AUDIO BOOK - TWO FEET - THE SOUND OF THE HAGGIS (PREVIEW)

AUDIO BOOK - TWO FEET - THE SOUND OF THE HAGGIS (PREVIEW)

There's a salad on my head

THERE'S A SALAD ON MY HEAD.

READ THE AUTHOR'S NOVELLA, TWO FEET - GROWING UP IN SOUTH AFRICA IN THE 1960'S. ON AMAZON.

(As an update, have you tried buying a tube of toothpaste recently? Before I comment, let me know your thoughts -- I don't know about tooth decay, but selecting a tube of toothpaste is rapidly becoming brain decay.)

Had a quiet chuckle a few days ago. Stumbled into the local supermarket come pharmacy to purchase a bottle of shampoo. Liquid soap in a bottle it used to be known as. Pure and simple.
 Not any more -- I surveyed line upon line of misshaped bottles -- green, yellow, amber, gold, dark...upright and not upright. Bulbous and lean, some bending toward being phallic shaped; another so sculptured that it resembled an inert human hand. 
So I began reading the ingredients and that's when I scoffed out loud which probably confused the platinum blonde beside me, because he hurried away with a toss of a basil scented curl. I can only presume he reacted so because I had interrupted his blissful moment of wondering what next to anoint his scalp of dead, keratinized cells with. 
I perused the fine ingredients of some of the bottles with incremental mirth.

Avocado and passion fruit, honey and almond, wild herbs and strawberry, lemon zing with a dash of grapefruit (natural no less!), raspberry with mint and selected herbs from India, (I grow mint in the struggling veggie garden and I use it to anoint a good slab of lamb, not my scalp) rose petal and, wait for it, tea. Yes, tea - I simply don't get it. 
 Give me/us a break here -- we are talking about washing our hair, not dumping the veggie garden on our head, are we?? Mango juice with wild African honey? Not tame honey, nay, but WILD African honey -- I can see the plains of Serengeti, the intrepid shampoo maker dodging a pride of African lion, escaping the wrath of a feeding Hippopotamus as he scours the veld for the wild bee...
 I do not jest. Let me ask: Who went out there and did these experiments? Who woke up one morning and squashed a mango, sieved a few strawberries, tossed in a twig of mint and an almond as support  and  then added bee vomit and then proudly announced that he had created a shampoo? Who? 
And the coup de grace here is, we buy this shit! We believe this stuff. 

Maybe none of this surprises you. It does me -- as a farm kid I grew up with all those ingredients so imagine if I'd wandered off into the orchard, into the fields, mashed up a few strawberries, squashed an avocado or two, and dumped and massaged them into my scalp? Then rinsed with a cup of cold tea.

It would have been straight jacket time, I tell you. Or I'd be quickly associated to smoking the same green stuff the tractor driver was hourly participating in -- Back in those days, a bar of Lux or +Colgate soap did just fine even though it may have just been used to clean one of the mutts. I'm still showing a full crop of hair just in case you are wondering.

P.S. I bought the green one -- I think it is lime intoxicated with the fumes of an African swallow's fart or something or other. Not quite sure, but it seems to goad well with the bees out in the garden -- I'm a fair attraction.

Bring back them good, simple old days.

So here's an extract from TWO FEET about shopping -- hope you enjoy. Comments appreciated. 

EXTRACT FROM THE NOVELLA, TWO FEET:

This was a good road. It had a few hills and a few potholes, but pedalling was easy especially on the way to the Store. I’d park the bike outside the Store where the hulking overhead diesel drum was positioned, and then walk across the dry patch of red earth where the chickens fed, and climb the few concrete steps onto the porch of the building. Here, a Cobbler and a tailor worked. The tailor had a milky eye and his left leg would furiously pump the plate on the floor to make the sewing machine rattle. He looked as though he was riding a bicycle to nowhere. The Cobbler, who wore a white shirt and a tie, had a tiny anvil and a mouthful of little black tacks that protruded from his lips like snakes’ tongues. Beside him were heaps of shoes that I thought would never cover a person’s feet or tread on a road again. But they did.

There is always a group of people gathered on the porch. A mother feeding her baby on her bosom, her head bent low over the infant to keep away the flies, an old man leaning on his cane peering from beneath the brim of his recently purchased hat, and another woman tying up her cash in a piece of cloth that she would thrust down her blouse for safe keeping.

The business of shopping was a muted, respected affair by customers in the Store. An aisle was approached with caution, almost in awe, bare feet scuffing on the concrete floor. Canned goods were held carefully in both hands, and the picture on the label was studied with the intensity of an art scholar. A bar of wrapped, Lux soap was sniffed and smiled at, and the bulky bag of Hullett’s refined, white sugar, stroked and prodded.

At the rear of the store, alongside gardening implements and paraffin lamps, shoes for men and women, made in Taiwan, beckoned. The shoes were never tried on for size but measured against the foot, the brightness of the shoe’s plastic alluring. The appearance of high heeled shoes would cause much stifled giggling.

The weighing of maize meal, sugar or flour by the Store’s owner was a solemn affair, the customer having ordered it, not by weight, but by what he or she could afford. As the grocer’s scale shifted on its fulcrum, so would the head of the customer, as if mentally trying to balance the brass contraption by telepathy. When the scale righted itself, the customer would do likewise with his or her head. Then the maize or flour would be poured into a paper bag and fastened with cello-tape. Whatever money the customer had was offered to the store owner as payment. It was accepted that the store owner would count out what was needed, and the balance be returned. A sticky sweet or two always concluded the transaction.

Novella gets rave reviews on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Two-Feet-Random-Thoughts-Travels/dp/B00PJGONZ8/

http://www.amazon.com/Two-Feet-Mark-Roper-ebook/dp/B00D368NT8/


A poignant telling of a bitter sweet and universal story, Two Feet does what few books do - transport the reading to a time and place while also transcending that locale to tell a greater tale.

The simple vignettes that make up this novella are much like the cars of a train that linked together take the reader on a journey. Each is populated with characters we are pleased to meet and through the windows we glimpse a fascinating place.

For myself Mr. Roper provided a very real glimpse of a boy's life growing up in the Swaziland in the 60's and did it with subtlety and discretion. He also tells of growing up in a manner that had me reflecting on my own childhood.

Two feet is an easy, interesting and touching read that nearly all can enjoy. And again, as few books do, Two Feet will both satisfy the reader and have them hungry for more.

Cheers to a job well done!

Are we in or outside of the Asylum?

 A CHAPTER FROM MARK ROPER'S NOVELLA, TWO FEET.

The Eastern Cape Government School is situated alongside the Eastern Cape Government Lunatic Asylum.

I have only just realised this because, now that I walk with bare feet, I am left alone to enjoy my break-time. I am, momentarily, ignored by the over-aged for their class farm boys.

The smell of the long-drop will no longer bring tears to my eyes and my under-teenage backside will no longer be booted, and I will not be forced to travel in the spinning innards of a garbage can.

I walk the earth as they do.

I am a fledgling member of the barefoot club.

I now walk with bare feet upon the same, drought stricken Kikuyu grass that the over-age for his class farm boy they call Pisskop does. I can see Pisskop now on the playing field as he selects a team to play touch rugby with. Pisskop is fourteen and is the hairiest bastard in the school. Pisskop has shown everyone his pubic hairs. That is why he is called Pisskop. He also owns a .22 rifle, and they say he can shoot a hovering Kestrel out of the sky three-times-out-of-three. That’s a lot of hovering Kestrels to die in one day I wanted to say, but I did not for fear of having my head forced into the long drop.

Pisskop’s feet are ingrained with the colour of the earth; red. He does not wash. When he gets on the school bus every morning, he is always scratching his groin or picking at his feet. I look out of the window of the bus trying not to look at Pisskop because he gets angry if I look at him.

But I am happy to walk the same earth as Pisskop because I am left alone to my own devices.

Around me the game of touch rugby is being played. Dust is being raised off the barren field by the players' naked feet and there is a lot of shouting and the occasional sound of a wet thump as the leather clad ball is kicked high up and over.

On the other side of the high, wire fence that separates the school, is the lunatic asylum. This, it seems, is common knowledge. I can see an inmate sitting on a fallen, blue gum branch. Behind him is the shape of the Government built asylum. It has a corrugated tin roof that is painted red and has a long veranda. There are iron bars across the windows behind which I can see the faint glimmer of mosquito mesh. I can see other pyjama clad inmates roaming about on the veranda. Some are not roaming at all. They are simply standing as if they are waiting for something or somebody.

There is a bed on the veranda but no-one lies on its black striped, piss stained mattress.

There is a smell of boiled cabbage and human shit wafting in the breeze; a smell that not even the scent of the nearby blue gum trees can defeat.

The inmate sitting on the fallen branch is pretending to be a tea-pot.

The game of touch rugby has turned into a brawl, and I watch Meneer Gerber, who teaches Judo, Hygiene, Mathematics, English, Geography, Science and Divinity, weigh in with his cane and the boys, including Pisskop, scatter leaving the main culprit at the mercy of Meneer Gerber. The Culprit tries to get to his feet. Already his nose is bloody. Meneer Gerber gives the Culprit two quick strokes with his cane across the back of his legs and the third somewhere across his spine because he’s trying to turn away and run.

“Are you blerry stupid, man, or what!?” Meneer Gerber shouts at the bloody nosed, now goose-stepping Culprit. “Answer me! Hey!?”

“Nee, Meneer!” (No, Sir)

“You are blerry stupid!”

“Ja, Meneer!” (Yes, Sir)

Meneer Gerber walks away, already reaching for his pipe that he always carries in the pocket of his khaki coloured safari-suit along with a copy of a Superman comic that he reads to himself when he’s meant to be teaching us.

The Culprit wipes his bloody nose and stands alone on the barren playing field. He is rubbing his legs and wincing against the pain of Meneer Gerber’s bamboo cane. Pisskop and the other children have wandered away.

“What the blerry Hell you looking at, Rooinek!?”The Culprit shouts at me.

I look away.

I am a Rooinek, a red neck, because I speak English and during the Boer War all the English were called Rooineks. This is because the African sun burnt their pale skin which was from England, where there is not much sun at all, a rose red.

The inmate has his arms pointed over his head. Slowly he bends from the waist, dips, and pours. In a semi-circle, one cup, then two, then a third and a fourth. Then back to the first cup.

I wonder what blend of tea he thinks he is pouring.

Meneer Gerber is the only teacher that speaks English. That is why he teaches only the Rooineks of which I am one. I think there are less than thirty in the school. The Rooinek class consists of students of all ages: eight to twelve years old. Most are the children of farmers whose forefathers came on the ships in the 1820’s, but I think Max’s parents own the cafe where you can buy bread already sliced, so he is not the son of a farmer. Meneer Gerber is a knowledgeable teacher. During every lesson he makes us read a chapter from a textbook whilst he smokes his pipe and reads a Marvel Comic book which is usually a story about Superman.

I wonder if the inmate at the Eastern Cape Lunatic Asylum also serves sugar and milk with the tea that he is pouring.

Near the end of the class, Meneer Gerber will occasionally ask us questions on the chapter we have just read. There are usually twenty questions, sometimes less. If we get less than sixty-percent right, Meneer Gerber calls you to the front of the class, and he canes you. Usually it is three or four strokes across the backside, or he gestures for you to put out your hands, palms up and touching, and canes you there. This is the most painful. Especially if you need to continue writing with your pencil a few minutes later.

I wonder for whom the inmate is pouring tea.

Meneer Gerber does not allow any questions to be asked about any subject, especially Divinity. This is the only subject we do not have a text book about because Meneer Gerber can pretty much recite anything he wants from memory when it comes to stories about Jesus and God and Mary and Joseph and Moses. That is why I wrote earlier that he was a clever teacher.

I wonder why the inmate smiles the way he does as he pours his tea. It is a slight smile, almost soft as if he is being tickled by a feather. It is the smile I think, of a sleeping child. It is the same smile the Herd boy wears on his face when he is smoking that tobacco that has a seriously sweet smell.

Meneer Gerber has told us eight to thirteen year old Rooineks that we are all no better than Judas because of what we did to the Boer children and women during the Boer war. Meneer Gerber says it was we Rooineks that tied the women and children to the front of the trains so the brave Boers would not use dynamite to blow up the train line. Meneer Gerber says it was we Rooineks who built the first concentration camp and not the Germans. He insists that we Rooineks will always walk with guilty souls under the eyes of God and that because it is God’s Will, most of us will be cast out to sea before we become men and that we will spend eternity questioning our guilt.

I wish I can, but I am afraid to, ask Meneer Gerber the question about who created God and who was God’s father, but we are not allowed to ask questions, especially in Divinity class.

The inmate has stopped pouring his tea as I hear the school bell ring. He now sits with his hands folded in his lap. He looks calm. As if he is waiting for something or somebody.

Or maybe he is simply waiting for the kettle to boil.

 I wonder, dying father, as you rest on that thin bed with the rusty springs, listening to the creaking of the tin roof above and the distant cry of a child, if you would have had the answers to my questions.

I wonder how you would have answered those questions.

Would you have sat me on your lap and smiled as I asked my question?

Would you have felt proud even if my question was a stupid one?

Would you have been impatient with my youthful curiosity?

I wonder what questions you ask yourself now as you await the afternoon visit from the Indian doctor from Calcutta and the nurse from Abuja, Nigeria.

I think, as the flickering flame of the paraffin lamp beside your bed attracts a disorientated moth, you are asking the same question that I feared to ask Meneer Gerber.

TWO FEET - FREE KINDLE DOWNLOAD

The novella, TWO FEET, is available as a FREE +Kindle download on SUNDAY 11 JANUARY 2015.

FOR FREE DOWNLOAD CLICK HERE

Under the vast African sky, a young boy is forced to come to terms with a whole new reality. Abandoned by his father, his new playground is the open plains, and his new family, a deeply-rooted local community with some seemingly unorthodox ways—among them, Swazi warrior Mabuza, and stern, religious Afrikaner Meneer Gerber.

But Mark soon finds that this unconventional upbringing might be exactly what he needs to fill the emptiness created by his life-altering loss. While he imagines his father fighting for his life in a distant hospital, the boy learns to find solace and hope through the wisdom and traditions of his new community—including important lessons about life, overcoming obstacles, and how to walk with bare feet.

 With equal parts insight, emotion, and humour, Two Feet takes a candid look at the realities of family life, while evoking the adventure and curiosity of childhood.

FREE AUDIO SAMPLE OF TWO FEET

Mark Roper - The Independent Author Network

Mark Roper - The Independent Author Network

A sneak preview of TWO FEET

....A SNEAK PREVIEW OF THE AUDIO VERSION OF THE NOVELLA, TWO FEET, SOON AVAILABLE ON +Amazon.com.

When Time Stood Still

...On your wide-screen television set, there is an image of an over brilliant sun. Then your television shuts down.

On your iPod there is an image of a mountainous section of an iceberg collapsing. Then your iPod goes blank.

On your mobile phone, whatever the make, there is an image of a wind generator. It crumbles like an autumn leaf underfoot. Then your mobile phone goes blank.

On your computer screen there is an image of dead cattle on a ravaged land. Then your computer shuts down.

Through your window you see the dust as it advances like a Tsunami. Then you can see no further. 

...and???

Read THE BONE TRADERS by Mark Roper -- when time stands still, your history stored in the mechanisms of an ancient clock-piece, what does the future offer?

AN AUDIO SAMPLE OF THE BONE TRADERS

Mr. Morrison -- your trolley is in my aisle.

Dear Mr. Morrison of +Morrisons
Off the bat, do you mind if I call you William or, better yet, Bill? I appreciate this is probably rude of me considering that you managed to turn a simple egg and butter stall back in 1899 (Morrison history) into what is now a major (okay, you are number 4 of 4) chain of supermarkets; but as I occasionally haunt the aisles of your business,  I feel we do have a sense of familiarity. Either way, Bill, congrats on getting the business where it is today: I've been in the film business for thirty years and I'm still fighting red over black when it comes to bank statements and you don't even want to know what Hell it is trying to sell a novel out there.
Up front, Bill, I'm a +Waitrose man -- now that's not a class or money decision. On the contrary. I just like being able to amble down an aisle with my FREE trolley and peruse a variety (note variety here Bill) of foodstuffs. I like the fact that I can PAUSE in an aisle, Bill -- pause and reflect and realise that there are five, if not six, brands of rice in this world: realise that Morrison's did not invent the only pasta sauce and, would you believe Bill, that not all soon to be pork roasts are wrapped in blood soaked clingfilm? It is a wondrous thing, Bill, to be able to idly choose on what to spend your sweat stained pound on, rather than be given the choice of nought but your name brand. I'm okay when it comes to toilet paper and the like, Bill, but come on, Pasta Sauce,headache tablets,soap,baked beans etc etc........?? Give a man a choice and he will come back for more.
Now here is the bone of contention, Bill -- why in the name of Hell and its followers, do you choose to stock your shelves every minute of the day? Okay -- maybe I'm exaggerating, so let me rephrase, Bill -- why is it that every time I habituate your store, I'm not only fighting off obscene screaming mothers, screaming children, obese fathers and cellular phone touting teens, but a multitude of your staff and their unweilding effing trolleys?
I kid you not, Bill -- take a wander when you can. I want a pork pie. There's your trolley, your guy, right there, builder's crack and all, stocking the exact shelf. I make a detour for the tomatoes (what's with this recent dry ice effect going on with the veggies, Bill? I don't quite get it. I gave it a few moments of my attention and was expecting a rock concert but then I got rudely interrupted by a brat steering your one pound trolley) and when I arrive, guess what? Bang! Your trolley and two acne laced teens lazily tossing bags of onions and discussing their next smoke break. Right there, barricading the damn tomatoes, Bill!
So here's the thing -- I'm not saying Waitrose and the like don't have to re-stock their shelves during the day. But they seem to do it...well... in a clandestine manner. They apologise for being there. They ask if they can help. Your mob? Forget it, Bill -- my little one pound trolley is but a mere ant versus your tank; versus your over-stacked, rusty heap of piped metal on shaky wheels.
Get out of my aisle, Bill -- I'm there to spend money on groceries, not to attend a demolition derby.
P.S. Have you ever thought about selling books only published by self-publishers? I'm, of course, suggesting this for selfish reasons, but I do have an ulterior motive: if you did, at least you could offer a damn choice, Bill.
Think about it.

TO READ MORE OF MARK ROPER'S RAMBLINGS, PLEASE VISIT here.

Better yet, download a novella of his scribblings at a ridiculous low price!!!

Free Audio Reading

Is God a Mechanic #2

...and then there was light! The conclusion of the short story from the novella, Two Feet, where Meneer Gerber and all see eye-to-eye. Sort of.

FEEL FREE TO COMMENT -- or better yet, read more of Mark's scribblings in his novella, TWO FEET available as a link on this site to +Amazon.com. Either as a Kindle download or in paperback.

Available at Amazon.com

****

A question I never asked:

“Daddy, how do I switch this on?”

*****

A question I never asked:

“Daddy, how do I switch this off?”

*****

If God’s vehicle was a re-vamped, super-charged, gun metal grey, 1966 F-100 Chevy, He drove it into our lives early one morning.

If God’s vehicle was a re-vamped, super-charged, gun metal grey, 1966 F-100 Chevy that was meant to raise sufficient dust to asphyxiate both bird and insect, it was doing a damn good job of that, too.

We seldom had visitors. If a car was seen or heard navigating the pot-hole ravaged road toward the house, it would draw the brood out onto the flaking, thirsty lawn. From here we would view its approach. Mabuza stood poised nearby with his garden fork. The cloud of advancing dust would be watched with some trepidation.

Mostly, the occupants of the cars were men wearing jackets and ties and carrying briefcases and brown, official type folders. They were in search of you, Father, as were we. They were men from distant cities, perspiring uncomfortably, their flesh rebelling at the sun, hunting down debt like we sometimes hunted the King’s buck.

“Vultures,” is what my older brother described them as.

“Rooineks,” is what Pisskop would have called them.

The moment these men got stiffly out of the car, my younger brother would yelp like a puppy and hurry away, probably to the dam which was his place of solitude. My elder brothers would stand mutely, ready to do battle, keeping our dogs at bay.

I stood alongside my mother, always slightly to the rear. I would find solitude in the ant-lion (Myrmeleontidea) holes in the dust, or watch Mabuza from the corner of my eye. He stood ramrod, like a warrior on a cliff awaiting an Induna’s call to battle.

My mother always said “shit” under her breath as she walked forward. Her conversations with these men would be animated, but brief. They would try, with a mix of honey and tar, to cajole the documents into her hands, but she heeded Mister Kelly’s advice, and kept her hands behind her back. Small hands, dirt engrained hands that had once boasted of diamond rings and the scent of expensive oils and nail polish.

“If you take the papers, they take everything. Do you understand, Missus? Never take the bloody papers!”

These men, often through sunglasses, would glance askew at us children as they talked with our mother. I wonder now how they perceived us; we were white children, barefoot, not in school, and our hair was long, way too long for those years. Perhaps our physical appearance was suffice for them to realise that what my mother told them, was the truth. Was there sympathy behind those sunglasses? I seriously doubt it.

There was nothing left to surrender, repossess or sell. Speak to Mister Kelly. Here is his telephone number. No. No forwarding address. Their father’s present whereabouts remains unknown.

Like disgruntled bees leaving a dying blossom, these men would return to their car, reverse, and drive away, soon obliterated in a cloud of dust that had never quite settled.

God’s vehicle pulled to a stop with the sound of an impulsive lion, sending a tremor under our waiting feet. Muffled, chrome exhausts coughed a victorious expletive as they died, sending startled pigeons flapping from the trees.

Barking dogs, momentarily, go mute.

For a change, my younger brother did not move. Instead, he stopped frowning, a gesture that had, recently, become as common on his face as a red- tick to the hide of a cow.

In the rear of the F-100, amongst the tool boxes, winches, chains and scaffolding pipe, sat four labourers. They all wore blue overalls and wellington boots. Their smiles were open and broad, eyes alert and expectant to their new environment.

The driver stepped out. He was short but muscular. He wore khaki shorts and a short sleeved shirt. His skin was tanned; a farmer’s tan, his forearms and legs bred a thick mesh of wiry hair. A veldt hat with a sweat stained band was perched on a balding head. His eyes were a light blue, his moustache neatly trimmed, his feet encased in worn but expensive veldskoens and khaki socks. In his breast pocket, he carried a packet of Springbok cigarettes and a box of lion matches.

“Good morning,” he said to all of us. “I’m here to help with the borehole?” Out came the cigarettes: A flash of a match, a puff of smoke. “Mister Kelly asked me.”

“Oh,” said my mother and stepped forward. Her hands were not behind her back. “Oh,” she repeated.

My brothers walked forward; sucked toward the glory of the F-100, whose metallic colour bounced back the sunlight like a granite boulder fends off a rifle bullet, like a blue-fly to a pile of elephant dung.

Mabuza tugged my shirt sleeve. I looked up into his face. I saw the Mabuza grin: big, white teeth and gums as pink as the fruit of a ripe pawpaw. He patted me on my shoulder and danced his skinny thong clad backside toward the F-100,leaving me standing amongst the ant-lion holes, with a butterfly fluttering somewhere in my young, vegetable starved stomach.

*****

Dear Meneer Gerber,

How are you? I am fine.

I am sorry to be writing this letter to you in pencil, but I have no ink or pen.

I am writing this letter to you to tell you that the borehole pump is fixed.

He came to fix the pump driving a very special super truck that shone in the sun like the silver of that box you have for your pipe tobacco. It made the sound of thunder too. Like the sound we hear in the late afternoon when the vultures are high in the sky and the kopje is standing alone against an army of black clouds, Meneer.

He is from the same valley that I can see from our garden. In the valley, pineapples, oranges and avocados grow. There is always water in the valley, Meneer. There are small canals there, and it is always green even when it is so hot the dogs don’t want to walk and the bees are angry. I think the water is called irrigation, Meneer.

He fixed the pump quickly. He had four labourers working with him, and they sang a song as they made the winch system and pulled the broken pump from deep out of the ground. He is not like Mister Ford from Ford Farm who just sits and watches his labourers work and says rude things to them. He worked all the time with the chains and tackle, and it was good to see the mud and the water at the end, Meneer. It was thick mud from deep under. He said it was a good sign because it meant that there was still a lot of water down there.

He is very strong, and from his truck he took out a brand new pump. My mother did not know what to say, so she went to make us all some tea, even for the labourers. She did not have any cake, so he said he will bring some next time. My mother looked shy, and when she laughed she sounded like a little girl.

Now we do not have to carry Mister Kelly’s jerry cans up the hill anymore, Meneer. My mother thinks the radish plants and maybe the carrots will survive, but the cabbages are no good. I am sad for the cabbages.

I am sorry I cannot attend class. The men took the red Mini-Imp, so we only have the bicycle.

 Yours Sincerely

M.

*****

 Dear M

I am happy to hear that the borehole is fixed.

I am also very sorry.

Yours Sincerely

Meneer Gerber

*****

 Dear Meneer Gerber

Thank you for your letter dated....................

I do not understand why you are sorry.

Can I do my History test from home?

Yours Sincerely

M.

*****

Dear M

I am rwitting with the typwriteer at hte in the office.

God moves in a mydsterious way
His wonders to pergform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upoon the strorm.

Deep in unfathoimable mines
Of nevbyer failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sov’reign will.

Did He ring the caske? Cake? Did he bring the cake for your mother?

Cphter 4 of the history book. Write an esay. Essay.

God Bless you.

 Meneer  Gerber.

Tea for Two - a short story

TEA FOR TWO

The Eastern Cape Government School is situated alongside the Eastern Cape Government Lunatic Asylum.

I have only just realised this because, now that I walk with bare feet, I am left alone to enjoy my break-time. I am, momentarily, ignored by the over-aged for their class farm boys.

The smell of the long-drop will no longer bring tears to my eyes and my under-teenage backside will no longer be booted, and I will not be forced to travel in the spinning innards of a garbage can.

I walk the earth as they do.

I am a fledgling member of the barefoot club.

I now walk with bare feet upon the same, drought stricken Kikuyu grass that the over-age for his class farm boy they call Pisskop does. I can see Pisskop now on the playing field as he selects a team to play touch rugby with. Pisskop is fourteen and is the hairiest bastard in the school. Pisskop has shown everyone his pubic hairs. That is why he is called Pisskop. He also owns a .22 rifle, and they say he can shoot a hovering Kestrel out of the sky three-times-out-of-three. That’s a lot of hovering Kestrels to die in one day I wanted to say, but I did not for fear of having my head forced into the long drop.

Pisskop’s feet are ingrained with the colour of the earth; red. He does not wash. When he gets on the school bus every morning, he is always scratching his groin or picking at his feet. I look out of the window of the bus trying not to look at Pisskop because he gets angry if I look at him.

But I am happy to walk the same earth as Pisskop because I am left alone to my own devices.

Around me the game of touch rugby is being played. Dust is being raised off the barren field by the players' naked feet and there is a lot of shouting and the occasional sound of a wet thump as the leather clad ball is kicked high up and over.

On the other side of the high, wire fence that separates the school, is the lunatic asylum. This, it seems, is common knowledge. I can see an inmate sitting on a fallen, blue gum branch. Behind him is the shape of the Government built asylum. It has a corrugated tin roof that is painted red and has a long veranda. There are iron bars across the windows behind which I can see the faint glimmer of mosquito mesh. I can see other pyjama clad inmates roaming about on the veranda. Some are not roaming at all. They are simply standing as if they are waiting for something or somebody.

There is a bed on the veranda but no-one lies on its black striped, piss stained mattress.

There is a smell of boiled cabbage and human shit wafting in the breeze; a smell that not even the scent of the nearby blue gum trees can defeat.

The inmate sitting on the fallen branch is pretending to be a tea-pot.

The game of touch rugby has turned into a brawl, and I watch Meneer Gerber, who teaches Judo, Hygiene, Mathematics, English, Geography, Science and Divinity, weigh in with his cane and the boys, including Pisskop, scatter leaving the main culprit at the mercy of Meneer Gerber. The Culprit tries to get to his feet. Already his nose is bloody. Meneer Gerber gives the Culprit two quick strokes with his cane across the back of his legs and the third somewhere across his spine because he’s trying to turn away and run.

“Are you blerry stupid, man, or what!?” Meneer Gerber shouts at the bloody nosed, now goose-stepping Culprit. “Answer me! Hey!?”

“Nee, Meneer!” (No, Sir)

“You are blerry stupid!”

“Ja, Meneer!” (Yes, Sir)

Meneer Gerber walks away, already reaching for his pipe that he always carries in the pocket of his khaki coloured safari-suit along with a copy of a Superman comic that he reads to himself when he’s meant to be teaching us.

The Culprit wipes his bloody nose and stands alone on the barren playing field. He is rubbing his legs and wincing against the pain of Meneer Gerber’s bamboo cane. Pisskop and the other children have wandered away.

“What the blerry Hell you looking at, Rooinek!?”The Culprit shouts at me.

I look away.

I am a Rooinek, a red neck, because I speak English and during the Boer War all the English were called Rooineks. This is because the African sun burnt their pale skin which was from England, where there is not much sun at all, a rose red.

The inmate has his arms pointed over his head. Slowly he bends from the waist, dips, and pours. In a semi-circle, one cup, then two, then a third and a fourth. Then back to the first cup.

I wonder what blend of tea he thinks he is pouring.

Meneer Gerber is the only teacher that speaks English. That is why he teaches only the Rooineks of which I am one. I think there are less than thirty in the school. The Rooinek class consists of students of all ages: eight to twelve years old. Most are the children of farmers whose forefathers came on the ships in the 1820’s, but I think Max’s parents own the cafe where you can buy bread already sliced, so he is not the son of a farmer. Meneer Gerber is a knowledgeable teacher. During every lesson he makes us read a chapter from a textbook whilst he smokes his pipe and reads a Marvel Comic book which is usually a story about Superman.

I wonder if the inmate at the Eastern Cape Lunatic Asylum also serves sugar and milk with the tea that he is pouring.

Near the end of the class, Meneer Gerber will occasionally ask us questions on the chapter we have just read. There are usually twenty questions, sometimes less. If we get less than sixty-percent right, Meneer Gerber calls you to the front of the class, and he canes you. Usually it is three or four strokes across the backside, or he gestures for you to put out your hands, palms up and touching, and canes you there. This is the most painful. Especially if you need to continue writing with your pencil a few minutes later.

I wonder for whom the inmate is pouring tea.

Meneer Gerber does not allow any questions to be asked about any subject, especially Divinity. This is the only subject we do not have a text book about because Meneer Gerber can pretty much recite anything he wants from memory when it comes to stories about Jesus and God and Mary and Joseph and Moses. That is why I wrote earlier that he was a clever teacher.

I wonder why the inmate smiles the way he does as he pours his tea. It is a slight smile, almost soft as if he is being tickled by a feather. It is the smile I think, of a sleeping child. It is the same smile the Herd boy wears on his face when he is smoking that tobacco that has a seriously sweet smell.

Meneer Gerber has told us eight to thirteen year old Rooineks that we are all no better than Judas because of what we did to the Boer children and women during the Boer war. Meneer Gerber says it was we Rooineks that tied the women and children to the front of the trains so the brave Boers would not use dynamite to blow up the train line. Meneer Gerber says it was we Rooineks who built the first concentration camp and not the Germans. He insists that we Rooineks will always walk with guilty souls under the eyes of God and that because it is God’s Will, most of us will be cast out to sea before we become men and that we will spend eternity questioning our guilt.

I wish I can, but I am afraid to, ask Meneer Gerber the question about who created God and who was God’s father, but we are not allowed to ask questions, especially in Divinity class.

The inmate has stopped pouring his tea as I hear the school bell ring. He now sits with his hands folded in his lap. He looks calm. As if he is waiting for something or somebody.

Or maybe he is simply waiting for the kettle to boil.

 I wonder, dying father, as you rest on that thin bed with the rusty springs, listening to the creaking of the tin roof above and the distant cry of a child, if you would have had the answers to my questions.

I wonder how you would have answered those questions.

Would you have sat me on your lap and smiled as I asked my question?

Would you have felt proud even if my question was a stupid one?

Would you have been impatient with my youthful curiosity?

I wonder what questions you ask yourself now as you await the afternoon visit from the Indian doctor from Calcutta and the nurse from Abuja, Nigeria.

I think, as the flickering flame of the paraffin lamp beside your bed attracts a disorientated moth, you are asking the same question that I feared to ask Meneer Gerber.

Read the novella, TWO FEET at +Amazon.com  for more. 

Buying toothpaste - brain decay.

Read TWO FEET to realise how shopping was in those "good old days". There's a quick chapter about how we used to buy the week's needs. Enjoy!

...many full moons ago I posted a Blog about buying hair shampoo (I've attached below to rekindle your memories) which was well supported. But, I ask, what about toothpaste? Here, the mind boggles and the dentures clench. With shopping cart or basket in hand, you will soon discover yourself rooted to the supermarket floor as you ponder dental cleansing as if you have just happened upon the answer to the Meaning Of Life and do not have an effing clue what it means. Understandably so. ( If, per chance, you do KNOW the answer, please, please comment.)
Okay -- teeth are important -- give a rusty, denture crooked smile and all could be misconstrued, but give us a break Colgate and the rest of you --
Ultra shine -- sounds good to me...but now I'm brushing laboriously and  I'm frothing at the mouth with something akin to that of a distressed Praying Mantis's shit -- and in BLUE -- it's everywhere. Staining the basin, staining the towel. What's with the blue? I'm after white...and now there are frothy bubbles, as if I'm popping cheap, fake caviar...my hand on the brush is now swamped in froth and I'm seriously wondering if my teeth are receiving any of this paste.
Sensitive teeth, non-sensitive,capped or uncapped,smile or glum,mint and apple freshness,triple coloured like a barber's pole, halitosis friendly(?),your dentist's favourite,herbal topped (what the heck does that mean?I'm brushing with Jasmine?)...48 hour lasting freshness (that's not what we were taught at school)...kills all plaque (why do I need a dentist?)...Ultra Ultra shine which I gather means that after a few years brushing with this stuff I'm going ivory...or maybe I should just take a quick visit to the herb garden and chew on a few roots? Not a problem I'm thinking -- chomp a bit of basil, floss with some lavender and maybe stick a mint leaf or two under the tongue --
And the flavours? Mint..okay...but what the F is zesty Mint ?? Chemically induced? Zesty Mint -- sounds like a teenage pop group still looking for a garage to rehearse in.
I just want to brush my teeth -- pure and simple.
I remember squatting at many a fireside in Africa and remembering the folk I was with simply sticking their fingers into the grey of the charcoal and finger brushing their teeth...and believe me, their teeth stood out like corn on a cob. And there was nothing wrong with their smile.
....and talking about brushing and tooth brushes?
When did you last buy a toothbrush and have a clear idea of what you wanted, and what you ended up buying???????????
I don't even want to go there for the moment, anyway!!!


THERE'S A SALAD ON MY HEAD.

Had a quiet chuckle a few days ago. Stumbled into the local supermarket come pharmacy to purchase a bottle of shampoo. Soap in a bottle it used to be. Not any more -- surveyed line upon line of misshaped bottles -- green, yellow, amber, gold, dark...upright and not upright. Bulbous and lean. Started reading the ingredients and that's when I chuckled.
Avocado and passion fruit, honey and almond, wild herbs and strawberry, lemon zing with a dash of grapefruit (natural no less!), raspberry with mint and selected herbs from India, (mint??) rose petal and, wait for it, tea. Give me/us a break here -- we are talking about washing our hair, not dumping the veggie garden on our head, are we??
So maybe this doesn't surprise you. Does me -- as a farm kid I grew up with all those ingredients so imagine if I'd wandered off into the orchard, into the fields, mashed up a few strawberries, squashed an avocado or two, and dumped them on my scalp? Then rinsed.
It would have been straight jacket time, I tell you. Or I'd be quickly associated to smoking the same green stuff the tractor driver was hourly participating in -- Back in those days, a bar of Lux soap did just fine even though it may have just been used to clean one of the mutts. I'm still showing a full crop of hair just in case you are wondering.
P.S. I bought the green one -- I think it is lime something or other. Not sure, but it seems to goad well with the bees out in the garden -- I'm a fair attraction.
Bring back them old days.

So here's an extract from TWO FEET about shopping -- hope you enjoy. Comments appreciated.

EXTRACT FROM THE NOVELLA, TWO FEET:
This was a good road. It had a few hills and a few potholes, but pedalling was easy especially on the way to the Store. I’d park the bike outside the Store where the hulking overhead diesel drum was positioned, and then walk across the dry patch of red earth where the chickens fed, and climb the few concrete steps onto the porch of the building. Here, a Cobbler and a tailor worked. The tailor had a milky eye and his left leg would furiously pump the plate on the floor to make the sewing machine rattle. He looked as though he was riding a bicycle to nowhere. The Cobbler, who wore a white shirt and a tie, had a tiny anvil and a mouthful of little black tacks that protruded from his lips like snakes’ tongues. Beside him were heaps of shoes that I thought would never cover a person’s feet or tread on a road again. But they did.
There is always a group of people gathered on the porch. A mother feeding her baby on her bosom, her head bent low over the infant to keep away the flies, an old man leaning on his cane peering from beneath the brim of his recently purchased hat, and another woman tying up her cash in a piece of cloth that she would thrust down her blouse for safe keeping.
The business of shopping was a muted, respected affair by customers in the Store. An aisle was approached with caution, almost in awe, bare feet scuffing on the concrete floor. Canned goods were held carefully in both hands, and the picture on the label was studied with the intensity of an art scholar. A bar of wrapped, Lux soap was sniffed and smiled at, and the bulky bag of Hullett’s refined, white sugar, stroked and prodded.
At the rear of the store, alongside gardening implements and paraffin lamps, shoes for men and women, made in Taiwan, beckoned. The shoes were never tried on for size but measured against the foot, the brightness of the shoe’s plastic alluring. The appearance of high heeled shoes would cause much stifled giggling.

The weighing of maize meal, sugar or flour by the Store’s owner was a solemn affair, the customer having ordered it, not by weight, but by what he or she could afford. As the grocer’s scale shifted on its fulcrum, so would the head of the customer, as if mentally trying to balance the brass contraption by telepathy. When the scale righted itself, the customer would do likewise with his or her head. Then the maize or flour would be poured into a paper bag and fastened with cello-tape. Whatever money the customer had was offered to the store owner as payment. It was accepted that the store owner would count out what was needed, and the balance be returned. A sticky sweet or two always concluded the transaction.

How times have changed.

Most of the stories that I write are set in real places. I managed to +Google Earth an area of Swaziland where I used to live. Over forty years ago.
Well, Executioner rock is still there (famed for solving a few tribal issues back in time!) but the abode seems to have now become a chicken farm, or dare I say what looks like a salt mine!
Still, this little sojourn into the past via satellite rekindled fond memories.
You should try it sometime!
Here is the link to Miles Anderson reading Chapter Two of the novella. Please feel free to comment. Your comments always help.


Two Feet - Chapter Two

Audiobook - Two Feet - Chapter Two

Free Audio chapter

Kindle Countdown - low priced books

Kindle Countdown -- low priced books

Mabuza once told me that if there are holes in the road you often travel, stop and fill them in, for this will help the man travelling behind you.

Was Mabuza my Madiba, my Mandela? Probably. This was South Africa, and we all needed guidance on what was a bumpy road. 


...the novella TWO FEET is on a Kindle Countdown for the next three days -- perfect stocking filler so I am told!!

 A compelling collection of stories reflecting an adolescent’s memories of an unconventional upbringing in Southern Africa during the 1960’s.

   Allowed to roam the veldt under the protective wing of the Swazi Warrior, Mabuza, the boy’s journey is merged with humour, witticisms, anecdotes and insights from having to navigate the potholes that are left behind by the abrupt disappearance of his father.   

   From learning how to walk with bare feet and how to deal with the unorthodox teaching methods of Meneer Gerber, the reader is transported into a boy’s world where dreams triumph over reality. Set beneath the bigness of the African sky, the stories are pivoted by the boy’s imagining of his father convalescing in a distant hospital, where a natural remedy might be the potion for us all.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Two-Feet-Mark-Roper-ebook/dp/B00D368NT8