The Future: Sometime in late 2013
NEWSFLASH
The Dweebo virus started out infecting computers across South Africa. Now it has spread worldwide. Simple yet deadly, the Dweebo virus is spreading from laptops to Blackberries, from government networks to military hard drives.
IT specialists are trying, desperately, to deactivate it.
“We know only one thing for sure,” a computer scientist from Harvard University, USA, explains, “This Dweebo virus originated in South Africa, we suspect in a small north-western town called Disaneng. It was started by a computer hacker.”
***
The Present: January 2013
Disaneng is where Dwight Diteko lives. And Dwight has only one thing on his mind: Glenda! Glorious, glamorous, gorgeous Glenda Motubudi.
Glenda lives across the street from Dwight’s small, ugly flat. She has a lovely cottage with a thatched roof and a garden full of flowers. Sometimes she stands outside in her garden and the sunlight shimmers on her soft lips. Or on the glittery tops she wears. Or along the gentle curves of her hips.
Dwight can only stare through his dirty window that has no curtains. Stare with deepest longing. Sometimes he stands at the window for hours, just hoping for a glimpse of Glenda across the road.
“Glenda! Glenda!” he whispers her name, there in his cramped flat. “How much I love you! You are the only woman for me. I would give anything in the world to be your man. We would be the perfect couple.”
But Glenda has many men. Lots and lots. Dwight watches as they pull up in front of her cottage. In their BMWs and Audis and Mercs. In their upmarket SUVs. Old men. Rich men. They arrive at all hours of the day and night.
Glenda greets them at her front door, dressed in a soft, blue silk gown. Or in tight black lace. Or in a shimmering red nightie with satin ribbons. Jealousy stabs through Dwight’s heart like a knife.
The men disappear into the cottage for a long time. All night, sometimes.
“What do you want with these men, my love?” he whispers in the darkness of his flat. “They are just using you. They don’t love you the way I do.”
Dwight sits on his broken sofa, typing on his laptop. Long romantic letters, beautiful love poems. All for Glenda. But he is too shy to send them.
In fact he has never even spoken to Glenda, not face to face. Once he phoned her. Her cell number is in the local newspaper every week under the ‘Personal’ adverts.
“Glenda’s Escort Agency,” she answered in a honey-sweet voice. “And what special services can I offer you, sugar?”
But Dwight was too shaky to say a word. Quickly he hung up.
Dwight has long conversations with himself. “Right, Dwight! Time to stop dreaming and start thinking. Now: exactly what is the difference between you and all those lucky men who get through Glenda’s front door? Money, right? They have it and you don’t.”
This is true.
Dwight picks up his bank statement. It is shameful. He has an overdraft of more than seven thousand rand. That’s how much he owes the bank!
The amount is typed out plainly. Minus seven thousand and fifty-three rand and twenty-one cents.
***
Tell us what you think: What is your opinion of Glenda? Does Dwight stand a chance of being her man?