| |
S.A. Partridge
––––––––
The Russians found the new planet. Double the size of Earth, it was hiding in the shadows of Pluto all this time. At least, that’s how I understand it.
––––––––
We huddle inside Mzizi’s with our eyes glued to the flatscreen TV to watch the Russian astronauts celebrate on the space station.
“Sisi, Sisi, look at them float?”
I squeeze my little brother’s shoulder in warning. “Shh, Vuyo. Other people want to watch too.”
Sometimes my little brother Vuyo doesn’t realise that he isn’t alone in his little universe, but then again, this is his first time inside the Shebeen. Any other day it would have been Strictly Forbidden, but tonight is a Special Occasion. At four, he’s only starting to learn the difference.
A few people giggle when the globules of Champagne float inexplicably upwards on the screen, but they are quickly shushed into silence when the announcer begins talking in his thick European accent.
Ma Agnes, who is hard of hearing, pulls me closer with a thin, bony hand that is surprisingly strong. “What is he saying?”
I lean down till my lips are centimetres from her iron gray hair. I catch a whiff of Lavender and Sunlight soap, which is refreshing over the smoke and sweat of the bar. “He says the astronauts couldn’t see it because there’s no light in space that could reflect off it. They received an unusual radio frequency which led them there.”
Ma Agnes sucks on her toothless bottom lip. “But there it is, on the screen.”
I stare at the slick black orb floating in outer space. They’ve named it Planet X for now. Black on black; it’s like one of those optical illusions where a shape appears the longer you stare at it. For some reason, the picture scares me. Goosebumps flare up my arms. “I don’t understand either, Ma. Maybe it’s a special type of photograph or something.”
The picture switches to the white streets of Moscow where residents brave the cold to wave flags and shout things we can’t understand into the camera. They clearly take the Russian space programme as seriously as we take our sport.
By this time Vuyo is bored. He leans his full weight against my legs and I have to grab hold of the side of the bar to steady myself.
He shoots his chubby arms in the air like he used to before Ma succumbed to the Virus, and I oblige, lifting him up onto my hip. “Oof, you’re getting too big to be carried, bro.”
He flashes me an uneven toothy grin. Two more milk teeth have fallen out and the Tooth Fairy left nothing underneath his pillow. I need to keep a closer eye on him.
As the news credits roll, a hundred different conversations begin at once. Vuyo’s eyes take in the excited expressions around the crowded room. “Why is everyone here?” he asks.
I don’t know how to explain the significance of what is happening to a toddler. I try anyway. “You know how we listen to the radio in the morning?”
He nods. So far so good.
“Who is our favourite DJ?”
“DJ Ama-Get-Down,” he says gleefully.
“Ok, good. Now the Russian astronauts also listen to the radio, but it’s always the same, boring static like when we search for a station, neh?”
He nods, a little slower this time.
“But one day, they found a station, and it came from this new planet, this Planet X.”
“Do they have DJs there?”
I think for a second before answering. “Yes, and that’s why everyone is excited.”
He accepts this explanation without question.
Out the corner of my eye I see Festus Shabalala passing around brown quart bottles of beer which is our cue to head home.
“Come, Baba, let’s get you into bed.”
He’s having none of it. “No one else is going,” he whines.
He struggles in my grip, but tonight I’m the big, bad, older sister.
“Don’t push it,” I say.
We shove our way through the crowd, which has thickened since we arrived. News travels fast in the townships.
Still, we get home very late as Vuyo attempts to count each and every star.
“Is that it, Sisi?” he asks.
“No, Vuyo,” I say for the hundredth time. “Planet X is too dark to see.”
––––––––
Every face on the train is lost behind a newspaper, and those that don’t have one read over their neighbour’s shoulder. Headlines ask the questions we are all thinking. “WHO SENT THE MESSAGE? WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE? WHY HAVEN’T THEY TRIED TO CONTACT US BEFORE?”
The elderly man seated next to me catches my eye. He leans forward, and so does his smell.
I re-adjust my position on the hard plastic seat, but it’s too late, he’s already honed in on me.
“They’re coming for us. Do you know what they do to people on their ships? Experiments.” Saliva flies from his mouth when he speaks.
I edge away from him. I don’t want to talk to him, but the reply forms on my lips automatically—it’s a bad habit I’m trying to drop. “People do terrible things to each other all the time.”
His eyes narrow. Clearly that wasn’t the response he was looking for.
I’m relieved when he moves away to find someone else to bother. I’m even more relieved when the last of his smell dissipates.
I press my headphones closer to my ears and wait out the rest of the short journey to the City. Ever since Metrorail replaced the wasp coloured scrap heaps with new speed lines, it takes next to no time at all to get to work. Too bad it’s double the price. If work didn’t subsidise my travel costs I’d never be able to go anywhere.
High-speed trains or not, I’m still late. I run all the way up Riebeeck Street, pushing my way past street vendors setting up their stalls of cheap chips and cigarettes. People are hovering around them reading the papers. The new planet seems to be good for business. It’s good for being late too. My colleagues are all too busy chatting excitedly about Planet X to notice me slip down the aisle to my desk. I log into my computer and pull up my schedule.
My task for the day is to come up with Ad Copy for our clients—today an Adult website, that will need to get past a browser’s security nets. This involves a lot of creative thinking and a lot of copy pasting.
It takes a couple of minutes to come up with a few variations on ‘Large collection of Adult films’, which I’ll alternate over a number of spreadsheets. Most of our clients are dubious websites. Yesterday, I had to come up with copy for an online Casino, and the day before that a Russian Bride catalogue.
It’s hard to believe that the XXXs represent living breathing women subjected to the lowest kind of degradation. I try not to think about it and focus instead on the mindless task of filling the cells without actually taking in what I’m typing. It helps to focus on the first letter and ignore the rest.
What also helps is the vast amount of pirated music on our data servers. A little Drum ‘n Bass does wonders to deaden the guilt of trying to convince people to visit a website that sells Porn.
Towards the end of the day, I receive an email from my friend Azania that opens with, ‘Nonhlanhla, this is sick. You must check it out!’
My first instinct is to click Delete, but my fingers hesitate over the keyboard. Azania isn’t the type of person who would pass on those horrific SPCA newsletters featuring burnt and tortured animals. She’s more the Amusing Cat type, which is a special type of torture in itself.
I open the mail. It’s a news story that’s only a few minutes old:
CATTLE MUTILATIONS SCAR WESTERN CAPE
Residents of the farming town of Porterville woke up this morning to the grisly discovery of a field of disembowelled livestock that appear to have been killed during the night.
Local farmer, Piet Wolmerans, was alerted by his staff in the early hours of the morning. Wolmerans told reporters that when he first approached the field, he saw a few hundred cows lying on their sides, seemingly unconscious, ‘but when I approached the first animal I found a hole where its stomach should have been. There was no blood.’
Wolmerans is one of four farmers affected by the strange mutilations. Two thousand cows in the Western Cape were affected.
Farm worker Tertius September describes a strange light in the sky at around 2 am. ‘At first I thought it was headlights, but when I opened the window I could see that it took up the whole sky.’
The National Department of Agriculture have quarantined the area in the likelihood that a dread disease has found its way to our shores. A spokesperson from the Department was unavailable for comment.
By Elias Khumalo.
The article is accompanied by a colour photograph of a cow with its stomach spooned out. I delete it before I lose my lunch into the dustbin.
––––––––
The sky has darkened by the time I arrive at the train station, and so has the mood. Azania waits for me on the platform in a short-short skirt and high-higher-highest heels. I have no idea how she walks around the city in them. Her look of nervousness was replaced with excitement when she spots me.
“Eish, Nonhlanhla, did you see that story? I’m not going to sleep after that.”
My stomach heaves at the choice of topic. I don’t remind her that she insisted I open the email in the first place. “What do you think did that to the animals, a lion?”
She laughs. “A lion. Where is your head, girl? It’s the aliens, I’m telling you.”
We find two seats on the train and settle in. “Why would they kill the cows, though? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Who knows? Maybe they’re trying to find out what makes us tick or maybe to see what we taste like. Just as long as they stick to the cows, neh?”
I laugh, but it sounds strange and hollow in the too-quiet compartment. I quickly change the subject. We talk about work, and whether or not I should go on a date with Khaya, who’s been arriving unannounced at my door with flowers all week.
“It takes more than flowers to like someone, Z.”
“Who said anything about like? In these times you have to take what you can get.”
“I have Vuyo to think about too.”
“And that’s exactly why you should go out with Khaya. Life is expensive and he’s got big bucks. He can look after you both.”
I’m glad she’s studying her nails so she can’t see my expression. Dating rich men may be fine and well for Azania, but I’m not that type of girl.
She puts her hand on my knee. “It’s hard to find a man who’ll take you and your baggage. You see this?” she asks, waving a diamante studded purse. “This is nothing. A gift. When was the last time someone bought you a gift or took you to eat at an actual restaurant?”
I let her voice recede into a nondescript blah blah.
The train is about to depart when the doors are pried open by a pair of hands in fingerless gloves. It’s a Train Preacher, sweaty and heaving from running. I lean back in my seat and avert my eyes. The travelling preachers are all fire and brimstone. This one holds a battered copy of The Daily Cape in his hands. He holds it up in his fist. The headline reads “VAMPIRES FROM SPACE: ARE WE THEIR PREY?”
His voice booms above the screech of the train. “There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind.”
To my surprise, quite a few passengers lean forward to listen. Next to me, Azania, stops typing on her phone, and she too pays attention. Unease grows in my stomach like a snake uncurling itself.
“Their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth.”
I don’t want to listen. I want to press play on my MP3 player but he’s standing too close to me and my hands remain folded helplessly in my lap.
His eyes bore into mine. “Sister, do you resign your soul to the keeping of the Lord?”
I turn my head slowly. All the passengers are looking at me expectantly. I nod quickly.
“Amen, brothers and sisters, Amen.”
A woman to my right starts clapping her hands and singing. Others join in. It is the hymn, ‘All is Right With My Soul’. I sing along with them. I don’t want to be the only one that doesn’t.
––––––––
Vuyo is sitting on his bed with his thumb in his mouth. He only ever does that when he’s afraid.
I scoop him up in my arms and kiss his forward. “Hello, Baba. What’s wrong? Did something scare you? Was it a spider?”
His eyes are as big as two-Rand coins. I unplug his thumb from his mouth.
“Sisi, is it true that vampires are coming to eat us?”
Goosebumps erupt all over my body. “Who told you that?”
“Goggo.” Grandma.
I swallow the urge to swear. That woman and her stories. Instead I smile. “Nope, no alien vampires here. I promise. Besides, you know Will Smith won’t let that happen. He’s on the case, so you have nothing to worry about.”
I kiss him again, and this time I get the right response. He pulls a disgusted face.
“What do you want for supper?”
“Chicken.”
“And how do chickens go?”
“Cluck cluck!”
“And how do cows go?”
“Moo moo!”
“And sheep?”
“Baa baa!”
“And giraffes?”
His mouth opens and shuts. He breaks into a grin. “They don’t make any noise, silly.”
“They don’t?”
“No!”
“You sure?”
“Yes!”
I warm up some chicken nuggets on the stove while he plays happily with his animals. Where is my grandmother getting these ideas from?
––––––––
The answer comes the following morning when I drop Vuyo at his Goggo for the day.
She holds herself straight, her lips pursed tight, poised for confrontation. She’s purposely ignoring me. I wait until Vuyo has disappeared inside before I speak.
“Vampires, Ma?”
She challenges me with her eyes.
“Don’t you understand? He’s only a boy. He wets himself at night.”
She clicks her teeth irritably. “Have you seen this?” she asks, pulling a folded newspaper from the front of her apron. Another outrageous headline.
FLATS MAN VISITED BY ALIENS is emblazoned on the front page.
“This is proof that they’re coming for us.”
I sigh. “Please, Ma, just for today, don’t tell him any more of your stories.”
She shakes her head. “Eish, you’re a stubborn girl.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, Ma.”
I pull my handbag over my shoulder and leave through the small wrought iron gate. On my way to the taxi rank I pass closed doors and drawn curtains. Washing flaps in the wind from makeshift lines.
It’s never like this.
Today there are no children playing soccer before school. The park is empty save for a few pigeons pecking at the uncut grass.
Even the taxis are subdued. The gaatjies are hurrying their passengers into the mini buses. No screams of “Kep Toown!” that are better at awaking the senses than coffee.
This morning all eyes are on the white sky, the curtains of cloud closed so tight that not even a drop of rain can get through.
The day passes with my heart in my chest. Logan, the weird kid that comes to fix the copier, showed up with tin foil sticking out the sides of his peak cap. “It was something I saw in a movie,” he said. No one laughed.
On the train, Azania too, is uncommonly quiet. Her eyes dart to and fro, as if she’s studying the other passengers. When she’s sure no one is eavesdropping, she leans in close. Her perfume is rich and musky, with lingering vanilla. “They’re saying there were bright lights above Jozi last night?”
My blood freezes. “Who’s saying?”
“It was all over Twitter. People even posted pictures online.”
“You sure? Do you know anyone that actually saw it?”
“Yes. Well, not personally. Thandeka Moloi said he was there and he’s a proper journalist and he has over a thousand Followers. So it must be true.”
I purposely keep off the Internet today. Some of the stories doing the rounds are too upsetting. One of the Russian scientists from the team that received the radio frequency was brutally murdered by someone who blamed him for discovering the new planet.
Worse, an American shuttle has disappeared. It’s gone, along with all the astronauts on board.
I can’t even imagine what my grandmother is telling Vuyo.
“A man was hijacked outside my building today. In broad daylight! These aliens are making people crazy.”Azania shakes her head.
I stare straight ahead and don’t reply. Someone has graffittied over the sign reminding passengers to wear their face masks. The End is Near, is written in blood red paint.
“It’s not the aliens. Crime happens every day.”
“Sho, Sisi, not like this.”
“Maybe you’ve never noticed before.”
The look Azania hits me with makes me zip-lock my lips. Some people don’t want to hear what they already know but don’t like to think about. For this reason I don’t remind her that the reason she uses public transport is because her car was stolen, that fear is the reason we travel in pairs—some truths are best left unsaid.
The whole city has caught this madness. I walk home like a tourist in a foreign city, unable to make sense of the people around me. There’s a strange pressure in the air, like the expectant silence just before it rains. It is an infectious feeling. I hurry home, glad to close the front door behind me. Perhaps the stories are true and the aliens really are as bad as everyone says. As bad as us.
––––––––
I wake up to the sound of shouting. I blink my eyes open. There’s a bright light blazing outside my window.
Vuyo turns in his sleep. As I feared, his head had been poisoned with stories about alien vampires and he insisted on sleeping in my tiny bed.
I move my head from side to side to ease the cramp in my neck from sleeping at the wrong angle then get out of bed as slowly as I can so as not to wake him.
The shouting is louder now.
I open the door to an orange sky. My neighbours are running down the street towards the park. Their feet kick up an expanding cloud of dust.
Smoke chokes my throat and panic seizes me. Fire.
My fingers tremble as I unlatch the front gate. I didn’t have time to put on my shoes, so the stones hurt my feet as I run after the others. My braids slap my skin hard. Ash cascades from the sky like confetti. I need to find out how bad it is.
I spin on the spot and see that the rows of shacks are dark and still. In front of me, a single cloud of smoke rises from the park.
Running feet make me turn. There are men chasing someone down the dusty street. I can’t make out their faces so all I see are their silhouettes and the outline of make shift weapons in their hands. He stumbles, looks back and staggers on. They’re herding him, cutting him off and steering him towards where the smoke is thickest.
As if hypnotised, my feet take me forward.
My neighbours gather in a wide circle surrounding the fire. Many are shouting with their fists in the air; others are watching in silence with the golden flames reflecting in their eyes. I spot my grandmother, standing amongst a group of women. I force my way through, until my body is thrown into the empty space beside her.
“What’s happening, Ma?”
She looks at me, a mixture of excitement and fear written clearly in her lined features.
“They caught an alien trying to sneak into Zama Khumalo’s house.”
She points to the centre of the circle where the men have forced their prey to his knees. I stand on my tiptoes to see, but their faces are still in shadow.
“There’s blood on his clothes,” someone is saying.
Ma nods her head. She needs no further confirmation of his guilt.
Through the wall of bodies, I see two smaller figures wheeling a rubber tyre towards the men. I know what they are going to do and I find myself unable to watch.
I bury my face into Ma’s woollen cardigan, but she pushes me upright. A space opens up before us and my eyes move on their own, as if bewitched.
I see the face of the man about to be put to death. He is no older than twenty, and there is a scar on his cheek from some childhood accident. He’s not an alien. He’s a man. A scream travels up my throat and dies on my lips. My fear roots me to the spot and mutes my voice. I know if I say one word to save this man, utter one protestation to his killers, all eyes will turn on me. The thought of Vuyo asleep in his bed turns the key on the lock of my silence. He needs me.
I keep my eyes on the flames, wishing that they could burn away my sight.
I walk home, shuddering. My neighbours walk beside me. I cannot hear what they are saying. All I hear are the echoes of the screams of the dying man.
I creep into bed beside Vuyo. My head is spinning and my hair smells like smoke, making me nauseous. I try to be still but my body continues to shake. I lie awake until the shouting stops, and silence once again descends on the night.
Only then do I find my voice, the words that I should have said but didn’t. “It was just a man.” My voice sounds scratchy and strange.
I wake once more to a blinding light through the window. It is so bright I’m convinced the whole Township must be burning. I nudge Vuyo but he doesn’t stir.
“Vuyo, baba. Wake up.”
My brother’s head rolls from side to side. He’s faraway in the deepest realms of sleep. I slip out of bed and peer out the window to gauge the danger, but the light is so bright I have to shield my eyes with my hand. It is like no fire I have ever experienced.
Only then do I notice the unearthly silence. As if in a dream, I part the curtain and watch the procession of a single figure walking in the narrow path between houses.
As if he can feel my eyes on his back, he turns around and faces me. His eyes are large and black, as black as Planet X in its cold corner of the galaxy.
I want to tell him to run, to get out of here before he’s seen. Does he realise how dangerous it is out there?
Vuyo stirs in his sleep. I rush to his side to check if he’s woken, but his eyes remain closed and his thumb is back in his mouth.
When I turn back to the window, it’s dark again and the only movement outside is from the neighbour’s gate swinging open and closed.
I should be afraid. I should be sounding the alarm, and rallying another mob to action. But I’m the furthest from afraid. I’m relieved.
––––––––
S.A. Partridge is a young adult novelist from Cape Town. Her work has won the MER Prize for Youth Fiction, the SABC I am Writer Competition, and made the IBBY Honour List. She was named one of the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans for 2011 and one of South Africa’s best up and coming authors by Women 24.
