Janita Lawrence - Why You Were Taken

‘Nope,’ says Keke. ‘That’s like saying you miss coal-powered electricity. Or cables. Or teleconferencing. Or hashtags. Or church. Or Pro-Lifers.’

‘Or condoms. Or tanning,’ adds Kirsten.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ says Keke.

‘I hope you’re referring to tanning.’

Keke laughs.

Kirsten says: ‘You know what I don’t miss? Handshakes. I always hated shaking people’s hands. I found it bizarre even before the Bug, before people stopped doing it. It’s too… intimate… to do with a stranger. Which is when you usually had to do it. I’m no germophobe, but…’

‘I know! You’re taught as a kid to catch your sneeze with your hand—’

‘—and cover your mouth when you cough—’

‘And then the next moment you’re shaking everyone in the room’s hands.’

They both pull faces at each other.

‘Some people still do it, you know.’

‘Ja, well, bad habits die hard.’

They drink.

‘So,’ she says, ‘how’re you doing?’

It made Kirsten squirm to talk about herself when she wasn’t in a good place, when her Black Hole was gaping, trying to swallow her. Who wants to hear about her hollowness? Who wants to be bored with her First World Problems when they had enough of their own? When someone asked her how she was when she was feeling like this she was always tempted to yell ‘Fine!’ and change the subject as quickly as possible. But Keke knew her better than that.

The Black Hole is Kirsten’s name for the empty space she has always felt deep within herself. She had never known a time without it, only that it shrinks and expands depending on what was happens in her life. When she fell for Marmalade James, for example, it was pocket-sized: a small blushing apricot. When it sunk in that her parents were dead: a brittle plastic vacuum cleaner, emphasis on the vacuum. Not being able to get pregnant is the size of a tightly formed fist, which free-floats around inside her body but is mostly lodged between her ribcage and her heart. Sometimes the hole grows or narrows inexplicably, and makes her wonder if there is another version of her walking around, falling in and out of love and otherwise experiencing the rollercoaster of (a parallel) life. She has always had The Black Hole, it is part of who she is, and it hurts her insides just thinking that she will most likely carry it to her grave.

Keke, sensing her discomfort, says: ‘Your plants are doing well.’

‘Yes,’ says Kirsten, looking around as if she had forgotten they were there. ‘They’re happy.’

‘Happy may be an understatement. Your flat is a veritable jungle.’

Kirsten laughs. ‘It’s not.’

‘It is! There’s a lot of fucking oxygen in here. Do you even remember what colour the walls are?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘If I ever run out of news stories I’m going to come back here and do an ultra-reality segment on you. The crazy plant lady. Living in a Jozi Jungle. Madame Green Fingers.’

‘Ha,’ says Kirsten.

Keke puts on her important-news-headline voice: ‘Most lonely women get cats, but Kirsten Lovell is a fan of… flora.’

‘Ha. Ha.’

‘Most hoarders are content with keeping mountains of old take-away containers, but this woman can’t get enough of The Green Stuff.’

‘That makes me sound like a weed-vaper.’

‘Her neighbours called the authorities when the vines began creeping through the walls and into their kitchens… it was clear: time for an intervention.’

‘Okay, hilarious. You can stop now.’

‘Really? I was having fun.’

‘I could tell.’

‘It started off innocently, you know. A fern here, an orchid there.’

‘Ah, yes, those orchids. Gateway plants.’

They smile at each other. Kirsten is surprised at how grateful she is for the company.

‘Earl Grey.’

‘Er, what?’

‘The colour of the walls,’ says Kirsten. ‘Earl Grey. The colour you get in your head when you taste bergamot.’

‘You’d better not say that on camera. They’ll cart you off to somewhere you can’t hurt yourself.’

‘Hm. That doesn’t sound too bad.’

Keke leans forward again. Business time.

‘So. Is there any news from your side about the… burglary – from the cops? Any leads?’

Kirsten shakes her head.

‘ Niks nie.’

God, she hates talking about it, thinking about it. Pictures, unbidden, flash in on her mind. The broken glass and splinters on the floor, the up-ended furniture. Pillows ripped apart. The hungry-looking safe wrenched open and plundered.

The blood was the worst. There wasn’t a lot of it – in a kind of detached way she had noticed how little actual blood was spilt – but the vividness of the colour (Fresh Crimson), like leaked oil paint – it was as if it had come alive and advanced on her, misting her vision and strangling her: and that unforgettable assailing metallic smell. An avalanche of a thousand copper spheres.

‘Nothing? Not one lead?’ presses Keke.

‘If they have one, they’re not sharing it. All I know is what they said upfront, that it looks like it was a house robbery gone wrong. Looks like it was two guys who broke in. Something about bullet trajectories and blood spatter.’

Keke frowns at her. She knows it must sound bizarre to hear someone talk so technically about the murder of her own parents. But Keke knows that Kirsten doesn’t cry. She describes Kirsten as ‘immune to face-melting.’

‘There will definitely be some kind of… forensic evidence. Crime scenes of botched burglaries are usually teeming with the stuff.’

The bodies had looked like jointed paper dolls, the vintage ones you dress with paper clothes, 2D. Her father’s body drawn as if he were a runner in a comic book. A big red bloom over his heart. Her mother, unusually pious, hands secured in prayer position with a bracelet of black cable-tie (Salted Liquorice). A small hole in her head. Both lying on their sides, their waxen faces resting on the dull, dirty carpet.

There is a cool palm on Kirsten’s arm and she flinches, looks up and blinks past the pictures in her head.

‘Are you okay? I’m sure you’re still very shaken up, it hasn’t even been—’

‘I’m fine. I’ll be fine.’

‘You shouldn’t be alone. Where’s Marmalade?’

‘It’s been long enough.’

‘Long enough? It hasn’t even a month, Kitty Cat. The last time I saw you was at the funeral, for God’s sake.’

They sit in silence. The funeral: twin coffins and the cloying scent of lilies. Pollen stains on white tablecloths. Clammy hugs.

‘Zim,’ says Kirsten. ‘James is in Zimbabwe, at that new clinic.’

‘Then who is all this healthy food for?’ she asks, motioning at the toppling fruit bowl and vegetable stand.

For thirteen years James has tried to stud Kirsten’s junk food diet with healthy alternatives. If she was going to eat that CaraCrunch, then she should have a low-fruc Minneola, too. Slap chips? The mitigating snack was a handful of edamame. He would tempt her with fresh chilli gazpachos, honeyed veg-juices spiked with galangal, wild salmon salami. He ate as if he could reverse the diseases he saw in the world.

‘He always stocks up the house before he goes, hoping I’ll run out of junk and resort to eating some kind of plant matter. He says we should buy shares in Bilchen and then at least we’ll have money for the double bypass surgery I’ll need one day.’

Bilchen is the Swiss-owned megacorp that produces the majority of processed food in the world: cheap, tasty, and full of unpronounceable ingredients. In addition to their plants in China and Indonesia they own hundreds of factories in SA, producing mountains of consumables, from food to hygiene products to pet snacks.