In fifteen minutes I have to go out and I wonder what I can do in those minutes. The laundry is done and drying, the dishes are done and the bed is made. Writing this blog should take five minutes so here we are. Writing, my favourite pastime. It is so satisfying when challenges are reached and overcome. It makes me feel that I have achieved something and can stand tall and say – yes, I have done that. I tried to instil that feeling into my sons as well. I’m happy to say they did grow up with that ethic and are now teaching their own children the same thing. Just look where five minutes of typing has taken me – from laundry to ethics. Editing done, its time for me to post, pick up my bag and depart.
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Osten
Mein Herz blutet. Das Leben ist nicht fair, und es ist auch nicht schwarz-weiß. Ich habe mein Land verlassen, damals, als die Mauer weg war. Und wusste nicht, dass ich niemals würde zurückkehren können.
Das Land gibt es nicht mehr, es wurde abgeschafft, auf den Schrotthaufen der Geschichte geworfen. Ein ausgedientes Modell, bankrott, umstellt, ausgelaugt, überaltert, verknöchert. Alternativlos entsorgt.
Die Menschen aber, die gibt es noch. Und sie tragen das Land in sich. Ich auch.
Weit bin ich gegangen in meiner NEUgierde, und habe dadurch so viel mehr über meine Herkunft erfahren.
Was, wenn ich geblieben wäre, so wie andere? Wer wäre ich heute? Was ich in den Medien lese, tut mir in der Seele weh. Das Leben ist nicht schwarz oder weiß, die Menschen auch nicht. Ich würde gerne ein Buch schreiben, die Vielfalt meines Heimatlandes, meiner Mitmenschen und ihrer Schicksale festhalten und sichtbar, verstehbar machen.
Copyright 2019 Andrea Bernard
Sawdust
Pine chest upon pine chest were stacked taller than I in our “end room”, the one with a door to the back, with its lean-to shelter and concrete flooring. That is where Kunaka and João worked outside on the weekends.
They planed by hand and sanded by hand, and did everything by hand. The timber was sanded so finely. I loved the smell of the sawdust, its fine softness.
I was inside, sewing velvet interiors for the jewellery boxes they made.
Kunaka had a club foot, but he had a bicycle. João’s eyesight was failing, but she would not let me screw the screws in, and so often struggled to fix the screwdriver in the screw slot – using both hands.
I had to let her do it. I was not allowed to say anything about her shaking MS hands.
Each chest took between eight and twelve layers of varnish and the colour was especially blended by João, from several different tins. That was twenty years ago, so it was.
I am keeping one, as I step into my new life. She and I called it “Mega” to tell it apart from all the others.
©2019 Allison Wright
[197 words]
Memories
Once, when I was 14, I was staying with friends on a farm. There was a very pink, shy, young Englishman, straight out from England and agricultural college, wearing shorts and long socks, trying to fit in and really just looking awkward in neatly pressed, brand new shorts and shirt . I found myself sitting next to him at supper, and made rolling eyes to my friend begging for help, she just giggled.. My friend and I were offered a small glass of wine and we felt very grown up. Not sure if it was the wine or absent-mindedness, but Butch, my friend’s lovely boxer sidled up to me under the table and I put my hand on his body and gave him a good scratch. Suddenly there was a snort from my friend’s father and looking at the very red embarrassed face of the Pom, to my horror I realised I had been giving his hairy leg a good scratch thinking it was Butch. The whole table collapsed into laughter and I wished myself a million miles away.
Being here
The house I saw today — where I hope to be able to move to — is at almost the same degree of latitude as my current abode.
Almost is relative. I love maps. So I can tell you now that the two town centres (as opposed to actual locations of the relative dwellings) are separated by 0°2’38” latitude (that’s 0 degrees, 2 minutes and 38 seconds).
The distance that miniscule difference in latitude represents equates to 3.026894 miles, or 4.871314 kilometres.
But when someone calls me and says, “Where are you?”, I simply answer, “I am here”.
©2019 Allison Wright
[93 heavily edited words]
The best
“I’m the best lesbian,” Cath announced suddenly, as she sipped her mug of coffee, sitting with her feet up on the three-seater Queen Ann couch they had had recovered in dark blue denim.
“Says who?!”
Andrea sat down in the remaining space at the end of the couch.
“My mother. That’s what she told her friend Vanda. Her daughter, Tália, was also lesbian. They were so competitive, those two. I heard them, one day in my twenties, discussing who was the best lesbian. My mother won the argument, as usual.”
“Well, that’s that then,” said Andrea, slurping her coffee, grinning.
©2019 Allison Wright
[103 words]
Waiting and Watching
As I write this I am sitting by a floor to ceiling window watching the road and the shops opposite. Directly opposite is a shop with a signboard proclaiming that it was established in 1940. The fascia board is painted black, lettered in gold in 1940′ s style. Below the name is the word ‘victualler’ which is a good old word later replaced by ‘grocer’, though I’m not sure that the two words mean exactly the same thing any more. This shop appears to be a butcher now, with promotional cards for lamb, and a pretty picture of a soft white lamb in the window, along with a fluffy chick, which is half the size of the lamb, and a green leprechaun or elf, who is a little bigger than the lamb.
Since 07:30 am two people inside the shop have been very busy, cleaning, tidying, arranging, re-arranging and serving and chatting to the seven customers during the past hour and a half. The rain came down harder for a few minutes and sawdust was spread across the floor at the door – very 1940’s.
A good way to have a pleasant break with lots of toast and coffee.
Shades
It was so bright today, I went back inside to get my Jacaru Aussie leather hat and sunglasses. The one and only pair of shades I have ever had. When I bought them four years ago, people said I looked like Agent Smith from The Matrix movie.
The image was a selfie of me deadpan, not smiling, deadly serious.
Today, the hat and shades took the heat off when I went walking. And I was smiling. No selfie. I’m used to the shades now.
©2019 Allison Wright
[87 words]
Speakeasy
Downtown Johannesburg back in the day. Oh yes, late on Thursday nights through the arcade, down two flights of stairs, through the padded black swing doors, with the bodyguard’s muscles testing the limit of his too-small shirt.
It was not the booze that was illicit, but the company we kept. Apartheid, you know. There was Thandi riffing and bending on her alto sax in her high heels and fishnets, and dark frilly party dress. Her full lips needed no lipstick but she wore it anyway out of defiance.
We all listened, sitting squashed up cheek by jowl at small round tables, our legs crossed and wrapped round each other to save space. Early in the evening, a slow intro to Baker Street, with a slightly altered syncopated African beat. The drummer in his dark Ray Ban shades.
Andrea always liked a neat scotch on the rocks. The saxophone brought that risqué strand out in her.
Tonight there was a new woman there. She had ordered a beer but could not reach the bottle or the glass that the overworked waiter had put on the table.
Thandi was in full swing now flirting with the guy on the keyboard.
Andrea took that beer glass and held it at an angle, and slowly, as the sax did more bends with a vibrato flourish, poured the perfect slim beer for the woman eyeing her.
She handed her the beer silently, and lifted her own glass in a toast. That woman had lesbian eyes. It was too loud to say anything. Thandi was having a good night on the stage tonight. And how.
©2019 Allison Wright
[277 words. 7 minutes writing, 3 for typo correction]
Traum
Ich steige in ein dunkles Kellerloch, getrieben von Angst und Neugier. Beim Umhertasten springt mich plötzlich eine Ratte an und lässt meinen Finger nicht mehr los. In Panik renne ich aus dem Keller, und als ich auf der Straße ankomme, habe ich an meiner Hand statt der Ratte einen Löwen. Er läuft langsam hinter mir her.
Ob der Löwe eine Bedrohung ist oder mich vor meiner Umgebung schützt, kann ich nicht sagen. Er gibt mir nicht zu verstehen, was er will oder denkt.
Ich fange an, wild durch die Gegend zu laufen und allen möglichen Leuten auf der Straße von meinem Problem zu erzählen. Aber sie hören mir entweder gar nicht zu oder verstehen mich nicht – jedenfalls scheint niemand den Löwen zu bemerken.
Immer ungläubiger laufe ich weiter und spreche wahllos Menschen an, um ihnen von dem Löwen zu erzählen, der offensichtlich gar nicht da ist. Aber wann immer ich mich umdrehe, sehe ich ihn deutlich, und er sieht mich an und scheint zu sagen, dass es ihn gibt und ich nichts dagegen tun kann …
Copyright 2019 Andrea Bernard
five stray minutes 