kagablog

It was a typically sunny highveld morning and the sun filtered through the blinds of her Melville home. She’d already been through her morning routine of yoga and meditation and was feeling particularly good. The radio was on and she was humming along to the normally nauseating Radio Highveld repetitions of the same old playlist as last week. She’d even found Jeremy Mansfield funny this morning. So it was a good morning.

The kharmic wheel must be turning, she told herself. She’d had a really rough time lately. Three weeks ago she’d been retrenched from the esoteric bookshop she’d worked at for five years. “We’re just not making enough profit to allow for the staff we have, Jeanine.” She’d stood there, feather-duster in hand, shocked, confused and, yes, angry. So, in fact, that she’d foregone the two-weeks notice period and left, handbag in hand, filled with her favourite vanilla incense and a couple of packs of tarot cards. Fuck them. Five years and then this. Fuck them. Then, two weeks ago her reliable little Datsun had given up the ghost and officially died. “There’s nothing to be done. Sell her for spares is the best we can do.” That little blue car had seen her through her entire adult life; her first car, and it was letting her down now. She kicked it in the door as she left the mechanics, R2 000 in her pocket all that was left of her only mode of transport.

But all of this was really nothing compared to the trouble she’d been having with Jesse. After a ‘tumultuous’ – sounded so shrink-wrapped and benign compared to the reality of it – Christmas period, Jesse had finally agreed to go to rehab. After two months at Tara she was now back home. The drugged haze and hellish ‘coming down’ had only been replaced by a gaping hole of dark depression. She’d never gone back to work after coming out of Tara and spent most of her days sleeping and watching really bad TV (as if there was any other kind). Jesse was at her wits end. True, their five year relationship had withstood worse, but right now it just felt as if everything was happening at once. To top it all off, typically, Jeanine’s therapist was out of town for two weeks. Her usual outlet for ‘blowing off some steam’ was off on some conference, or, even worse, on holiday with her fucken’ husband. In her time of need! How could she?

But this morning was good. She had to hold onto that. She was at least having a good morning. She’d decided to take advantage of it and was making Jesse’s favourite breakfast: eggs (scrambled and moist), toast (white, unburnt), bacon (streaky) and pork bangers (unbrowned). She had everything timed perfectly. She wasn’t exactly a whiz in the kitchen (something her mother still couldn’t get over. “How can you call yourself a woman if you can’t cook?”). But this morning everything was timed to perfection and it looked as though everything was going to be ready at the same time: a miracle.

It was when she started buttering the toast that things started going wrong. The phone rang. A we-regret-to-inform-you-but-your-application-has-been-rejected phone call. Fuckit! Seventh rejection for a job application this week alone. And her pension wasn’t going to last too long; not with having to support Jesse as well. Fuckit! She slammed the phone down and as she did so the buttered toast in her left hand slipped from her grasp and landed buttered side down on the not-too clean floor. Jesus Christ!! She bent down, picked it up, threw it in the bin, put another piece of toast in the toaster. The eggs were dry. Fuck! Jesse wouldn’t eat scrambled eggs dry. Something about her gag reflex. Well, today she’d just have to fucken’ deal with it! What had she been thinking about her kharma taking a turn for the better? She checked the bacon and the sausages and caught the sausages just before they browned too much, turned the heat down.

It was while she was buttering the replacement piece of toast that she noticed a buzzing over the DJ’s voice. It took her a few minutes to trace the buzzing to the pan with the sausages and bacon frying in it. Trapped under the lid: a fly. It had always been a bone of contention between Jesse and Jeanine: Jeanine’s ‘extreme’ animal rights activism. Jesse always joked that the cliché “wouldn’t hurt a fly” was literal with Jeanine. “Even when she accidentally steps on an ant, she mourns for days!” Jeanine’s belief in reincarnation was just one of those things they’d agreed to disagree about for the sake of the relationship. But now, Jeanine had had too much. God knows how long that fly had been buzzing around with the bacon and the sausages, how many pieces of food it had landed on, spread its noxious diseases upon? Slowly, she lifted the lid of the frying pan with her left hand, while her right hand reached above the stove and WHAM! as the fly exited it’s steamy death she killed it with the spatula.

She emptied the sausages and the bacon into the dustbin along with the first piece of toast and dished the now burnt egg into a plate with the now very cold pieces of toast. She poured some juice into two glasses and took the tray of food up to their bedroom. Jesse was still fast asleep, the TV on Ricki Lake. Finding Jesse still sleeping and Ricki Lake’s presence only aggravated her mood and Jeanine plomped onto the bed next to her partner, waking her roughly out of her drugged sleep. Jesse turned over, away from Jeanine, in the process hitting her with her pillow, mumbling a “Fuck off!”
This was too much. “No, fuck you, Jesse! How long have you been sleeping already? Get the fuck up!” And then, in a more reconciliatory tone, “I’ve made you breakfast in bed.”
Like a three year-old throwing a tantrum, Jesse sat up in bed. “Can’t anyone get some fucking sleep around here?!” And then looking over at the bedside-table, “This better be fucking good!”
Jeanine swallowed her retort and handed Jesse her juice, then arranged the tray of egg and toast on Jesse’s lap. Jesse stared at the tray incredulously. “What’s this? You know I can’t eat my eggs like this!” She picked up a piece of toast, then threw it back into the plate. “And this toast is cold. I can’t fucken eat this! I can’t believe you woke me up for this Jeanine! Jesus!”

Jesse heard the shattering glass before she felt the blow to her head; she looked over and saw the place where the bulky
Chinese lamp should be before she felt the blood pouring down her face; she saw Jeanine begin clearing up the debris of egg and toast and lamp before she lost consciousness.

15.02.2007
Johannesburg, South Africa