began with …rabbits. As small boys, my brother and I were crazy about our Little Hannibal and Hanna, along with their (fast) growing family of tiny black, white and tan jumpers, all skittish ears and sniffle noses. For a while, all was well with the rabbits. We raised the nippers to hunt bugs in the cabbage patch and held pantomimes where Hannibal would be a pirate and Hanna a lady of the night in a Parisian brothel.

Then, well…our Greytown farm had lots of puff adders. Murderous animals.

Several rabbit deaths later, and after numerous late-night tearful sessions with mum, we convinced her to let us try again - with something more resilient than rabbits.

Target, the Siamese fighter, devoured his way through Emma, Buttercup and seven other goldfish before turning belly up from exhaustion. The fish were followed by short-lived silkworms (we fed them poison ivy by mistake),
a luckless experiment with bantams (they kept wandering next door to befriend the Rottweiller) and an ant farm (destroyed by civil war).

Then came Hammy. The tubbiest, warmest little hamster in the entire world. He used to put his tiny paws up on the bars of his cage and watch Knight Rider
or Riptide with us. Of course, given the fatality rate of our pets thus far, my brother and I were hesitant to get too close to this new addition. Every evening, we cleaned his cage in a business-like manner and stoically ignored his plaintive, non-stop squeaks to be let out, oh please, just for a moment.

As the months passed, we began to reconsider. Day after day those little gimlet eyes would fix on us wetly. Little paws would clutch the bars; nose would quiver. Where’s the harm, we thought? He’ll be O.K. in the garden.
So one evening, after much hemming and hawing, we lifted our furry friend from his cage and strode out into the back yard, where shone a glittering roof of stars and a moon so big you could lick it. I carefully nudged the wee fellow onto the lawn, and he nearly swooned at the sheer immensity of the outside world. Perhaps he remembered the free air in some dim primordial corner of his brain.

Let free, he scampered to and fro, hither and thither, and my brother and I kept close watch, over bottles of Fanta. I could feel the tension in my jaw, but doggone it, he deserved this. He had outlasted all of our previous pets by almost a year.

After an hour of happy contemplation, I said to my brother,
“Well, perhaps we should all call it a night just now?”
We looked over at Hammy, whose eyes shone with a small, wordless kind of love. He finally knew what lay beyond the bars. He scratched his ear and sniffled happily.

Then a great grey owl swooped down like a silent stealth bomber, snatched Hammy with incisor-like talons and bucked up and away into the inky dark, wings denting the air. Predator and prey vanished. The night held its breath, and then a single gray feather drifted to the lawn, like the mark of an assassin.

“Well” said my brother, “that’s it, really, isn’t it?
We’d better go and tell mother.”

Years on, and my brother has since moved to Dubai; we struggle to speak to each other normally. I never quite got over Hammy’s passing. It was the straw that broke everything. My life is more solitary than perhaps it might have been, in another, kinder universe. But thanks to my friends and my angel worker at the P.D.S. meetings (you guys know who you are!), perhaps one day I might.

THE BOY WHO WISHED




1.


Bentley Stamp was the angriest, frowniest child in the town of
Lower Kneebottle.
He shouted at puppies.
He threw his suppers on the floor.
He always did just what his parents told him not to do.
He broke all of his toys.
He scribbled all over his schoolbooks.
He had no friends. What’s more, he didn’t want any.
Every weekend, he would simply sit on his bed and scowl at the wall all day long, being in a bad temper.
Nothing was ever good enough for Bentley. Not even the name of his town.

One Sunday morning, Bentley woke up and frowned, as usual.
At the end of his bed was standing an irritating little green man,
about the size of a loaf of bread up on end.



2.

Bentley shouted at the green man, "Who are you?" and jumped up and
down in his stupid pyjamas, which he hated.

"I’m the Wish Woogle,” said the green man calmly.

"I’ve been sent by my superiors to make you happy, since we have heard that
you are always such an angry storm cloud.
In fact, it is my task to grant you three very special wishes.
You may wish anything you like, and I will make your wishes comes true."

"Three wishes aren’t enough!!" shouted the boy. "I want more wishes!"

"Nevertheless", said the Wish Woogle, "you have three wishes.
Each will come true, just as you wish them.
So, young man, you ought to choose your wishes, and your words, wisely.
What will be your first wish, for today?"

Bentley Stamp thought, and thought some more. He frowned.
What was the thing he most wished
for, in all the nasty world…


3.

And suddenly…Bentley was invisible.

Ignoring the watchful Woogle, he stamped downstairs, after leaving a badly – spelled note for his parents: GARN TO BULLY SIMON AT HIZ HOUS > : - with a cross face next to it.
Now he knew that his mum and dad wouldn’t miss him. He wouldn’t miss them,
that was for sure. Who needs parents, thought Bentley, as he marched out of the front door, invisibly; nothing but bother, parents.
For the whole day, Bentley crept around in secret, yelling ‘Boo!’
right behind elderly people, while they were sipping their tea.
He stole sweets from Mr Corcoran’s Aulde Cake Shoppe and threw them
at the postman, who thought bees were attacking him,
and hurtled up the street at quite a lick.
Bentley barked at cats while they were sleeping in the sun.
Whatever he could do with his invisibility that was mischievous or mean,
is just what Bentley did.



4.

Later, Bentley looked around and saw that he didn’t know quite where
he was. He had been so preoccupied all day that he had wandered far from home. What rotten luck, he thought, as he stomped around on someone’s carefully tended lawn and kicked over the sign saying, "Do not walk on grass".

He was getting crosser by the minute, because he kept tripping over things with his invisible feet.
"Whippets!" he yelled. He was pretty red in the face
(although no one could see that).
Then his anger faded a little - and he began to feel afraid.
It was already 5 ‘o clock, and he had no idea where he was.

Bentley marched up to the nearest person he found, and said
"You there! Where is 39 Scarry Road? And be quick about it!"

The old flower seller he had suddenly spoken to ran off up the street -
what with hearing voices out of the air and all.
So did the next ten people Bentley shouted at. No one would help him,
Simply because no one could see him.




5.

In the end, he found himself sitting alone and invisible on a park bench, while the sun began to sink over the rooftops.
He was very relieved when, at long last, the Wish Woogle suddenly reappeared in front of him.

He tried to pretend not to be glad to see the little green man.
The Woogle mustn’t think Bentley needed him around! He tried to put on his most angry face, as he followed the Woogle out of the park, across town, and back to his house, where he arrived just in time for supper. And yes, of course the Woogle had by then undone the invisibility wish!

6.

The next morning found Bentley once again staring suspiciously at the
little green Woogle, who was sitting at the end of his bed, puffing on a long, thin pipe and paging through a book of some sort. He looked as if he had been there for a long time.
"So", said the Woogle with a slow grin. "Yesterday was just an introduction to my Wish powers. You’ve two wishes left. What might your second
wish be, young human?"

"Er…" said Bentley, not at all sure he should say anything, after the previous day’s experience. In the end, though, his greed grew bigger than his doubt.
So what did he ask for next? Can you hazard a guess?


7.

"Today”, said Bentley, “I demand…a tiger to ride to school on!"

"Very well" said the Woogle, “this you shall have. Do not fear, this tiger will do no harm to you, Bentley.” With that, he disappeared in a puff of green smoke.
At the same time, Bentley was startled by a very low growl coming from his toy cupboard; a growl that rattled the windows in their frames.
Then the door swung open, and into his room loped fifteen feet of stripy tiger.

The tiger sat down next to Bentley’s bed and waited, its eyes gleaming like emeralds in firelight. Meanwhile, Bentley’s eyes were as round as saucers. His very own tiger.
Wait until the bullies at school saw this. They’d never laugh at Bentley again. He ate his breakfast, brushed his teeth and jumped
into his school kit, all in a flash. He was going to school on a tiger!

8.

It took Bentley some time to climb up onto the patient tiger.
Then he prodded it with his foot and it set off down the stairs, out of the house and down the street.

Each of its steps was as long as four of Bentley’s normal strides.
Naturally the tiger caused quite a stir in the town of Lower Kneebottle that morning, where creatures were generally the size of hedgehogs.
The tiger growled at two chickens in the Browns’ garden, causing them to fly
right across town. That’s right, they flew. It rubbed its back
against Mr Jameson’s little red postal van, causing the car to topple over onto its side (Mr Jameson was already two miles away by that time, and still running).

It stopped at the bakery and gobbled up five fresh loaves of
bread in two mouthfuls.
By the time they arrived at the school, Bentley had lost his fear of the tiger, and was hooting with laughter at all the trouble it had caused.


9.

"Stay here!" said Bentley to the tiger, when they got to the front of
his school. "I have to go to assembly now and you can’t come, because you’re too big." The tiger lay down and yawned a yawn the size of a dinner plate.
Bentley walked proudly through the school doors, while five hundred school
Children, utterly astonished, stared out of the windows, eyes wide.

Soon, Bentley was seated in the school hall, along with his class. All the
children were fidgeting and whispering, because they knew that there was a
huge tiger loafing around somewhere outside. The teachers, unfortunately,
knew nothing of the tiger just yet, and simply told everyone to hush up.
.

Bentley felt very smug, because all the children were eyeing him with
awe, rather than throwing sticky bits of paper at him, like they usually did.
Even Petunia Winscott, the most beautiful girl at Kneebottle Comprehensive,
was looking at Bentley as if she finally realized that he existed.


10.

However, what Bentley didn’t realise was that the school’s mascot,
a beautiful blue, yellow and red Amazon macaw, very rare, had just managed to open its cage and was fluttering all about the school, enjoying its newfound freedom.

The much beloved parrot had been a part of school
life for ten years. Its name was McDuck, and all the children loved McDuck for the way he’d shout “Fire! Fire!” whenever teachers walked by his cage. McDuck wasn’t afraid of anything - even tigers.

Once boring old assembly wrapped up,
the schoolchildren bundled out of the school hall to
go and spy on Bentley’s giant tiger. The teachers, unaware, went off for their morning tea before first class.
Proud Bentley marched ahead of all the children, quite happy with all the attention.


11.

Petunia Winscott was walking at his side, which made Bentley puff up like a parrot. …Did I say parrot?
Where was the newly freed McDuck just then, anyway? Can you guess?

When Bentley got to where he had left the tiger; where it was supposed to be – it wasn’t. He and the other schoolchildren gaped at the spot and looked around fearfully. Some climbed up nearby trees or ran back to their classrooms. A tiger was one thing. A hidden, disobedient tiger was quite another.
Then the children heard a loud voice exclaim from nearby.
"Tiger, tiger, burning bright. Fire!"

With dismay, Bentley saw a blue feather drifting around the corner,
to settle on the ground near the children.

He rushed around the corner, to see exactly what he had feared.
12.

There sat the tiger, purring as it licked its paws lazily.

"What have you done!" shouted Bentley, as loud as a lion
(but not a tiger). "You’ve eaten the school mascot, haven’t you,
you naughty tiger” To the childrens’ astonishment, he walked up to the big cat and punched it on the shoulder. It looked at him.

The schoolchildren looked at the tiger.
They looked at Bentley…then back at the tiger. Then, as their eyes settled once more on Bentley…they began to get angry. Very angry.

Soon, Bentley was clutching once more to his tiger’s ears, as the big
cat hurtled pell-mell out of the school gates and away up the hill, five
hundred angry children hurling sticky buns and marbles after it, and all
the horrified teachers running after the schoolchildren.

When they had finally seen the tiger, they had all dropped their teacups on the floor in horror. After the tiger and the children and the teachers was running a little black dog, just for fun.

13.

After hurtling away across to the other side of town, Bentley leaped down from the tiger’s back and began to shoo it away into a nearby grove of trees, which took some time. The tiger was reluctant to move, and pushing a 15-foot long tiger by its rump is harder than you might think. But he did it. Then Bentley shouted after it: "And stay away!" then stomped off towards home (having to ask directions along the way). He was tired, and about as cross as a volcano on the verge of erupting. Just wait until he saw that troublesome Wish Woogle again…

The next morning found Bentley crouched behind his bedroom door with a
big potato sack in his hands. As soon as the Woogle popped into fresh air at the end of his bed, as he knew it would, he pounced on it with a yell and shouted, "Got you!" Soon, he had the Woogle neatly tied up in the brown sack and felt very pleased indeed. Now he’d show who was who, as far as being the boss went.


14.

"Right", said the boy. "No more trickery. I have a third wish, and you
had better make sure that it works out exactly as I want it to. Right?
Or it’s the stew pot for you."
“Quite so” said the Woogle, tapping Bentley on the back of his knee.
He yelped and whirled around, to find the green man munching on a small purple fruit of some kind. He most definitely seemed to not be in the sack any more. “And what, pray tell, will your third wish be?” inquired the green-hued creature.

Bentley was extremely cross, and shouted, “I just want everybody in this dratted world to go away, forever. Everybody! And that includes green trolls who appear in puffs of smoke.”

"Do you mean for today", said the Woogle, “…or forever? There is a difference. Consider carefully, Bentley.”
“Forever and ever and ever!” shouted the boy. “I don’t need anyone!”

15.

“Well. If that is truly what you wish – and I fear it’s too late to go back on your wish, since you have now spoken the words…farewell.”

Suddenly, Bentley was alone. Very alone. He walked slowly downstairs,
to find no Mrs Stamp in the kitchen, baking scones.
No Mr Stamp, grumbling at the newspaper headlines.
In fact, as Bentley saw when he ran out the front door, nobody at all.

Bentley was the only person in the whole world. For a moment he wondered where the Wish Woogle might have put one billion people, but he pushed the thought out of his mind and strolled into town.


He stole toys. He ate chocolate cake from the bakery until he felt like
bursting. He made himself mayor of the town, then president of the
world. He splashed about in the town fountain, which had a sign saying
"Please stay out of the fountain.”

16.

Bentley was so preoccupied all day that it took him a while to notice the silence all around him, or the long shadows as evening once more approached.
It seemed that the Woogle had not only made all the people vanish, but also dogs, cats, hedgehogs, pigeons…every living thing. Bentley was the entire population of the world’s living creatures. This frightened him, just a little.
He stamped around in circles for a bit, and decided what to do.
Confound that rotten sun! Why couldn’t it just stay up?
It had been a marvelous day, and Bentley was glad to be president of the
whole world, only …it wasn’t much good if there was nobody to boss about, was it?


"Woogle!" shouted Bentley. "I’ve had enough fun, now.
"You may return."

All that returned was the echo of his voice, bouncing off silent, shadowy buildings. Other than that, all Bentley could hear was the tick of the clock above the town hall.
No Wish Woogle appeared. For the first time: no Woogle.

17.

Bentley gulped. This might be a problem. He started walking back in the general direction of home. He wasn’t quite sure where he was going, but there was nobody to ask for directions. He clomped and stamped through the empty darkening streets, growing a little more worried with every step.

Then he heard a familiar sound that made his hair stand on end: a low, thundering growl, from somewhere among the quiet buildings.
Oh dear, he thought; the tiger. The one he had shouted at and been mean too, the day before.
If only he had been nicer to it, for it seemed now be the other half of the entire world’s population. It might be hungry too; since Bentley had wished away anything a tiger would like to eat (you can guess the sort of things) just that morning. Also, it was no longer under the power of Bentley’s wish. His second wish had ended. The tiger didn’t have to listen to Bentley now, at all. Oh dear, thought Bentley; why hadn’ t that dratted Woogle made the tiger disappear, along with himself!


18.

Bentley began to run, now a very frightened boy. As he ran around the corner of his street, however, he bounced off something that felt like a solid wall, yet…fluffy.
He dusted himself off., coughed and looked up…and up…and up.

Eyes glowing like emeralds in firelight. Stripes rippling in gold and charcoal.
The tiger from Bentley’s second wish looked down at him, as he cowered in its shadow. A street light above the tiger caught the edges of its fur, so that it looked almost to be aflame.
Slowly, very slowly, Bentley began to scoot slowly backwards, on his bottom. He knew the tiger could easily catch him if it wanted to.
He inched back, bit by bit, and then, in a flash, turned and ran.
The tiger was quicker.

The boy found himself dangling from one great paw, as the tiger held
him up quizzically in front of its face. Bentley could feel hot tiger breath on his cheeks.

19.

"Welll…", it growled, "Arrren’t you jussst the dinner for a hungry
tiger who wasss left abandoned in the woodsss?"

"You can talk?" said Bentley, astonished, and then –
"Ohpleasedon’teatme (gasp) IpromiseI’llbegoodfromnowon and (gasp)
IreallythinkI’dtasteawfulwouldn’tyouratherhaveacream (gasp) bun?



"Enough!", boomed the big cat, plunking Bentley onto the ground.
" You’lll be lucky if I don’t eat you in the next five minutes.
Nowww, let’s look at the situation. You have used up alll your wishes,
and you have wished away the Woogle too, the one person whooo can help you, along with everybody else in the world. You are in a real fix.
Thisss is quite a problem for you to…digesst, isn’t it?”

Bentley’s eyes began to water as he realized the position he now found himself in. “W-why are you still here, then?” he asked.
“Think of me,” said the tiger, “as one last chance for foolish boys.
I still haven’t decided whether to gobble you up, or help you, though. Hmmmmm…I wonder…”

20.

“Please”, said Bentley. “Please. I’ll do anything!” The tiger looked down at him, eyes now glimmering in the light of the moon.
“Bentley, if I do help you, there will be one condition."

“Fine!” said Bentley. “Er, what’s a condition?”

“It is a promise you are expected to honour,
if I agree to bring back my trusty servant, the Woogle.
And it isss thisss: You will try to be nicer from now on.
You will learn a simple lessson in life, which is that life returns to you what you give to life. If you arrre kind, life will treat you kindly and bring you good thingsss. If you are mean, then life will forever be just as horrid.
Do you ssseee?”
Bentley sort of did, but only just.
“AND” thundered the tiger “the minute you start to stamp and shout again, everrryone will disappear once more, and you will be left alone, invisible and surrounded by a world populated only by hungry tigersss.
And so shall you stay…unless they eat you.”



21,

Bentley thought and thought, and walked around (gently) in circles, until the stars were shining high over the town. The tiger just sat and licked its paws, watching him. Then it yawned a yawn loud enough to gobble up a small car.

So Bentley quickly said, in a very small voice, "Alright. I
agree. I promise to try and be a nicer boy from now on."
“Bravo” said the tiger.

Then the great cat opened his jaws and roared and roared, loud enough to be heard on the moon, had there been anybody at all up there.
Bentley lay down flat on the ground with his hands over his head, as the tiger’s voice boomed over silent towns and valleys. The noise seemed to last forever.


22.

Suddenly, the Woogle popped into the air in front of them, and fell
with a thud onto the ground. He picked himself up and bowed to the tiger a long, low bow.
“My liege” he said. The tiger nodded down at the Woogle. Just then, a bundle of feathers, blue and red, flew down and landed on the tiger’s shoulder.
“Hullo, McDuck” grinned the big cat. “Have a nice day?”

“Have a nice day, have a nice day!” agreed the parrot happily. Once again, Bentley was astonished. The tiger had never eaten the parrot at all!
The Woogle, meanwhile, eyed young Bentley for a time, looking him up and down, scratched its head and then said "So, you have had enough of wishes, have you? You’d like everything back the way it was, would you?"

"Yes please, sir", said tired, hungry, not--cross-at-all Bentley.

"And no more putting me in nasty sacks, eh?"

"Oh! Yes. I mean, no” stammered Bentley.

"Well then, so shall it be. Just remember your promise, boy."

“Tiger, tiger burning bright” trilled the parrot. “Fire! Fire!”

23.

The Woogle nodded at Bentley and leaped up onto the tiger’s back, as nimble as a mountain goat. Then the tiger smiled down at Bentley, and for the first time looked rather more cuddly than fearsome. “Goodbye, Bentley. You may go home, now.” With that, the tiger turned and padded away into the shadows, stopping briefly at Bentley’s school to return a somewhat overexcited McDuck to his cage outside headmaster’s office.
After that, the tiger and the Woogle went away, back to where they had come from, chatting as they walked.

Bentley, meanwhile, was overjoyed to hear the sounds of daily life once more, all around him.
Dishes clattered, motorcars hooted,
dogs barked and television sets hummed.
"Phew!" he said, very relieved to be back in the normal world. He began walking home.


24.

When he opened the door, he ran up to his mother and hugged her, somewhat to her surprise. “Hi mum!” he said.
Then he went through to the sitting room and hugged his grumbling
Father, who was buried nose deep in the evening edition. “Hullo, dad.”
Then he climbed upstairs to his room, to get ready for supper.

"I wonder what’s wrong with him?", said Mrs Stamp to Mr Stamp. "He’s seldom such a little gem. Maybe he’s coming down with something."
"Hmmpf?" said Mr Stamp, from somewhere deep in the recesses of
his paper.



Whether he succeeded in being the nicer person he had promised the tiger he’d be, is not within our power to know.
The Woogle knows, of course, and the tiger does, too.

Wherever they are, you can be sure they’re still keeping one eye on Bentley Stamp, and more recently, the other eye on a somewhat troublesome girl called Belinda Screech, in the seaside town of Badger’s Haunt.


The end of the tail.