I was born in September, 1994. I can manage to stretch my imagination as far as 1993. Not able to conjure any particular events, for I was a mere infant. But my pen can go on a voyage, stretch its long arms beyond to 1992, to that distinct event when the regime of apartheid was ousted.

As I was walking up and down in the streets of Huiwelkruin, a white suburb area in Despatch, a black man approached me, drenched in glycerine and oozing blood on his charcoal face. A drunken stupor, so I thought. Why was he so exhausted, and what’s the symbolism of the two slug holes on the bottom of his tekkies?

“Hayi mntakwethu, siwubhidile umhlola, siy’fumen inkululeko, Viva Mandela viva! (My dear friend, we finally attained this freedom, Viva Mandela viva!)”

A pedestrian passing through would always rectify this outcry, “Amandla! Ngawethu!”

There were kisses exchanged between these two parties. I could’ve understood the theory of men kissing women or men kissing a little boy. But this was outrageous: two grown men caressing each other into extremes. This was beyond their might, for euphoria had taken its toll.

I just stood there, somehow, waiting on him to explain the story to me, the whole story of how he managed to get those two slug holes, the dehydration, and the wetness. There was a growing pressure to halt his bloodshed. I demanded the whole story, at least from him, about the growing spectacle. Subsequently, after that embracement episode, he then continued conversing with me, or rather, informing me of a spectacle.

“Hayi maan mtakwethu, I was shot at by that arrogant son of a bitch, uVele,” he said.

There was a pause as he began to take me back in history.

“I considered myself lucky when he received that call. That phone call was an escape provided by the gods. Maybe it was from his office superiors, I thought, reminding him of the released Rholihlahla Mandela, and the subsequent negotiations that are now taking place. After that call, Vele sighed in despair, a rather arrogant one.

“Gellukige bliksem! Ons is oppad superintended,” Vele said. (Lucky Bastard, We’re on our way)

“These words could still be heard miles away from the crime scene, roaring and penetrating through the slug holes, echoing from a nonchalant world. I have a daunting remembrance of Vele, or Vel’zabube, that’s the name he was given among the black folks in Despatch, which means, ‘the feared one’.

Tell us: What do you think of Vele?