I was close to forgetting about him. I wondered if he was still alive, and if he was happy. I wondered what he would make of me, seeing that I had changed considerably. Would he squint at the vulgarity of my story?

I received a message from that silence between the stars. It took me along a path, reminding me of how I’d always been blind to the patterns. The artist in me must have sculpted him as my perfect beau, because despite his impish mistakes and empty promises, I felt shattered when he skipped. Then I saw him everywhere. I sought for depth and clarity, a flame that flickers in the darkness.

On the 21st of June 2001, radio stations speculated about an eclipse that would befall Africa. Citizens were worried that the president would support the war in the East. My war had already begun with the corporal punishment I’d received for drawing a portrait of my teacher’s face.

At the bottom of my childhood diary entry, I recognise a woman’s handwriting:
Resolution – Meeting with Child Welfare, Adjourn the Disaster Committee with Child Protection Unit, March 1993.

Breaking news, about a bomb that went off in a car, was reverberating in my house at the time. Citizens reported having heard a big bang, followed by a tremor; then lightening.

After the news, I received a call from the trade, asking me to enrol for a pageant. I could not afford a full length and a half head-and-shoulders photo of myself. A single picture would have cost me R7. That’s enough money for half a loaf of bread.

I’d sometimes stand on my desk by the window in my apartment and look at the world beneath me, thinking of all the discourses that could best describe my hunger. I’m not strong enough for it, but I have to bear it because it won’t go anywhere without me pushing it out of my face.

For instance, those three whites on the roof there, talking risky business, as one black loosens the knots off a billboard, his feet dangling in the air. If he falls, only his fellow blacks would bear the trauma of seeing him go. I wonder how many of those three whites were pupils. Mxm. Not having food for months does this to a human being. I was supposed to get my money on the 1st of September. It is November now.

I met a teacher once, about a year ago, who said he had been a ‘skipper’ in his day. ‘Skipper’ was a term used in the apartheid days for rebel blacks who skipped the townships. Some of them were caught and tortured while others sat on a train to “almost there”.

The teacher sat with me in his library, his curtains drawn down. By his stack of bibles was a newspaper cutting, about the day he got away. His shaggy hair almost giving his features an Albert Einstein demeanour, especially when he’d smoke his pipe.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Morgan,” I replied.

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