TWO FEET - FREE KINDLE DOWNLOAD

An inspirational journey.

Free Kindle download for two days on AMAZON.COM. Please LEAVE YOUR REVIEWS!!!!! IT ALL HELPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TAGLINE;

After the abrupt disappearance of his father, young Mark finds solace in an unconventional upbringing within a close-knit South African community during the 1960s in this unique coming-of-age novella.

BRIEF SYNOPSIS;

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.

The Swazi warrior Mabuza once said 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. And if anyone knows about navigating potholes, its young Mark —victim of a broken home, abruptly abandoned by his father, and struggling to deal with the loss. But under the guidance and protection of Mabuza, and others in his South African community, Mark learns to find solace and dream his way toward a brighter future—while adjusting to some unorthodox teaching methods along the way. Adventurous and inspiring, this film urges viewers to reflect on the concepts of childhood, family, and community.

AUTHOR’S BIO:

Mark was born in South Africa. He lived in Swaziland in the 1960's and returned there in the 70's. His unconventional life has led him to many parts of the world. He backpacked through Eastern Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Scandinavia ( a period that was the basis of his first screenplay and directorial début ) finally ending up in Washington D.C. working in the Australian Embassy. There he was smitten by the film bug and returned to South Africa where television production was in its heyday. Mark is now a recognised film director and lives in the United Kingdom. He is married, and has one daughter.

He is the author of The Bone Traders, a post apocalyptic story and Two Feet, a novella of his unconventional upbringing in Southern Africa in the 1960's.

YOUTUBE LINK FOR AUDIO READING OF CHAPTER ONE BY MILES ANDERSON

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emM80i4FNh4

TWO FEET IS SELF- PUBLISHED ON AMAZON BOTH AS A PAPERBACK AND AS A KINDLE DOWNLOAD. 

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!

TWO FEET - AUDIO BOOK SAMPLE - MARK ROPER

....Mark Roper's tale of an unconventional upbringing in South Africa in the 1960's is now available as a FULL Audio Book narrated by the credited actor, Miles Anderson -- on Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

Shopping in the wind (better than at Morrisons!)

...a FREE chapter from the novella, TWO FEET, by MARK ROPER. In it he explains, briefly, what is was to go shopping in Swaziland in the late 1960's. Some of Mark's earlier Blogs reflect his attitude toward modern day shopping!!! (There's a salad on my head, Brain Decay etc etc). TWO FEET will soon be available as a FULL audio book read by the well known stage and screen actor, Miles Anderson.  Please free free to comment and, needless to say, TWO FEET is available to purchase on +Amazon.com 

SHOPPING IN THE WIND

But they did come and repossess the car. It was a red Mini-Imp, and the men that came were from a large, prosperous city across the border, and they didn't even stay for coffee. They just drove it off down the thin, corrugated and eroded dirt road that led down the hill onto the main road.

We stood and watched it go. “Shit,” is what my mother said.

We were left with a black bicycle, and on this bicycle I would pedal on the tarmac road to the local General Dealer every day. It was a long road bordered by pineapple fields, and the labourers working in those fields wore old, plastic fertilizer bags tied to their legs to avoid the sharpness of the pineapple leaves. They were like human scarecrows.

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.

If a can of paraffin was listed on my mother’s shopping list, the road and the ride home was a challenge. Paraffin was an essential fuel. It kept the deep freeze and the fridge cold and the hurricane lamps alight when there was a power failure. The bag of meagre groceries I could hang on the handlebars, but a five-gallon metal container filled with paraffin was heavy and cumbersome, and the only place for it was between my legs on the hard saddle so I’d peddle off with knees and elbows wide like a frog in mid-flight and my backside almost touching the rear tyre.

The road I travelled was often shared with one or two eighteen-wheeler railway trucks.  Red, monstrous and loud, they travelled across the country transporting cattle, timber and sugar cane. Long before they came into sight the tarmac beneath the bicycle’s front wheel would vibrate, and as fate would have it, we’d meet on the downhill, so there was no time or place for stopping. Feet would start pumping wildly on the pedals and my backside would take to the air and the paraffin would begin sloshing left and right as the grocery bag began to scream and tear against the spokes of the front tyre.

To this day I don’t have a clue why I thought going faster would save me from the metallic beast that was coming up behind me. It is what boys do.

The driver of the monster would purposefully sound his foghorn as he neared. The sound of the tyres and the metal was ferocious as the vehicle passed, like a freight train coming out of a tunnel and crossing a steel bridge. It felt endless. It was a red blur out of the corner of your eye. The handlebars of the bicycle shuddered like a jack hammer in your hands. The tarmac was a dark blur, and the yellow grass on the verge becomes a spray of colour without shape.

Then the wind, the gale, the blizzard, the hurricane hit.

It came off the passing vehicle and slammed into you as you quickly tensed your flailing knees, and sphincter muscle, around the five-gallon paraffin can. You try to turn the bicycle’s juddering wheel into the wind with no success. You bend your head so low you are just short of chewing the metal of the handlebars.

Then you are in the ditch, and you are being watched by a group of labourers that work in a pineapple field dressed like human scarecrows. The bag of sugar you bought has exploded on the hot tarmac, and the bar of Lifebuoy soap has disintegrated against the fence-pole, and the bicycle has curled up some twenty feet away shaped like a modern sculpture.

But you are still holding the five-gallons of paraffin to your chest as if it were liquid gold.

Which it was.

 *****

Mabuza once told me that when travelling on any road and there is a fear of being struck from behind by an ill wind, get off the road.

*****

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!!!

Is God a Mechanic?

To read more of Mark Roper's writing, please read the novella, TWO FEET, available on this site with its link to +Amazon.com. For a mere pittance it is available as a +Kindle Fire download or as a paperback.

Feel free to comment and support this Blog. Your purchase will enable me to sharpen the pencil, or, at least, buy another! 

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 repair 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 of 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. I sense movement from Max, the baker’s son, seated behind his desk. It is more of a nervous squirm, like someone waiting for a film to be projected.

“You are in deep, deep kak (shit), Rooinek,” 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, and 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 are 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, and 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.

*****

A question I never asked:

“Daddy, how do I switch this on?”

*****

A question I never asked:

“Daddy, how do I switch this off?”

TO READ THE CONCLUSION OF THIS STORY, CHECK UNDER POPULAR POSTS ON THE LEFT!!!

Emergency Data Law

Now that the UK parliament has passed the Emergency Data Law does that mean they have the right to read and check my letters?
If so, maybe they can make sense of my electricity bill +EDF Energy or the umpteen pages of crap relating to lounge suites, car insurance and window glazing that keep the postman busy.
Grumpy. Time to shake out the old Olivetti typewriter but I did recently hear that during the Cold War, the Russians implanted some gizmo in the golf-ball typewriters (remember them?) that were being used by the Americans in their Embassy. The gizmo calculated the rotations of the ball and the letters it was using -- how on earth they used that info is beyond my ageing brain -- all sounds like nonsense but it was something I heard -- just saying nowhere is safe. Carrier pigeon??????