kagablog

Die wereld op die dak.

When Gert got to the top of his mountain he found a bit of veld, enclosed but neglected. But or and. This was the place. Gert seeked out the stooping Gert-sized gash in the fence and struggled through. When Gert got to where he reckoned the middle was he fell himself. Packed out his shit. Double-checked. Grinned slow, Gert-stylee (broken upward grimace). No eight slices. Gert took a nap in the wide afternoon.

In his dream Gert was looking at Ons Ander, and he was all of them, that younger him, when his homeless system was still fresh and epic in its capacity for pain. When it was still nervous.

In his dream Kerel ran straight at him from far but he was Xhosa the dog that left him and something smelled like the first time he’d smelt pussy and it was the newest scent in the world and he couldn’t relate it to anything and Kerel was running faster and his finger was pressing his eyeball and everything waaaahhhrped sloooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOO/

and he was Xhosa wagging his tail and barking at Gert crackedly mumbling in his sleep and the bright yellow helicopter filled the sky with its black stripes and black backwards-whirring choppers and Kerel pushed his finger into Gert’s eye and said WuuuuuuUUUUUUHHHHRR RRRH.RRRHHH.RRRRRRRRRHRHRHRH

On the third day Gert decided that he liked his new family. They weren’t losers, they were Others, like him. And he.. belonged. With them. They were Afrikaners like him, except Sarah, but she tried. And other things exempted her. Life on the streets wasn’t good for the libido, so Sarah didn’t exactly suffer as the communal vrou, and despite Gert’s vigour (a decrepit combination of being young to the streets and basically sex-starved, this one’s for you Maria!), she had almost experienced sensual pleasure with him. “Ons.” Kerel introduced, “’s ‘Ons Ander’. Ohs isie fokn ‘ande rouens’ mrons is. Ons. Saam. Ne oue n vrou?” Some of them smiled at Gert. “So wat bring jou strate toe Gertjie?”, Sampie stated. To indicate to Sampie that he was only of consequence when he bade it so, and because he knew Gert wouldn’t answer, not yet, Kerel continued to explain to Gert the virtues of the fam. Introduced everyone. “Sarah sljou hand skud wanhr j beetrvoel. VoEl voel huh!” Sarah pulled her face into a smile.

Two years Gert walked as one of the Ons Ander. It shaped him. On the whole it wasn’t a nightmare. But Gert’s central debt to the family was that they had crucially readied him, shaped him toward Stump. By the time Gert left the Ons Ander he was ready to outgrow the last flashes of pain reality had to offer; he was ready to send his trusty little messenger, so much abused, so blatantly disrespected, to its rightful deathbed. And there the little messenger would linger for the next couple of years, weakly lifting a finger now and then, untimely and rather pointlessly. Gert graduated from the family, ready to become that rare, mythic creature; the uber-beggar.

Some of you may have bumped into the uber-beggar, seen his eternally huddled sillouette; flinched unknowingly as you squeamed past his unquenchable rants. Their hammered punctuation of schizophrenic, alien cussing, too ancient or foul to fit language. Few will recognise the uber-beggar for what he is. In the dull eyes of everyman the uber-beggar is just another rambling bum. Nog ‘n vrot fokken hand uitgesteek. Fuck off I’m not giving you any money. But the uber-beggar never sticks out his hand. Is no beggar. The uber-beggar never asks for money; and frowns in distant recollection if successfully handed the meaningless metal and paper. The uber-beggar hardly eats; when he does it’s only through a faintest flicker of habit. He lives off fire and smoke and limps or hobbles or crawls the cold, feelingless galaxy he invents around him. For the most part the uber-beggar sees through the meaningless mingle of passersby; when they successfully intrude into his space they are The Curse.

Up there, on his mountain, Gert, five long years after his self-exile from the Ons Ander, was approaching the final layer of becoming. Soon he and the English lady would speak again, on equal footing, with equal registers this time. Converse in tongues. Cold, feelingless tongues.

Gert was dreaming his new form now, sizing it up in the now solemn dream air. A dassie hopped onto Gert’s sleeping body, wriggled its nose, and was off again into the browns.

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