Free Chapter - the deaf can hear.

Here's a free chapter from the novella, THE BONE TRADERS #Amazon in which Joe meets up with the geriatric Hunters and solves a hearing problem. Hope you enjoy and, as always, feel free to comment.

Joe's website

Salvaged wind generators and the crooked, rotating blades of wind pumps greet The Sow as it transports Joe down the street in Erasmusville.

The midday sun is flat and ferocious. The few villagers that remain keep under whatever shade they can find. They stand glued to their spots like toy soldiers, basking in the half-light.

Joe climbs out of The Sow, the weary dust trail settling immediately like a tired mongrel. Joe makes for the crooked gate.

“Danya?”

His voice rings loud in the sullen silence of the village. “Danya...It’s me.”

Charles appears from a corner of the house, his shotgun levelled at Joe’s stomach. “Hiiiiii,” he teases, managing to curl his lips. “It’s me,” he adds, offering an exaggerated, womanly wave.

“So I see,” responds Joe. He hasn’t looked Charles in the eyes. Not yet.

“I’m going to shoot your balls off,” Charles informs him.

Joe takes out his cigarette case. “No you’re not.”

Charles giggles and sniffs. “I am, too.”

“Is Danya here?”

“You’ll never know.”

Joe now looks at Charles as he pulls a match from his coat pocket.

“Don’t look at me. Okay? I’m going to shoot your balls off...I SAID DON’T LOOK AT ME!”

“I’m not looking. Not really. Not yet.”

Then Joe lights the match, passing his hand over it, as he always does. The match flares. He lights his cigarette.

Charles has witnessed this. He is silent. “Holy crap,” he finally whispers.

“Is Danya in the house?”

Charles wipes his nose, and then nods, a little too eagerly.

Joe cautiously opens the door.

Sampson stands in the hallway, his shotgun aimed at Joe. The big man grins, his hearing aid prominent.

“You killed Dog,” Joe tells Sampson.

“I did what?”

Charles has moved behind Joe where he can see Sampson in the hallway.

“Shoot him. Go on. Shoot him,” Charles tells Sampson.

Sampson cocks his head. “What you say?”

“I said shoot him,” Charles yells.

Joe hasn’t shifted his position in the doorway. He exudes calmness. “You killed dog. You did. I know. Why?”

Joe is staring at Sampson now and already Sampson is wavering; his facial expression taking on the pallor of a man sick at sea.

“Just who or what the shit is Dog?” Charles asks.

Joe stares at Sampson, boring into him. “Dog was the bird, my bird.”

“What you gonna do, Sampson? Huh? Huh?” Charles asks Sampson, loudly.

“I don’t know...what you going to do? He’s looking at me again, Charles.”

Joe hasn't flinched.

“Hef - Hef he said to kill the bird. To make it go quiet,” Sampson finally admits, incapable of breathing regularly now.

“People like you started the senseless rot and the violence. People like you who should have cared.”

“I can’t hear you?”

Charles is dancing on his feet with nervousness. He knows it has all gone horribly wrong, that both he and Sampson are sinking in the quicksand Joe has managed to plant.

“I asked you where is Danya?”

“He lit a match! Oh shit...with his hand!” Charles sniffs from behind Joe, his eyes darting left and right.

“Where is she?” Joe again asks, this time louder, but still in control.

“Sky took her.”

“Took her where?”

“He said we were to meet at the canyon at sunrise...afterwards.”

“Afterwards...?”

Sampson fiddles with his hearing-aid: anything to avoid Joe’s presence. “After...after us...Charles, not me...was going to make it so’s you...you know...”

“No I don’t know...”

“Don’t tell him anything Sampson,” Charles yells from the background, his boots stirring the dust.

Sampson eyes the floor. “So’s you can’t breed no more,”  e tells Joe.

Joe steps closer to Sampson very quickly. “You killed my friend,” he says on the move, and then he slaps Sampson’s ear, the one without the hearing-aid. He slaps it with a full hand, palm in, and the blow rings out like a pistol shot.

And as Sampson yelps like a struck puppy, Joe is already striding off, past Charles and toward The Sow. Charles dodges out of Joe’s path, his feet numb with nervousness, and the shotgun as useless as the sudden air in his bowels.

Sampson, clasping his head, staggers out of the house.

“Sky is going to kill us...Sky is going to take our balls,” Charles whispers as he watches The Sow transport Joe away, not even wanting to question or deliberate the silence of the auto mobile. 

“Screw, Sky...”says Sampson.

Charles looks at his friend. “What did you say?”

“I said screw Sky, why?”

Before The Event, the breaking of dawn was a slow unveiling, like a chameleon changing colour, a chrysalis to butterfly – a slow realisation that day was impending.

This is the pace, the crawl, that realisation spreads across Sampson’s face. He pulls his hearing-aid away from his ear. He looks at it. He looks at Charles.

“Charles,” Sampson says quietly. “I can hear. He’s made it so I can hear.”

Free download of TALKING WITH DOG

...there's a FREE download off Amazon on TALKING WITH DOG this weekend ! Please use the chance to add your comments and reviews.
Click on the book's cover and it will take you to the link.

Free Download

This is Dog!

Two Feet - Lesson #4 from the playground

Two Feet's home

I viewed the first episode of the BBC's period drama, The Village, last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it: well written (no nonsense dialogue) strongly directed and it depicted the period without unnecessary garnish.   Perhaps a little dark in mood in some places, but without the dark we wouldn't appreciate the light, would we now?  There were one or two scenes set in the boy's classroom that evoked memories of our Meneer Gerber, hence the following extract. 

Please feel free to comment!!

IS GOD A MECHANIC?

 Meneer Gerber once said we were all marching forward on God’s road.

 God was our engine, driving us on.

 God was our petrol, fuelling us around the bends and up the hills and down the hills.

 God was a powerful motor vehicle, and we were his passengers.

I wanted to put my hand up and ask if God wore a crash helmet as the racing car drivers do that I had seen pictures of. But I did not.

I wanted to put my hand up and ask if God’s car as it zoomed along, also left behind clouds of red dust that asphyxiated bird and insect as it travelled. But I did not.

I wanted to put up my hand and ask if God’s car had any gears, especially a reverse gear. I was thinking that a reverse gear would be a good idea for God’s car because if there were any mistakes to be fixed, God could just reverse over the mistakes and then drive forward again. This way he could fix the mistakes and make certain they never occurred again. But I did not ask.

I wanted to put my hand up and ask if God’s engine ever broke down. But I did not.

But I should.

Was a submersible borehole-pump not a part of God’s engine?

I won’t ask.

But if God was in control of an engine, any engine, then He would know how to repair it?

But I should ask.

A borehole was an engine. It had an engine, a pump. It was buried deep down in the shaft after the drilling machine – Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! -- had driven away leaving mounds of red clay and diesel and black oil stains on the grass. Yes, a pump engine that sucked the water from down there where it was quiet and still and dark. Immersed in the bowels of the earth, where the sun didn't shine and where the water was sweet

I won’t ask.

I will.

Will not.

Will.

I raised my hand.

“Meneer?”

Meneer Gerber had his feet up on the desk. He twisted his feet and separated them so he could get a view of me. He remained lounging back in the wooden chair that often creaked with the sound of a timid fart. He looked at me between his polished shoes.

“I did not ask a question, boy.”

“No, Meneer.”

“Then what the bloody Hell do you want?”

“You are in deep kak (shit), Rooinek!”That was Pisskop’s whispering voice. He sat at the rear of the class, but his words were like rifle shots in my burning ears.

Stand up, Feet. Make me stand. Please!

I stood on shaking knees trying to focus on Meneer Gerber’s shoes that partly hid his face. I was deeply flushed. I felt as if I was rolling in a field of stinging nettles. The soles of Meneer Gerber’s shoes were worn thin, and there was a patch on the left shoe. I spoke to the patch.

“Dust, Meneer. There is only dust now because the borehole engine has broken. In the vegetable garden where my mother is growing radishes, beetroot, cabbage and carrots so we can sell them at the road shop. (Breathe, chest in and out) Mister Kelly, he says the pump is old and worn, and he showed us the remains of some rusty pieces (cheeks hot, so hot)...so... so now there is no water, Meneer because of the pump so we...we are carrying water now from the dam in Mister Kelly’s jerry cans. (Bare-feet now sweating on the wooden floorboards and toes curling) We use a pole, Meneer, so we can carry the water on our shoulders, you see? But the grass on the hill is dry, Meneer and we are often falling and (hearing a dry chuckle from Pisskop)...and Mabuza is helping with some rope to pull the jerry cans up the hill, and my mother, she is really trying to show the water the way to find the vegetables. (No breath anymore. Sucking in air) Meneer, but it is not enough water without the borehole engine so...so...I...the plants are dying in the dust so I...so I...was thinking that maybe God because he knows engines, Meneer, can fix the submersible pump?”

Meneer Gerber abruptly swings his feet off the desk. He sits slowly upright in the wooden chair that makes a farting sound. He does not lose focus on me.

I remained standing. Sweaty, naked feet glued to wooden floorboards. A strong smell of chalk suddenly, a waft of Pisskop’s sour body odour. A movement from Max, the baker’s son behind his desk: more of a nervous squirm, like someone waiting for a film to be projected.

“You are in deep, deep kak (shit), Rooi-Nek”, whispers Pisskop from out there amongst the blurred faces.

Think: - mother on hands and knees in dust whispering to rivulet of tepid water. Solution: - God repairs pump. Result: - mother not necessary to be on hands and knees in dust whispering to tepid water.

“Are you...”His voice is shrill with pain, like the sound a rugby player makes when he is kicked between the legs. He coughs then again speaks.

 “Are you are asking me if God is bloody mechanic, boy?”

I am I suppose, so I nod, and my head feels heavy, so I know the gesture makes me look like a dumb child with his bare feet glued to a wooden floor.

I am soon bent over with my head in the corner. Above my head, just a few inches away, is a small book shelf. It carries two heavy books – the A-Z of African Wildlife and Fauna and the A-Z of Places of the World. There is a layer of chalk dust on the books. They are not a part of the curriculum so are never read and left to gather chalk dust.

When a child is bent over in a corner of a room and he is given a caning, his first reaction is to recoil; is to lift up his head. That is what the bookshelf is for. When you recoil, you slam your head into the bookshelf. This way Meneer Gerber gets you twice with one blow. This way the A-Z of African Wildlife and Fauna and the A-Z of Places in the World also have some use.

I look down at my two, bare feet as Meneer Gerber lands the first of six strokes. He will land the second stroke half an inch above the first, then the third will strike where the first landed. He is a master of his craft.

I wonder if God will try the reverse gear for me.