Masande Ntshanga - The Reactive

Ruan’s reading an old comic book, an effort to calm his nerves. He’s had this issue since he was twelve, he says, and he’s let me have a look at it a few times. Half its pages are falling out, and it’s about the Silver Surfer. The superhero wakes up on an alien planet, stranded without his surfboard, the source of his energy. Close to the end, he tries to sell his memories for a way out, but gets cheated by an agency that converts them to video.

I watch him from the couch. Ruan closes the comic book and places it carefully on the table. Cissie returns with the package and hands it to Ethelia, who receives it with both hands.

What is it?

Cissie turns to us. We don’t know, she says, but it’s yours.

Is it from my father?

Cissie doesn’t reply. Ruan and I don’t say anything, either. I realize I’ve never imagined Ethelia as having a voice.

My aunt told me my father was an important man, she says. Then she shakes the parcel. Can I open it?

It’s yours, Cissie says.

Ethelia opens the package and money spills out, scattering on Cissie’s floor. It’s several wads of two-hundred-rand notes, followed by an ID and a passport.

Ethelia bends over to pick up the money, and for a moment it’s as if she’s back with her concrete pieces again — arranging them into another secret empire. Ruan, Cissie and I lean down to help, and Ethelia laughs as she handles the money. She laughs at the images of herself in the passport and ID.

So who knew? Cissie says. You’re a Canadian.

I search the kitchen drawers and find rubber bands for the notes. Then I try to count the money, but it’s too much to guess at a glance. We pack it up in bundles.

Ethelia stands with the package flat against her chest. My aunt will be happy, she says, before going quiet. Then she looks up again. You’ve seen my father, haven’t you?

Yes.

I guess all three of us say this at once.

Then Ruan and Cissie look at me and I go on.

We saw him, I say, and he wanted us to give you this.

Ethelia nods. Did he say anything about coming to my aunt’s?

I shake my head.

Then Ethelia looks down and nods. She starts to turn.

Wait, Cissie says, hold on. I have an idea.

She leaves the room and returns with a piece of paper and a sharpened pencil. Taking Ethelia by the hand, she leads her to the coffee table, kicking away an empty water bottle we were using for huffing. Ruan and I lean closer.

We watch them. Cissie asks Ethelia to draw a picture of the planet. It’s the lesson she’s used in her daycare class, the one her students couldn’t get right. Ethelia takes the pencil and touches it against the foolscap.

Cissie says, imagine you’re away from your aunt, and imagine you’re away from West Ridge Heights. She places a hand on Ethelia’s shoulder. Imagine you’re away from your envelope, and away from the three of us, also.

Then, when Ethelia starts to sketch an oval shape inside the page’s margins, Cissie says: imagine you’re drawing a map into all of us.

In the morning, around seven, I email my landlord and tell him I want out of my twelve-month lease. I’ve come to accept that this has to be done. François replies that it’s fine, it won’t cause much hassle, he’ll start showing the place to people right away. I type back, great, and leave West Ridge with Ruan and Cissie still asleep.

Down at the parking-lot gate, I wait for a car taking someone to work or school, and trail after its brake lights. Then I take a taxi along Main Road to Obs.

There was another hospital strike, our driver says when we reach the first stop in Mowbray. The passengers are packed on the seats behind him: twenty-two of us crammed in a fog of mixed perfume. The driver describes the passing of his mother-in-law, whose lungs collapsed in a Golden Arrow bus the previous morning.

That’s life, the driver says, before rolling down his window.

From my seat I look out at the racing tar, at the undulating roofs of the brazen storefronts, and I remember how, in my fourth year of high school, my biology teacher took a flying class on the coast of Natal, and discovered a lesson for us in the air above Richards Bay. Her name was Mrs. Mathers, and when she returned to our class the following week, she told us how the Earth was gutted open with so many new graves for paupers, that when the clouds parted, they revealed a view from the sky that looked like a giant honeycomb. Then she watched everyone’s expression. Mrs. Mathers was a part-time student of our emotional development. My classmates and I were known as the Math One class, relied upon for acuity but not much else, and we were only eighteen in number. Our teacher told us each grave was meant to contain the bodies of twenty adults.

She said to us, that is HIV.

I get off at Anzio and walk down past Lower Main. I use a round black tag to get inside my building, walk up two flights of stairs and let myself into my flat. The place feels like a storage room. It’s dead still and airless. I open a window and drop myself on the bed.

Then I try to doze off and fail.

I peel my phone from my pocket and hold it in my palm. It’s open on the text messenger. I remember Bhut’ Vuyo’s first message to me.

Lindanathi, you’ve come of age, it said.

It’s been almost ten years. That’s how long Luthando’s been turning into powder inside the Earth. I rub my hand over my face and spend another minute looking at my cellphone. Then I close my eyes and try for sleep again, but nothing comes.

Later, when I try to use the toilet, I get the same feeling. Nothing makes its way out of me as I squat over the porcelain, and I feel time slowing down again. I lift the cistern lid and pull on the lever to flush. Then I walk back to the kitchen and drink a glass of water with ice. In the end, I manage to get two hours of sleep.

Waking up again, I text Cecelia, asking her if she wants anything. I’ve accepted I’ll have to give most of my belongings away.

I wait, but there’s no reply, so I turn my computer on. Then I get up from my desk and walk over to the lav again to take a leak. You’ve never been happy here, I say, observing myself in the speckled mirror. Then I light a cigarette and try to do the dishes, but my hands start trembling. I drain the water and make a cup of tea instead.

Sitting back at my desk, I click on a button that sends the browser to my blog. There’s a draft of a post I wrote more than a week ago. I read through it again from the top. This is how it goes:

Last night I projected myself out of my body, going through more loops than is usual for me. I’ve forgotten the first loop, which is common. The second one took place at a party somewhere. No one seemed impressed by my ability to fly for short amounts of time, or to jump really high above the ground. Flying feels like trying to stay awake when you’re extremely tired and half-asleep. I discovered fear is what inhibits flight. I was an artist in the second loop and met another artist. He held my face and looked into my eyes and said, yes, it’s true, you’re dreaming. He was impressed. He talked about it at length. This made me too aware of being in a loop, however, and the loop disintegrated and I found myself at my father’s house. There was a man pacing in the backyard; when I followed him, he dug a hole in the ground and disappeared. I became aware of dreaming again, and feeling exhausted. I tested myself by jumping over a heap of sharp rocks. Then I tried to pull a spider towards me with my mind. It moved, but it could’ve been the wind. Eventually, I heard a voice telling me it was fine, that I could still do it. I felt relief, but at the same time fear because I wouldn’t be able to do it again. I was struck by the idea of being in what you know is a dream, but without capabilities, with a fragmented memory and an unstable reality. I thought maybe this is what schizophrenia is. I didn’t remember having taken off my shirt, but I was topless. I’d had enough, but I couldn’t will myself to wake up and this made me panic. Then I found the shirt in front of the house, and as I picked it up and turned around, that’s when I woke up to now, in bed, my heart beating fast. I recognized this as reality because of the new weight I felt coursing through me, my body recognizing the Earth’s gravitational field. Then I opened my eyes to find everything in place.