The Holiday (continued)

Sixteen
Coral

For two days and nights a violent ballet of sheer atmospheric power played out above their heads. Sometimes the sound was so fierce it was a near shriek, like the hysterical roar of air through the ailerons of a landing 747. The noise occasionally disturbed the two sleepers in their matchbox cabin. Once a swell pushed under the cabins around them, shovelling the cabins effortlessly like a few Styrofoam blocks. The spit of the worst breakers reached them through the floorboards of their cabin, which was set further back, leaving a soapy residue behind.

When Stella visited the bathroom she thought the bubbles were from Hugh having taken a shower, but Hugh said he hadn’t; and he said the lights and water were gone.
She pressed her finger on a nearby switch. Nothing.
She turned a tap. Not a drop of water.
She went outside and was nearly picked up and thrown off the balcony. Hugh jumped out of bed and stood at her back. Both felt the wind and rain stinging their faces. It was midmorning, but the world was darkened by the ferocity of the storm.
He looked at her face. She had her tongue out, drinking water from the monsoon. He did the same until they went inside, laughing at each other.

They spent time building small structures with the remaining matchsticks and its container. He woke up at one point to find her sketching his face using a small stubby pencil and a page from the bedside bible. She asked him to wait a few minutes until she was done, then offered it to him. He sat up on an elbow: quite a good likeness too.

They talked a great deal. She spoke about surfing, and sailing, and going to an international school in Singapore. She mentioned her step grandfather’s shipping interests; said he had a small fleet of oil tankers.
“We could do with one now,” Hugh said, folding his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling where water had started to drip.
“And if you had one, where would you go?”
“Africa. Well, South Africa really.”
She asked him about his country, firing question after question.. He gave up the information in disciplined clips.
“I have a feeling the weather is a bit more settled down there than it is here. But it may be worse in other ways.”
“What ways?”
“Well,” he sighed, “it might be incredibly hot down there, and incredibly dry.”
“Well, we could just find a nice mountain stream high up somewhere, and live there.”
“In the mountains? Well I suppose you could always retro fit a surfboard into a snowboard or something,” he mused, eyes closed.
“When this storm clears, can we go and look for a surfboard?”
“Sure,” he said lazily, humouring her.
She punched him.
“Sure,” he said, eyes open this time, rubbing the ball of his shoulder. “Quit punching me.”
“Well then quit treating me like a little girl.”
“You are a little girl.”
She punched him again and now he pulled her closer and tickled her in her ribs.

She spoke about flying with her step grandfather, and how he had treated her with incredible cruelty, and at the same time, like a princess.

All through the second night, endless swathes of purple cloud impregnated with rain launched over the walls of the castle like fortress that guarded El Nido. The swirling carpet broiled and shrieked, but most of its venom smashed furiously into the ocean in front of the seaside village.

On the third day a single bird sang, but no bird of its species answered. It called, dancing in flight to another perch it thought it remembered, and called again. No answer.
Hugh arrived at the door, glanced at the bird, then saw Stella inside, still sleeping.
“How can you sleep in this heat?” he asked.
“What time is it?”
“Day time. Come, I’ve brought us some water, and a bag of fruit.”
He put a yellow plastic bucket on a small table, and tossed an avocado at her.

An hour later they were walking down the sun drenched streets. A few individuals, all natives, made brief appearances. Either to hang up washing, or to sweep mud out of their homes.
The shops were empty, except one.
A blonde, curly haired woman wearing an XXL red shirt with a white cross and small Kunstler script with the word SWITZERLAND on it, was unpacking small boxes onto a glass cabinet when they stepped inside. A bell tinkled.
“Are you open for business?”
The woman didn’t look up.
“Hello, excuse me?” Stella said, bounding up to her, her hands slapping down on the glass.
From her face she seemed intoxicated with something. Her nose was red, her eyes glazed.
Hugh looked at the boxes in her hands. She was opening them up, examining each compass.
“Got,” she said. “Oh my Got.” A quivering hand covered her mouth, and her eyes suddenly overflowed with worry.
“What is it?” Stella asked, looking up at Hugh.
“The compasses are all pointing away from ze true nort. They shoot be pointing dat way,” and she quickly stabbed a finger at the door behind them.
Hugh opened a box, and removed the compass: the needle was pointing south.
“What does that mean?” Stella said, her eyes swivelling from the one adult to the other.
“I don’t know,” Hugh said. He glanced quickly at the woman, and cupped the back of Stella’s soft head in his hand.
“Your airplane iss waiting.”
“I know,” Stella answered. She lifted her chin, took Hugh’s hand and pulled him deeper into the shop.
It was while they were fingering t-shirts that they heard her step out.
“Are you the owner?” Hugh asked.
After a moment her face re-appeared at the door. “No. Ze owner hass gone to Zingapore. Most people haf.”
“Well, we’ve like to get something here. Although I’m not sure how to pay for it.”
“Take vhat you vant.”
“Huh?”
“Haven’t you heard? Money doezn’t have any value nhow. Seems evzyvere people are juss looking for ze food and shelter. Zee you,” and she walked away.
The man and the child watched her go, then looked at each other, eyebrows suspended in disbelief.
Then they slowly turned their attention to what was in the store. Hugh selected a few scarlet bandanas, sun protection cream, a sunhat, and a white t-shirt that said: Paradise is Palawan. Stella found a ripoff Oakley shirt, and screamed when she found a surfboard behind wetsuits hanging in the corner.
“You can have whatever you want,” Hugh said, pulling a small red backpack from a high shelf, “but you have to carry it.”
On his way out he stopped, turned and leaned over the glass cabinet. He fished out a pair of goggles, a small magnifying glass, a swiss army knife, and finally one of the compasses lying on the glass counter. He stuffed these into the backpack, along with two small towels. He punched the old fashioned metal till, and the draw popped out with a KRIInnnG.
Stella emerged from the store much later, finding him sitting on the steps, zipping up the bulding backpack.
“Let’s go?” she said,
“Let’s go. Got everything you want?”
She also had a small backpack, and hoised the surfboard under her arm and grinned at him. They walked quietly through the muddy streets. The sun rained arrows on them, burning their faces red. At one point she lifted the surfboard over her head, to block out the sun,

“Let’s walk down this street,” Hugh whispered. The surfboard turned and the girl under it had fallen behind slightly, but still followed him. He waited for her, then walked on, at a slower pace. They walked by a building that was attached to a church, and noticed that inside it was packed with the local population. Someone was preaching to them, and as they walked quietly by, they started to sing a hymn of praise.
“Do you think God will help them?” Hugh asked.
“God only helps those who helps themselves,” Stella replied, without missing a beat.
“I don’t know about you, my darling, but I think that’s another way of saying we are on our own.”
“Or that we are the hands of God.”
“God is made in the image of man, which is really the mind of man. It's a construct. I mean think about it Stella: Does God exist only because people believe in him, or is it the other way around?"
She had to think about that for a moment. She wasn’t sure what he was getting at, or if she agreed with what she thought he meant.
From under the surfboard she frowned, then lifted the long tip so she could make eye contact: “You mean, God is us?”
“And everything besides us.”
“So God is not a person?”
He smiled at the way she said that.
“The God most people believe in, like the people back there, is definitely a person. A super person. A super parent. Wouldn’t that be nice? Someone to look after us when our real parents can’t anymore.”
“It would,” she said, matter of factly.
“But think about it, if God is a person, and a person is God, then anyone can be God.”
“So what you’re saying is you are God?”
“Not The God, just A God,” he grinned.
The singing continued behind them.
“So what will it be today: surf or ski. Your wish young lady is my command.”
“Surfing for sure. It’s such a gorgeous day, we can’t let it go to waste.”
“So be it.”

And within the hour they were out in the sparkling bay, the colourful surfboard tethered by a nylon rope to the pumpboat, bobbing in the rough water but Stella having a ball hanging on to it..
“I should have taken fishing tackle from the shop,” Hugh murmured to himself. But then he couldn’t remember seeing any rods.
He lifted one of the Jerry cans. It was still half full. Good.
They went between tall cathedrals of dramatic cliffs towering out of the water. It was unbeatable scenery, especially beautiful when the towering cliffs were draped in green foliage, but the vegetation on other islands was sometimes entirely absent, or burnt, or withered and brown.

They found a small strand on a nearby island and pulled the boat ashore. Stella tore off her sopping wet t-shirt, a bright orange and pink bikini caught the sun, and ran off with her surfboard. Hugh watched her for a moment, and then looked around her. There were no waves. While she paddled, Hugh snorkelled in the shallow water. He was a powerful swimmer, and did not need fins to move quickly through the water. The underwater scenery delighted Hugh. The corals were gorgeous, forests of life far more intact than those above the water. Hugh swam with his shirt on to save his skin from the burning sun.

“Hey, I found Nemo!” Hugh sputtered at one point.
“WHAAT?”
He waved her over, handed her the goggles and pointed. She put her head in the water, and legs kicked a few times to help her on her way. Hugh wiped the salty drops she’d inadvertently kicked into his eyes. The saltwater was still stinging them slightly when surfaced soon after.
“Hey, you’re right. Cheeky little bugger.” She went down again and the orange and black banded fish faced off against the goggled human, it’s small gills bulging with intensity.
She came up chuckling.

On the beach, hours later, they sank onto the sand, Stella saying, “Can we do this again tomorrow?”
“Why not?”
“All right!” She waved her arms excitedly at the jagged cliffs and faroff beaches of the Bacuit Archipelago. “Wow,” she crooned, “we have the whole world to ourselves.”
And Hugh could not help looking at the world around them and thinking of the world as healed and restored once more. How could it not be with the sun shining down upon them, where they were able to explore these beautiful natural wonders as people had been for ages. But then he was reminded of the compasses, the dead birds, and of course the cities that had been nuked. The world would never be the same again. Of course it couldn’t. Perhaps it would begin to sink in if he could just see one of those razed cities for himself.
But even with these depressing insights, Hugh he felt himself inspired by his beautiful surroundings, and slipping back into the hypnosis that everything was all right. Stella was chattering about Bali and waves. He gave Stella’s cheek a small pinch, saying nothing to dampen Stella’s high spirits.

From there they tossed their backpacks into the boat and cruised around Miniloc Island. This time Stella lay tummy down on the prow of the boat, watching the keel split the turquoise water, her knees anchoring her in the deeper sections of the boat. High was faced with the bright flowers of her bright bikini bottom. He glanced at her narrow midriff, her strong ankles, feet wedged against the side of the boat. He felt a strong fondness for her, and wished he had known her, or been her friend as a much younger man. A girl who surfed!

His thoughts turned suddenly to the wretched old man, her step grandfather, that had hiked with them that day to the underground river. He wondered what had become of that community. Had they survived the storm? And what about the bird flu, and the changing of the magnetic fields, and other things they did not yet know about. Why had he not asked the woman in the shop about the war? It was a crazy oversight, to have neglected to ask more questions. At the very least whether New York and London were still in the world.

“Put on a t-shirt Stella, you’re going to burn.”
He was surprised that she turned, moved halfway along the boat, pulled it on and then returned to her position. She was humming.
After two minutes: “Let’s go for one last swim, before we go back. Pleeeeeeaaaaase.”
They made their way around a few small islands, then headed for a sliver of white sand.
“Last one in is a stinky dead fish,” she said, getting reading to jump out the boat. He dived in, letting the boat run itself ashore. The engine bit into beach sand and Stella had to backtrack and cut the motor.
“You’re still the stinky dead fish,” she said, pulling off her shirt.
“What’s that you said?”
“You’re still AAAAAAAiiiiiiiiiEEEEEE.”
He ran after her, carrying light gray beach mud in one hand.
He tossed the mud and it socked into the small of her back, the sloshy sound of impact made Hugh snort with amusement. Now she ran after him, and the game turned into pushing dirt down the other person’s swimming trunks. He moved through the thigh deep water, and as he lifted an arm to throw mud against her waist, she involuntarily kicked, so that her knee connected with his ear, hitting it squarely, squirting a jet of water that instantly burst his eardrum. Hugh experienced a loud rubbery squeak, and a strange pain that made him swallow, and stretch his jaw. He stood up, while she danced around him, and touched his ear. He moved his finger against the folds of his ear, checking to see if he could still hear.

“You’re not fooling me….you’re not fooling me…”
He stood for a few minutes, put a finger in his mouth and examined the spit. It was pink with blood.
He showed her. She gave an awkward shrug, her smile fading.
“Let’s go back,” he said, turning to the boat.
“I’m sorry, I-.”
“It’s okay, it’s not your fault.” He didn’t smile at her.
“Are you alright?” she said, pulling at the hand that was pressed against his ear. “Let me see.”
He allowed her to pull his hand down. She stood on her toes, and at first could not see anything. Then she saw a small red snake flow over the fold of his ear, and curl in a thin red line down his sun burned neck.

Cancellara

Podium Girls: Why Cyclists Try So Hard To Win

The Holiday (continued)

Fifteen
Nest

The inside of the boat was like a bubble bath. They were submerged hip deep and whenever the nose knifed through a broken swell, more water poured into the stiff wooden ribcage. Both Hugh and Stella were shivering. She was sitting on him, hair wet and sticking to her cheek, clinging to him like a monkey. The engine was taking strain, as it had to push a much heavier load through heaving, stormy sea. But at least the wind was whipping them from behind, hurling them forward.

They had been travelling all night, and after nearly seven hours the sky had lightened enough so that Hugh could move closer to the shore. If their boat was going to sink, he didn’t want to have to swim for miles.
“Where is El Nido?” he sputtered in her ear. “Any idea?”
“No, how should I know?”
“Haven’t you come this way before by boat?”
“Not at night!”
The frown about to burrow into his forehead was yanked at the last moment by her suddenly shouting in his ear: “Wait. I recognise that.” Blinking in the wet spray, he followed her gaze to a tall cliff plunging directly into the sea. It’s still a way, but around that and then through there,” she pointed, “the water should be calmer.”
“Through there, not around?”
Tall dark cliffs rose like ghost ships around them.
“Through, definitely through, and then you turn slightly to the right.”
He adjusted course, felt her hands loosen around his neck. She squatted in front of him and scooped water out of the boat. He kicked at it, used his free hand to scoop at the water. His fingers had turned white and wrinkly, and he shivered now not from cold, but from exposure, and sheer nerves.

They moved into the protected zone, with the cliffs closing behind them, shielding them against not just the powerful rip of winds, but allowing them to move over calmer water.
It was a mystical cauldron, the sheer rock that rose it seemed on all sides, filling with mist and a hollow sounding wind that swirled above them.
Once again they noticed yellow flames dotted all around them. They weren’t just fires in the forest, there were small merry flames sparking on rocks on shorelines near and far. It was most bizarre.
He pointed his eyes at these fires and she gave a dramatic how-should-I-know shrug, and pulled a face.
“Come here. Forget about the water.”
She sat with her wet body against his, sheltering from the slight wind blowing over his shoulder.
“That way?” he mumbled, warmly into her ear.
“Mmmmm,” she said sleepily. Then she nodded, as it seemed more and more familiar to her.

In the murk of mist and very early morning it was difficult to appreciate the spectacular surroundings. Islands rose sheer out of the sea, perched on black rock that had been carved at their bases by the weathering action of seawater.

“I suppose it’s not like travelling on land is it? No road signs. No distance markers.”
She glanced up at him without smiling.
“Can’t be much longer. Maybe half an hour.”
The engine knocked against something. He slowed down, and together they pulled it down, lifting the rotor slightly out of the water.
She leaned over the side, then went to the prow of the boat and stood there, hands on hips, balancing then pointing and turning: “Watch it! Shallow rocks. More this way.”
Twice rocks grinded against the wood under their feet and she pulled a face at him.

The hamlet in front of them sketched itself ever clearer. The cliffs behind the small village rose like a castle. But it was the fires on the beach, and black smoke billowing out of parts of the village that concerned them.
Stella hopped out of the boat and Hugh cut the engine. They walked 50 metres or so through the warm and shallow waters, and finally reached the narrow stretch of remaining beach. It was an odd sight, most of the beach underwater. Hugh imagined beaches all over the world looked like this. It was still a difficult thought to accept. One implicitly imagined a changing tide and water slipping back as it always did.

Then he noticed the bodies lying on the beach. He’d first mistaken them for boats or surfboards, even guessed they were odd tubers of driftwood. But lying on the beach were the bloated bodies of pigs, dogs and cows. Smaller, but more numerous were the dead birds lying everywhere. They made a final shove, the sand scouring the wooden hull, the anchor tossed into the wet sugary sand for good measure. He stood now with Stella, taking in the scene. Just a few derelict human forms wandering about. While they stood there a wind curled in off the ocean and started to really whip the water.
The flames from a nearby fire disconnected and took flight before disappearing.
“This is like a bad dream,” Stella said.
Hugh lifted a hand to his face, wiped his eyes. He felt so tired; he couldn’t imagine how she felt. Waves of shivering went through the both of them. It was the wet that made them shake, because both the drizzle and the wind were unusually warm.

They stepped onto a road and found a fire and saw the wings and feet of charred chickens. They noticed a few figures standing against a wall, their mouths covered in white masks.
Lightning cracked in the sky, throwing bright blue light against cashew nut trees and the gaudy deserted shops of El Nido’s main strip.

Hugh noticed on one side of the town the struts of some houses were underwater, and it sunk in when they drew nearer that what had once been the lawn, the garden, was now under a foot of seawater.
“C’mon,” he said softly to her.
The buildings were a series of units, holiday cottages, and very soon Hugh confirmed his suspicion: the rooms were unlocked, stripped, but abandoned. They found one with a mattress and closed the door. Stella slipped out and returned with two candles and some matches. Hugh did the same, managing to find two bog rolls and some curtains, which he simply tore of their rails.

And with the water swimming under their beds, and the sky breaking over their heads, they slept. They slept while the wind battered and shrieked, and the ankles of one of the houses cracked. The house slipped into the sea like a boat, floated away and then collapsed into itself. They slept as radio transmissions crackled back and forth, confirming outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu in Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the surrounding Indonesian islands. It was spreading unchecked, with no resources available to exterminate contaminated birds. Wild ducks flew through radioactive clouds towards Europe, but the man and the girl slept, wrapped in curtains, a single candle burning on a nearby table while the warm wet wind blasted the sea outside.

Tour Update: Robbie Doing Us Proud

Hunter finishes 4th on Monday and 5th yesterday

Yesterday was the longest stage of this year’s Tour de France, at 236km. One Discovery Channel rider didn’t start because of multiple fractures to his thumb in a massive crash just under 3km from Monday’s finish into Ghent.

It was this stage into Ghent that Hunter, riding in scarlet colors for Team BarlowWorld, emerged behind the likes of Pozzato, Boonen and winner, Boonen’s teammate Gert Steegmans. Hunter edged out two Supersprinters: the Aussie Robbie McEwen and Erik Zabel, shouting an expletive as he crossed the line. It was Hunter’s best ever stage finish, and he is obviously in fine form as he put himself into virtually a perfect position in the run in to a slightly awkward uphill finishing stretch. Despite an excellent effort, Robbie was obviously frustrated not to have done better.

In Tuesday’s longest stage into Compienne, the riders rode well within themselves, covering large sections at an average speed of around 32km/h, some riders exerting their hearts no more than 120 bpm, and the peloton allowing an early breakaway of 2 French riders to build a sizable lead.
With around 60km remaining two riders crossed the 3 minute gap that still remained between the peloton and the leading French duo. The four man break worked well together, especially the one Belgian (Willems, riding for Liquigas) amongst the 3 French riders.

With 10km to go the breakaway still had a sizable lead despite a massive effort from the peloton, who were totally strung out, riding at around 55km/h and heart rates approaching 170bpm. Willems surged, leading the storming peloton by 27 seconds at the 3km banner. In the final corners Willems seemed to have it in the bag, but when he sat up and eyed his companions for a few fractions of time, the unthinkable happened. The yellow jersey, Cancellara (CSC), cancelled the lead two French riders had enjoyed for well over 200km, and powered by them in the final 500 metres. This move even caught the sprinters offguard. Cancellara, the same Swiss rider who decisively won the opening prologue in London, went across the finish line first, pumping his arms. Once again, Robbie Hunter was in the thick of things right behind him.

So a very exciting end to a long day in the saddle for the riders. At one point a motorbike cameraman focussed on a snail that was on the helmet of the motorbike pilot in front of him. He was trying to get a shot of a snail in the foreground, with the cyclists out of focus in the background. Indeed, the stage took the riders 6 hours and 36 minutes, the average speed bumping up at the end to a modest 35.81km/h.

Overall Cancellara (one commentator today kept referring to him as Cancerella) has extended his lead (winning a stage means a 20 second bonus) over Kloden (Astana). British rider David Millar is third in the overall classification, but has now lost the polka dot jersey. Alexander Vinokourov (Astana) is out of the top10. George Hincapie (Discovery Channel) is in fourth, and a possible contender for the overall tour title.

Today (Wednesday) we’ll see some small category four climbs. Catch all the action on Supersport at around 14:30, or visit www.letour.com for regular updates.

The Holiday (continued)

Fourteen
Magic

The roar of the engine coughed and then died. The jaws of darkness and total silence swallowed him whole. For a moment he was too shocked to do anything. Had the engine broken? Had he made a mistake and allowed it to overheat? He sat there, the girl sleeping against his chest, his heart racing.

He saw the veil of stars, not beautiful but cruel and too bright, and now he could almost hear the small stellar roar, the sound of a silver jet crawling through the high heavens.
What’s real? He wondered.
Everything is real. Everything is fucking real. The little girl, who he’d expected to cry had steered the boat and then without a word, she’d crept into his arms after the sun went down and soon she was fast asleep. He remembered they’d been up well before dawn that morning.
Now she was twitching. After some minutes whatever she was dreaming startled her so much, she woke up, her arms flailing.

“You’ve been dreaming.” His voice was warm, and throbbed in the blackness of space.
Slowly grainy reality bore through the umbilical films of dream-feel. There was no sound at all. It took her a full minute to realise that the soft warmth behind her head was Hugh’s t-shirt covered chest, and a small splash reminded her that they were floating somewhere off the north western coast of the Palawan island dagger. There were stars everywhere.
“What were you dreaming about? You were twitching and plucking the air like Pinocchio’s sister.”
She punched him hard, hurting him. “I didn’t know Pinocchio HAD (punch) a sister.”
“Neither did I. Stop that! Well?”
“What?”
“Tell me what you were dreaming about. Looked fucking intense.”
Stella glanced about, the cups of her dark hair swinging slightly against her cheeks, her eyes glistening like dark wet pebbles. She paused now, turning herself inward and taking time to submerge, to drop down below the austere grip of present reality, to sink into the soft silky sponge of dreams.
“Have you seen the movie X-Men, The Last Stand?”
“Sure.”
“Remember near the end, when Jean Grey, or what was left of her, her spirit, is this phoenix like creature, with flaming red hair and dark eyes…”
In the darkness Hugh nodded.
“The veins in her face harden, her eyes turn black and her red hair catches the light. She rises slowly into the air, like dark fire. It’s like fire without any light, the fire of incredible rage.”
He felt her head turn against him. “I remember, go on.”
“And then everything around her is destroyed, turned into ash, or fibres. People, buildings, everything smashed or turned to dust. And her rage just increases, a silent, terrible rage – but you can’t really blame her for it – against the whole world.”
“And then?”
“And then I saw you, moving towards me, with one of the X-Men…Wolverine.”
“You mean ‘moving towards her’.”
“That’s what I said.”
He shrugged.
“And the skin’s being torn off his body, showing the shiny adamantium underneath. Your clothes are also torn off, and at your stomach, you start to bleed.”
“Me and Wolverine?”
“And she says to you, from her black eyes: ‘You would die for these people?’ And together you say: ‘No-.’”
“I would die for you,” Hugh finished, his forearms prickling with goose pimples.
“Shush,” she said, slapping his knee. “Stop interrupting!”
“Okay, I’m sorry, go on.”
Stella made a dramatic sigh, then continued: “Well then she says to you: ‘Save me,’ and then I woke up.”
“Damn. I’m dying to know whether I saved her or not.”
“Me too.”
“Do you think I did?”
“I don’t see how. Wolverine loved her and she loved him. I’m not sure what you were doing there.”
She decided not to tell him now that Wolverine got blown away at this point, leaving just him, standing there.
“Well maybe I was doing my bit to save the world,” Hugh offered, with a generous wave of his hand, and a small smile.
“Unless you were along for the ride, trying to save your own skin. Piggybacking on Wolverine.” Now she was purposefully misleading him.
“Is that what you think?” Hugh said, looking sadly up at the bright Milky Way bicycling around them.
Still staring at the cosmos Hugh said: “But you must have some idea where your dream was taking you?”
“I think in the next moment everything was about to be destroyed. Wolverine wasn’t sure what to do because you were there.”
“So I screwed everything up eh. I shouldn’t have asked you to tell me about your dream. I shouldn’t have asked.”
They sat in the silence for a few seconds. It was cool and soothing under the stars, not cold, and cotton soft.
She put an arm around him: “So why did we stop?”
“Well, we ran out of fuel, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“That’s twisted man. So how long have we been floating here?”
“Long. I saw a boat pass by that was on fire. I sat and watched it until the dark swallowed it up.”
“Well, can we go now.”
“I suppose so. I could do with your help refuelling her.”
“I’ve done it plenty of times.”
“Really?”
“My sick grandfather often took me on boat trips.”
“What was wrong with him.”
“He was just a total sicko.”
They both shifted now, careful not to loose their balance in the narrow boat, and passed along the second jerry can, and filled up the engine. When they were done Stella screwed on the fuel cap. It was obvious now that Stella had been on these boats many times before. Without her help, Hugh reflected, he would not have made it this far.

So Stella ripped once, then again, and then a third time at the cord to turn the engine. On her fourth try, the engine roared to life.
“Good girl. Good job Stella.”
It churned up the water and as it did, a luminous tin foil spread around them. Stella turned them a little to bring them on course.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Hugh asked.
“I have an idea. But at night, and without light, it’s difficult.”
High looked at the foil wake trailing behind them. At first Hugh thought it was merely a reflection of the stars, except the light stayed for an extra instant in the water before being extinguished.
Hugh leaned over and saw where the wood spooned the water into curling troughs of silver snow and stars. He watched the water break and freckle into silvery gray light that slowly fizzled into dark water behind them.

Both of them felt the past, the two dead children, mingling with the magic around them. It somehow made it a far and more magnificent universe than they had ever dared believe.

For two more hours they drove the engine over the calm waters, and after the engine died a second time, and filling the engines with the second drum, they felt a breeze blowing them forward. They had been moving forward in a blind fashion, but they saw the yellow sponges of burning forest on their right, and used these as successive beacons to navigate the sickle sections of coast. Sometimes they bumped into strange objects floating in the water that turned out to be bodies (some of them human), or coconuts, or flotsam.

After a particularly hard knock and the sight of a face whirling in watery circles, screaming silently out of the water, Stella said: “I know what the dream meant.”
“You do?”
“I was Jean Grey. And I knew Wolverine wasn’t going to save me, because he’s not real, and after all, it was just a movie.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes?”
“Well how do you know for sure?”
“Because I know, okay. Why do you have to be such a dick. It’s a compliment that I dreamt of you like that. Don’t you get it?”
“No, I don’t get it. Stella I’m not sure I have saved you at all, or me for that matter. We could drown tonight. We could get lost. Even if we arrive at El Nido, people on that end are going to ask questions. What happens if Eric has radioed them and warned them in advance?”
“Stop worrying. Eric is dead. I’m sorry he is, but he is, and that’s it. The soldiers are running that place now.”
Hugh was quietly surprised by this strong GI Jane persona. “Maybe,” he offered, equivocally.
Then in a voice that seemed to belong to someone else, Stella said: “Look. My step grandfather was abusing me. He has been for a long time now.”
Hugh cleared his throat, a sound drowned by the steady throbbing of the engine and the rush of churning water behind the boat. Some moments passed.
“How old are you Stella?” Hugh said, into the breath of the wind.
“Almost sixteen. And you?”
“More than twice your age. Listen, I’m sorry -.”
“Yeah yeah yeah.”
“No, I really am sorry about what happened. You didn’t deserve that – not that anyone does. But listen, I don’t deserve any credit here. I didn’t save you; you saved yourself.”
“Hey, you know what, you’re right. I saved both our butts.”
“Well don’t let it go to your head.”
She offered him a small, mischievous smile.

The smile softened, then slipped away. Neither mentioned at this point what they were both thinking: that their actions had also led to the deaths of the twins. Each time they knocked into something floating in the water, the memory of dropping them into the sea revisited them involuntarily.

The man and the small girl in the little boat moved through the great gulf of night, a single engine making a soft moaning noise as it moved across the sea. Stella pointed her small fingers, and Hugh saw the silhouette of Palawan’s ridges blocking out the high black fields of star strewn space. Wind began to push now at their backs, the boat knocked unpleasantly against rising swells, around them the tops of waves were torn off. Angry wind whipped spray into the boat. Next warm and silvery foam splashed over warm and woollen feet, and drove the waves into surging columns of an ocean that was triangulating around them.

Issues

Still have not resolved accomodation in Johannesburg. I'll probably end up in a hovel!

Received a package (rolled up newspapers) from my aunt, but when I called they were like: "It's a bit late. This one went in the first hour."

Meanwhile I read in the Rosebank Chronicles (or something) that insurance people and criminals work together. Think about it, it makes sense. When a new car is insured, the details are provided to criminals (including home address). When the car is stolen, the insurers get new business...it may not be as simple as that, since insurance companies do better the fewer claims are made against them, but it may nevertheless be happening via INDIVIDUALS within these companies.

Robert Hunter came 4th yesterday in the Dunquerque stage (Dunkirk?). Not bad, 4th in the world essentialls, and he swore as he crossed the line. Maybe he could have done better. Today's stage is the longest: 237km.

J unfortunately cancelled squash last night. Was looking forward to it. F is in Odendaalsrus, where she grew up.

Oh the actual issues...will have to get back to those as I have work to do...

Kunstler: Rain Dance

July 9, 2007

Live Earth is a 24-hour, 7-continent concert series taking place on 7/7/07 that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis. -- The Live Earth Web site

Am I the only one who wonders whether rock and roll extravaganzas in the service of Great Causes might be exercises in grandiosity and futility? What I wonder especially: is this the only way we know how to respond to the difficulties that life on earth presents -- to engage a corps of professional narcissists to strut and pose in stadiums, affecting to wave their magic wands (or Fender Stratocasters) and make everybody feel better about a given problem (distress on the farm, disease in Africa, global warming....)? Can't we think of other, more meaningful things to do? Or are we stuck in a perpetually delusional rut of Woodstock-style symbolism, out doing a global rain dance instead of really changing our behavior?

I'm not convinced that these big public service rock shows do much harm -- other than perhaps inflating our expectations and using too much electricity -- but this particular one galled me a little.

For one thing, even though global warming is by definition a global problem, the notion of a global community as a permanent fixture of human history is, I think, a mirage. If there is any salient macro implication to the problems I term the long emergency, it is that the world will soon become a bigger place again; the great nations will soon retreat to their own corners of the world as they powerdown by necessity; and all the trade relations, cultural exchanges, and geopolitical conceits that have lately made the Earth seem like a big international hotel give way to much more local issues of sheer survival.

There was so much about the Live Earth show that actually expressed what is worst about the current state of American culture: the obscene posturing of zillionaire celebrities, awarding themselves brownie points for the largeness of their concern -- even while, like Mr. Sting of the band called the Police, they buy-and-sell $20 million Manhattan condos, and burn god-knows-how many tons of Wyoming coal amplifying the bass runs to "Roxanne." And the flip-side of these celebrity pretensions, of course, is the disturbing fealty paid to them by the fans, as members of the public caught up in celebrity-worship are called. Obviously, the whole thing is a kind of self-reinforcing feedback loop spiraling up to ever worse grandiosity on the part of the celebs and ever more pathetic groveling worship of these fake gods by the fans -- until it becomes little more than an object lesson in the tragic limitations of the human condition.

Looming behind the spectacle like some Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloon, is the puffy figure of Al Gore, who has managed to turn his journalistic accomplishment into something uncomfortably like a Nuremberg rally. I say this perhaps incautiously, not because I believe that Al Gore is a bad person, but because it could get to the point here in America, not far down the line, when a desperate public will beg some political leader to push them around, to tell them what to do, to direct their behavior in some purposeful way to save their asses. And these prancing, preening rock and roll celebrities may be paving the way, so to speak, for some corn pone American fascist to strut his stuff for an American audience worried about the growing darkness, and the falling needle on their car's gas gauge.

The last thing we need now is the carefully packaged postures of concern from "stars." Al Gore could do a lot more good militating to get regular hourly passenger train service running between Nashville and Atlanta, or stomping his state, from Memphis to Chattanooga for swapping sales tax on regular merchandise for a higher tax on gasoline. Or, he could just put aside his pretensions for being a kind of global Wizard of Oz and just cut the shit and run for president of the US, where he might actually make a difference.

The Great Beyond

I've watched the stars fall silent from your eyes
All the sights that I have seen
I can't believe that I believed I wished
That you could see
There's a new planet in the solar system
There is nothing up my sleeve

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

In all this talk of time
Talk is fine
But I don't want to stay around
Why can't we pantomime, just close our eyes
And sleep sweet dreams
Me and you with wings on our feet

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

I want the hummingbirds, the dancing bears
Sweetest dreams of you
I Look into the stars
I Look into the moon

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great
Answers from the great, answers

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great
Answers from the great, answers

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

before XXX

Been a difficult day to get into a workflow today. Started off with a staff meeting. 'Turnover of staff is a huge problem.'
Nevertheless I enjoyed working here immensely, especially the first quarter. And if I had oodles of time, think things would have turned a corner. Coffee milk etc costs the company R500 a day, and I can't stand coffee. Gives you terrible breath. The end of mo0nth braai costs the company R80 000!



Fa Fa and I are friends on facebook, as well as...these pictures posted recently. Quite breathtaking eh. Think they were shot in Malaysia...beeen there!


So when is your first day in JHB? I think it's the best decision you could have made! I lived here for 2 years before XXX asked me to go back to Bloem... And then, once back in Bloem, I just could not adjust again to the narrow-minded thinking in the FS! You'll love the variety of everything here- people, places to go, things to see... I think it's a little NY :-)) Once you're an old ballie with a little rugby team you can move back to the platteland!

Triple-digit heat searing West

A 1-year-old boy was found dead Wednesday evening in a locked car in temperatures approaching 100 degrees in Orofino, Idaho. He was locked in the car for about five hours when passers-by noticed him, and the boy's stepgrandmother was charged in his death, authorities said Thursday.

Around Las Vegas -- where temperatures reached 116 degrees Thursday afternoon -- transformers overheated and caused electrical pole fires because of all the people switching on their air conditioners, said Scott Allison with the Clark County Fire Department.

In Montana, farmers anxiously watched their crops and thermometers. High temperatures for a handful of days can harm crop yield.

"Prolonged heat is devastating. Four or five days of it is going to be hard," said wheat farmer Lynn Nordwick near Poplar, Montana. Watch how a drought is spreading »

In Spokane, Washington, the temperature reached 101 degrees, surpassing the record 100 degrees.

Northeastern Oregon residents experienced what was expected to be the hottest day of the year Thursday, with temperatures reaching 108 in Pendleton and 107 in Hermiston.

The heat wave began last week after a large high-pressure center developed over Arizona, said National Weather Service forecaster Paul Flatt in Boise. A weather pattern was pushing that high-pressure center north into Canada, Flatt said, but most of the West is expected to experience high temperatures into next week.

Meanwhile, another round of heavy rain drenched parts of eastern Texas early Friday. State emergency management chief Jack Colley said all of Texas' major river basins are at flood stage, the first time that has happened since 1957.

Eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome

Eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS) is an incurable and sometimes fatal flu-like neurological condition that is believed to have been caused by ingestion of L-tryptophan supplements. Similar to regular eosinophilia, it causes an increase in eosinophil granulocytes in the patient's blood.

Prologue Route

The Holiday (continued)

Thirteen
Escape

The generators, all of them, were humming when Hugh approached the twilit house. He had an eerie sense that something was wrong. With each step,
he could hear the soft skrr of warm dry sand grains squeezing under his sea softened feet. But he was forced to move up an ancient embankment to avoid the rolling cream that covered almost the entire beach now. Even the strands leafy ground covers now spattered and choked through the outer tongues of brackish foam. All of it, all the soapy bubbles, reflected the violent orange cumulonimbus that still hung gigantically in what ought to have been a cool vault over the world. And so sometimes it seemed as though the whole world was on fire, or that he had stepped into a volcano. Rapidly the sunset colors deepened, from orange, to deep scarlet, and reaching the house, the color purple.

There was no one about, save the crackle and hiss and then the nasal tones of a voice, speaking urgently. Hugh went up the stairs and found them all there, silent in the shadows, listening. Now he was able to discern three voices. One a background of storm warmings from some derelict weather station, a message a few minutes long that looped, repeating itself. The other voices were Eric’s and someone elses, an old woman by the sound of her tired voice, coming over shortwave radio.
“El Nido this is Claire, yes I can confirm another category 5 superstorm to intersect the Palawan archipelago.”
“And this information is coming through now, over?”
“Yes, it’s updated, it’s confirmed, it’s being repeated around the clock.”
“Claire, what’s the ET, over.”
“ETA is unavailable. Satellite tracking is down. The reports come from on the ground, a boat in the Sulu Sea…”
“Jeffrey’s boat?”
“We assume so.”
“Oh my God Eric.”
“El Nido, we expect a similar pattern to the storm 3 weeks ago.”
Static. Then, “We need to get out of here.”
“Negative El Nido, remain calm. I repeat, Sylvia, take the necessary precautions – no non-essential transport – hunker down.”
Static.
Hugh managed to hear a murmur over the steaming radio: “He’s here.”
Through the dark he saw the camouflaged uniforms of two soldiers. Their powerful hands seized him by his neck and sunwarmed shoulders, turned him around and took him outside.
Some time after he had been bound in stringy hessian rope, and gagged with a filthy, greasy handkerchief, Eric pulled aside the tent flap and pointed fiery eyes at him.
“We’re missing at least three jerry cans of fuel. We have barely enough fuel to keep the generators going for another day, and with this storm coming, we are going to be in the dark without those drums.”
Hugh blinked.
“Now I know you took them. God help me, we ought to gut you like a pig right here. The only way we’re going to survive is together. It’s a loose cannon like you that’s going to get us all killed. Without these generators we can’t connect to the outside world, and without that connection, we’re blind. Do you have any idea what is happening out there?”
A hand slipped under the tent flap and on his shoulder.
Eric look surprised. The anger evaporated into shock, concern and fear.
He nodded, listened, nodded again.
“Okay,” he said, and turned to Hugh.
“The compass needles have turned. All over the world. Insects are going nuts. Fires are breaking out spontaneously throughout the Far East. My friend, there is nowhere to run.”
Hugh grunted against the handkerchief, and the silver haired man moved slowly forward and removed the gag.
“What’s your plan? To hide? To hunker down? This isn’t a one-off storm, at the very least it’s a carbon copy of what we saw three weeks ago.”
“This is our community here. The resources here are ours; they do not belong to you. We welcomed you as part of this community so that you could contribute, and in the few days you’ve been able to walk around my wife has died, food and water and fuel has disappeared, and worst of all, the community no longer trusts itself.”
“Eric, we have to get out of here. Your precious radio isn’t going to have any use when the mountain comes crashing down, taking your mast with it.”
“The cliffs protected us from the last storm, why would this one be any different.”
“Because in this world there are no more patterns. There’s just chaos.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. There is still day and night, rain and sunshine and all the rest. It’s people like you that spreading irrational fear.”
“Irrational?”
“Yes, irrational. What am I going to do with you?”
“I’m the least of your problems. The real question is, are you going to learn the lesson? Do you have any idea what is happening? Because it’s too late to make mistakes now.”
“You were a mistake. We saved your life, and this is the thanks we get.”
“We’re all sitting ducks if we stay here.”
“THEN WHERE WOULD YOU HAVE US GO!” he bellowed. “NO ONE IS GOING ANYWHERE!”
Softly, Hugh said: “The message has been very clear. In the new world, this area is going to see terribly destructive storms again and again. That’s not going to change. So by staying here, you…”
“We have no choice but to stay here.”
“No, you don’t have a choice.”
“Well now that we have you tied up, you don’t have a choice either.” Eric put the gag back in place. “I realise now I don’t have to kill you. I probably couldn’t kill you even if I wanted to. I see though that I don’t have to do anything to you. I’ll leave that to the march of time. What’s coming is coming for you too, my friend. There’s no getting away, not for you, not for anyone.”
He looked very old and very tired. Looking at the blanket in front of his knees, the old man said: “I’ll give you some time to think about that.” Looking directly at him now: “Do you want to die tied up, on your knees, begging? Or do you want to tell us where those fuel drums are?”
Hugh puffed against the handkerchief.
“Think about it,” Eric said, then pushed hands on knees, turned on his haunches and stepped out of the orange tent.
Hugh squirmed so that he lay on his side, with his bound hands behind his back. The walls moved around him like sails, like lungs.

He was awakened by Stella, who quickly cut the hessian fibres and pressed a finger against his lips.
“Hurry,” she whispered, taking him by the wrist. “We don’t have much time.”
As they walked under the moon, restless winds tugging at their cotton t-shirts, Hugh asked: “Where is everyone?”
“Listening to the radio. I fucking can’t sit here listening to that doomsday stuff all day.”
“Wait,” he grabbed her arm. “What are you foing? I said you can’t come with me.”
“After what I just did?”
He hesitated there with her.
“C’mon!” she hissed, pulling his arm.
“We need to get the fuel.”
“I moved it. And a few minutes ago we got it into the boat.”
A small fish of hope jumped in his stomach.
“That’s my girl,” he said softly. Then, “We?”
But she couldn’t hear him. She had grabbed his hand and now he ran after her, surprised at the speedy urgency of her movements.
They finally emerged at a section of beach obscured by a large jutting log, and leaning palm tree. She tossed aside brown palm leaves to reveal the boat, and the whites of children’s eyes.
“C’mon,” she said.

Like spiders they crouched and the four of them pushed at the boat, not far, since the entire beach was already submerged in water, in fact it had begun to pour and sway back between the stems of the outermost palm trees.

“Okay jump in,” Hugh said. The water was deeper. Once in, he pushed further over the calm water, and once the water hit his chest, he tried to clamber in. But he’d lost strength in his core thanks to the haemorrhage. There was a moment of panic as he lost touch of the banca, but Stella caught his shirt, hauled him closer, and then the others grabbed him and helped him up.

It was in that moment that they they heard voices behind them, saw dark figures kicking through the shallow sea towards them, only a few metres away.
Hugh, seized by adrenalin, moved forward over the slick wood, knocking over one of the girls. He seized an oar. Stella immediately did the same. And slowly they moved beyond the striving limbs of the old men in front.
They paddled briskly and chaotically, puffing and panicked, but getting the boat to move more and more decisively through the sweeping seawater. Once a hundred metres out, they were rebuffed again and again by a series of breakers. They remained stuck for two desperate minutes while the group on the beach were running around, shouting, waving, organising something. With a final co-ordinated pull, they managed to sword through a breaker and over the swell behind it. They let out a choked cheer, then breathlessly rowed some more.

Bright sparks suddenly erupted from the edge of the forest. Bullets zipped over their heads, imbedding themselves in the water around them.
Stella abandoned her oar, stepped over him. Ratatatatatatatat… Bullets and the sound following them seconds later. Shouts.
Time seemed to stand still.
Fuck, we’re sitting ducks…
A full minute passed. Hugh attempted to row with one oar. The boat had begun to turn and drift closer.
Another volley of bullets. A swell almost carried them with it, and now another was rising. Hugh clenched his teeth. He needed to straighten; he grabbed the other oar and missed…

Stella yanked at something, and the motor chugged. They moved forward with the swell and at the last moment, Stella swung the handle, and they switched back over the breaking wave, one of the arms diving deep into the water, then lifting again to stabilise them.
She gunned the engine, drowning out the hail of bullets.
Hugh pulled in the oars and found the twins behind them, their bodies warm, but portions of their faces ripped or torn away completely.
He swallowed and tasted metal in his mouth.
They raced over the restless sea under the stars, fingertips tingling, while behind them the soldiers exploded one last hail of bullets over the beach. This time it cut down their civilian friends, leaving a number of giant red ink stains that spread across the beach.

It was only much later that they stopped, and in the silence, the water lapping against the wooden hull, they offloaded the small bodies into the quiet blackness of the ocean. Stella wiped her eyes and nose quickly with the back of her hands. She didn’t want him to see her crying. Then, saying nothing, they started the pumpboat engine once more and went deeper out to sea, into the night.

Ball Is Rolling

I've just been asked to send 50 pages of my book, The Holiday, by Toby Eady (in the UK). Fingers crossed. At the same time, somewhere in Norwood, Johannesburg, Janet is having a look at what may turn out to be my future abode.

Last night I watched the SA 2007 Ironman on ESPN. Was shocking to see Raynard overtaken in the final stretch (again) and that he was so exhausted by the effort of trying to win. Tissink has always seemed infallible, uncatchable, even superhuman. Was an interesting experience watching the Ironman from the comfort of a living room. Must say I still find it something that gets my blood pumping. 2008 maybe?

Been very busy this week.

Meanwhile here's a thought: when it comes to predicting the End of the World, you only have to be right once.

Which one is...

Zoolander

Read my Tomb Raider interview with Allison Carrol here.

Saw a guy at gym last night do 11 pullups. Looked really strong. I did 10. Did a good hard run, starting at 8km/h and building at .5km/h increments every minute until I got to 14.5km/h (in the 15th minute). Boy, did that get the engine going.

I also did core and upper body, wanted to swim but then decided I’d leave that for today. It’s still cold in Bloem, today will be 15 C.

Had the best sleep in yonks, which goes to show, if I had gone to a pharmacy I would have treated the symptom (constipation), not the source (entropy, lack of exercise, weight gain). Speaking of which, I weighed myself: 87.3kg. Think it is a new record, though paradoxically, I think a larger proportion of that is muscle. Weird.

Actually a heck of a lot of weird stuff is happening, most of which I dare not mention. I think my chapter 12 (posted below) reflects that. It was a difficult chapter to write; not sure if it works.

Must remember Fransa’s birthday on the 6th.

The Holiday (continued)

Twelve
Underground

The sun rose and immediately began to burn through the forest. He had smelt the forest in Manila, here there was no steam, just a crusty smell. When you walked instead of the lushness of leaves brushing against each other, twigs snapped, and withered leaves begged for relief. Higher up, they sometimes wandered into lush sections. Here the frogs croaked, and birds flashed in dappled light. After two hours on the monkey trail, hiking through the St Paul Subterranean National Park, they arrived at the modest gray mouth of a mountain, and watched clear fluorescent blue water flowing out and sparkling in the sun. While the old man removed his shoes to rub tired feet, the girls tore off their shirts and dived into the water. They squealed, splashing the men, shouting, shrieking over and over: “It’s as warm as a bath.”
Hugh sat at a picnic table, reading the description of the various animals. These boards were usually constructed at pristine sites all over the world. He wondered if other places too were deserted and empty, even the animals it seemed, somewhere else if not dead.
Lingering in his mind was a strange dream that had left him also strangely aroused. He’d been unable to put his finger on it when Stella, with her brown eyes and brown hair, a girl of thirteen or fourteen, took his hand. “Come,” she said, wearing a simultaneously shy and cheeky smile. “Come and swim.”
He was surprised just how warm the water was. It was almost hot. It didn’t make sense. It was supposed to be flowing from within the mountain wasn’t it?
He mentioned this to the old man, who in six words broke the fragile film of structure Hugh had managed to blow out against the wind of the new world.
“Part of the mountain has collapsed.”
The bubbled popped.
“How can a mountain collapse?” Hugh asked, a girl climbing on his shoulder.
“Well it’s hollow on the inside, and we’ve had massive amounts of rain…God knows it must have been pounded inside and outside.”
“So the water is warm…why?”
“Perhaps somewhere upstream there’s a sort of cauldron where the water is temporarily held back and warmed.”
Hugh stood up suddenly and the girl jumped making a big splash. Hugh nodded quietly.
“Which is which,” he said, pointing to two girls with short, pixie black hair and pointy ears and noses.
“I can never tell. Aaargh. I’m going to sit down,” the old man said, wading stiffly up the embankment to the wooden benches.
Hugh lay on his back, noticing swarms of mosquitoes, watching swifts darting in and out of the mouth, in pursuit of insects. He wondered whether some clouds of insects, that sometimes grew so dark they blocked his view of background scenery. He wondered if that was normal. Lately he wasn’t sure whether anything was normal.

* * *

Inside the cave it was spooky. Stella shared his canoe and sat upfront with a paddle, while Hugh paddled and steered from the rear. The twins were behind them, struggling to row in a straight line. They couldn’t make out much as they had run out of torch batteries in the last week, and there had been no electricity at the house to charge cellphones or anything else.
“Where are the others,” Hugh said, softly.
“Right behind,” Stella murmured, her head right back against his chest, her eyes looking straight up at him.
“No, the other two.”
“Uh…probably smooching somewhere.”
“Huh?”
And just then, in the gloom, they floated quietly on the dark warm water, towards the glistening rock where the two nymphs lay, bikini tops at their feet, silky limbs and hair in the dimness.
DUNK!
The twins boat bumped into them from behind, and the cave echoed with shrieks. Hugh said in a warm, golden voice, “Shall we go girls?”
Paddling back Stella spoke while paddling, so he could not see her face. “Are you going to tell someone?”
“Who would I tell? What would I tell,” Hugh said.
Yet inside his heart was breaking. In a very short space of time he felt he had grown very fond of this small subunit of the Sabang group. He was leaving them to take care of number one, and more particularly, because he firmly believed remaining in Sabang was a terminal decision.

This feeling grew as they walked back. They pressed soft melons against their faces, the half rotten orange flesh soft and incredibly sweet. They passed around a sticky pip, biting the fibers that still clung to it, and trying to maneuver melon string stuck between teeth with their tongues.

Quite high up on the jungle trail they stopped. Stella pulled at Hugh’s hand and pointed. They could see Michael walking, limping painfully below them on the monkey trail. It was another irony, that the girls had rudely chosen to go with him on this harder route, a route he chose so that he could walk alone, and be alone with his thoughts.
“C’mon,” Stella said. Hugh sank onto his haunches, waving away a small mist of mosquitoes. “You guys go on ahead, I just want to be alone for a little bit. Go on.”
The twins and the other two solemnly walked on, taking small careful steps with their small legs.
Stella stayed with him.
“Take me with you, when you go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Please take me with you.”
“What about the people here that love you?”
“Michael? He’s my step grandfather.”
“What on earth is that?”
“He’s not my real grandfather, he married my grandmother after my real grandfather died.”
“You’re here with him?”
“Just promise me you’ll take me with you?”
“I um…I can’t do that…Stella…I can’t.”
“Please….promise me…” A tear flowed over her cheek.
Hugh stood up.
“We are not having this conversation. You don’t even know me.”
And with that he turned and walked back along the path they had taken. She watched him for a long time, and then finally, turned and followed the others.

Hugh followed the jungle trail until the junction with the monkey trail, walked along it for a while, then left it altogether and walked onto a small protected cove. He saw rock rising up on both sides, the tired forest hanging, higher up it was lush and busy with life.
The beach was almost entirely underwater, something else that seemed unusual. What’s more there were strange creatures washed up, and many of them. He saw a dolphin, an octopus, and some very odd creatures that looked like they belonged in the deep, where the light of the sun never reached. They were monsters from a subterranean world, washed up, their lifeless fins gently touching his angles as the waves pushed at him.

It was this constant drama, this build up of frustration that made him tear off his clothes and walk into the water. It was crystal clear. He mistook a tussock of seaweed for another body from the deep, apparently also being washed ashore. He could feel the pressure in him manifesting in an erection. He wasn’t sure what it was…was it all this, the island, this life, the people around him…all fusing with the delirious dream…where sex and death are one and the same. Perhaps we die because we have sex, or because we have sex, we die. But he tugged at himself in the salty water, pinching eyes closed to concentrate, then taking a deep painful breath, and looking wildly at what was left of the forest. He aligned himself with his pleasure and his pain, and felt the ocean within him bulging. His bulging biceps gleamed in the stinging sun. His toes gripped the white sand, his left hand shielded the light from his eyes…the children were far away, and the ocean itself did not cease, when the man standing waist deep pumped his semen into the churning froth. Then he walked slowly up the beach, gathered up his clothes, and went along the shore to the faraway boats under the dying trees.

Hang 'em High

Investec did a recruitment drive once and we were a group of graduates asked to debate whether capital punishment was justifiable. My argument was 'almost never'.

Here is an example of what may be an exeption to the rule: (click on the above title to link to Afrikaans story)
Ziqhu is a dude that worked as a storeman at a local air force base. He raped 12 girls (all under the age of 15 years old, the youngest was 10) despite knowing he had HIV. 2 of his victims now have the HIV virus.

Now one could posit a few mitigating arguments, but the bottom line is:
- he raped all 12
- he knew he had AIDS

It makes me uncomfortable to hear that he listened to his sentence being passed 'showing no emotion'. Perhaps if he was given the death penalty he might have registered some sort of human response, like, "Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe, you know, I hurt someone."

The value of the death penalty in his case will also be to warn similar monsters from committing the same dastardly deeds, and if you think it is not necessary, have a look at South Africa's holocaust like rape and AIDS statistics. So what if he was given 12 life sentences, he will only serve one. He could be given 1000 life sentences, but effectively it is a meaningless punishment. The death penalty is a barbaric way to control elements of barbarism in society. It is not an ideal measure, of course it isn't, but then our society is far from ideal. And of course, in a more ideal (law abiding) society, even with the death penalty in place, it would never be used.

Human beings though, seem to me, to thrive on incentive. In schools it is so obvious: where corporal punishment does not exist, students simply don't have the capacity to know how to behave themselves.

In muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Malaysia, limbs can be cut off for anything from drug smuggling to adultery, (something I consider extreme) yet we also see a very high degree of morality. My point is that to rapidly inculcate a sense of honesty and honor in a lawless society, you have to fight fire to some degree, with fire. Those who accept 12 life sentences as a 'just' punishment are really just fooling themselves. Two of those girls will now slowly be consumed with a deadly disease forced into them. This tragedy happens because human rights and value for the human being are wrongly attributed to all, and thus in this case also specifically to the perpetrator, rather than with due diligence and circumspection to those in society who earn and deserve them (the innocent majority of civilians).

On the issue of abortion we also like to make sweeping moral codes for ourselves. Naturally abortion depends on context. Maybe most of us are just too tired to think, so we give ourselves generalised laws to paint giant brush strokes over the details, and feel better about ourselves, thinking the world is safer. It's not. No, the details of human beings and how differently they live their lives are important, and each case needs to be considered on its own merits.

Floyd's Book: Positively False

Fire Choker

Im a firestarter, twisted firestarter - Not! Last night the fireplace was a big warm orange cocoon. I did the caveman chore, loaded up some charcoal, lifted the hatch. Something was wrong because a metal trapdoor still covered the oven, despite having raised the lid. Long story short, I manoeuvered - weird word that if you think about it - the grating with a poker, and managed to let it fall down the chimney. The fire died a slow choking death, and this morning the house was about the same temperature as it was outside: -4 C

I watched Tristan and Isolde last night. I once wrote a book where the first tenth was set in the year +- 800AD. This was the Dark Ages, after the fall of the roman empire. It was time when people lived in clans, tribes and castles, when swords and shields and fires were still very much part of the landscape, and so was chivalry and bravery etc. The clothing of that period was also romantic. I sketched images of our bearded grandfathers, stumbling through deep snow in their kilts and caftans, somewhere in Germania. And despite being on the way to war, a tornado touched down (sounding like a 747 landing) and tossed our furry grandfathers through the sky. Some escaped in boats, some were impaled on Pine tree limbs, dripping leaving scarlet needles.

But the movie made me think about love. Imagine you're given up for dead, wash up on an enemy isle, your wounds inflicted by the blade of her intended are taken care of by the enemey's princess (you've recently and quite conincidentally also killed her undesirable fiance). Later Tristan returns to Ireland to fight for her, only to have her be given up to King Mark of Dor Castle, and has to watch her marry him. But the king also saved his life (and lost his hand at the same time), and gave him a family and protection. The question is, if you 'find' and deserve someone, but lose them however unfairly, to a rival or a friend, should you persist in pursuing them? Or should you just accept that life is hard and there are plenty of fish in the sea?

In Caveman days I assume love was pretty much a practical setup, where good looks were a bonus, but the ability to cook, survive and mend things (from your wife) was probably more important.

Kunstler: Pajama People

from www.kunstler.com:

Thuggo and Sluggo
As someone who spends a fair amount of time in airports, I marvel at the way my fellow citizens present themselves in public. I see middle-aged women who appear to have left home in their pajamas. But it's the costume and demeanor of American young men especially that raises interesting questions about who we have become.

The fashion and body language of male youth in 2007 comes from three sources:
prison, the nursery, and the pimpmobile. It's an old story now that many conventions of gangster fashion come out of the jail experience, where they take away your belt and shoelaces so you won't hang yourself. Apparently, at some point in US history, they stopped giving the belts and shoelaces back on release, and it became stylish to wear your trousers falling down below the top of your underpants (or butt crack as the case may be). Jail being a kind of accreditation device these days, the message may be: I passed the entrance exam.

Less obvious is the contribution of the nursery. Pants that are ambiguously neither long or short, worn with XX-large T shirts, tend to make grown men look like babies. Babies have short legs and large torsos compared to grown men. They also make big awkward gestures and touch their sex organs a lot. Add a sideways hat and unlaced sneakers and you have the complete kindergarten rig. Why a 20-year-old male would want to look five years old is another interesting question, but it may have a lot to do with the developmental failures of boys raised in households without fathers. They simply don't know how to be men. They only know how to behave like five year old boys. They even give themselves nursery school nicknames. But they are men, and what could be more menacing than the paradox of a child bent on homicide.

Tattoos used to be pretty much the sole fashion statement of merchant seamen or people who have served in the armed forces (or people who live in jungles). Now they are common among career girls. The tattooed guys I see down at the gym are ordinary young men who work in cubicles. Tattoos on sailors used to celebrate places they had been or people they had loved. The tattoos I see now are meant to convey fierce and barbaric statements of superhuman power: look at me, I'm a Power Ranger!

It's understandable that someone who spends most of his waking hours in a cubicle wearing a telephone headset in order to swindle old people out of their savings might fantasize about rising above all that. But the tragic thing, of course, is that getting tattooed is not quite the same as accomplishing something with your life. In the end, you're just another loser with a grandiose and ridiculous tattoo.

The pimp connection is too obvious to belabor -- meant to mock normal executive attire while signifying an existence of total leisure and the enjoyment of unearned riches. The trouble is that the worship of unearned riches -- based on the belief that it truly is possible to get something for nothing -- has now become normal at all levels in American life. Everybody from the lowest whoremonger on Hollywood Boulevard to the Wall Street hedge fund managers believes in unearned riches plucked from "suckers." The catch is that men who live by this code almost always come to a bad end. They get their throats cut with razors, or go to prison, or manage to lose all their unearned riches (and the investments of many strangers, too).

The portrait of the young American male in 2007, therefore, is of an impotent, infantalized being lost in grandiose fantasies of power and importance. It's a picture of men without real confidence, and no idea how to achieve it, who wish to project a transcendently ferocious image complete with odds-and-ends of manner taken from comic books and movies based on comic books, in order to be taken seriously.

The rest of the world must tremble to contemplate the picture we present. The Nazi soldiers of 1944 were glamour boys compared to the riff-raff that American young men have become. As for those who actually do make it into the army, you wonder how they appear to the locals overseas -- they're probably taken seriously as exactly what the present themselves to be: manifestly evil beings who really need to be blown up. Back home, I look around at the thugs and sluggos at my gym, and I'm ashamed to be a citizen of the same country they live in.

Which Cartoon Character Are you?

The cold is sickening. The fireplace/stove gave up its last orange blip of heat, then crumbled to soft cool ash, allowing the house to slowly freeze its occupant under a thin layer of frost. It's felt like being in an icebox over the weekend, as the entire northern elevation of the house is glass, and the ceiling to floor glass doors often have to be opened so that one or a number of doggies can do outdoor reconnoitering. It's so icy cold that one is inclined to be glued to a couch or a bed for large chunks of time, effectively sitting out the cold.

So I spent a large portion of sunday watching Diana's tribute concert. Something happened at the end, perhaps the digital media jammed or got stuck. Was heartwarming though to see Nelson Mandela offer a final comment, something along the lines of: Diana is missed, the impact she made is missed, there is no one like her reaching out to children (and the poor) as she did. Which begs the question, who is our modern princess? Who is the most photographed female, hunted like she was by the pararazzi. The answer is quite horrifying: Paris Hilton. We look to her for our worldly inspiration.

The rest of the weekend was no less bizarre, starting at Mystic Boer, but not ending there. I feel like I am living in a box (a cardboard box), and at least Johannesburg offers the chance to encounter a broader crossection of humanity, and plenty of refreshing views (instead of the same cardboard dreariness). At the very least the opportunity is there to encounter new people. That way I can get away from this recycling soapie:

...people used to gossip alot about me- there was so much professional jealousy that it was almost unbearable...

Today will have a maximum of just 11 degrees. Daffy Duck in a small pond, getting smaller as the ice sheet closes in. Countdown to wing flaps, and flying away huh Daffy?

Diana’s Legacy

Her death created a hole in the world that has never healed

Like everyone else, I also suspected that partaking in the media frenzy (for example by reading anything about the royal family) was to feed the pack of wolves, and so condemn Diana most of all to a ridiculous existence. But, like everyone else, and probably Diana herself as well, there were many times when the media, as intrusive as they were, provided us all with catharsis.

Her story as we know is a sometimes charming fairy tale that didn’t end happily ever after. Just prior to her death it did seem as though the story would still ultimately end well, because the young woman had renewed herself, had found once again an inner strength and a new direction. Diana, in those halcyon days before the car crash, was more beautiful and more confident than ever, and incongruously she was on her path to ‘reasonably happily ever after’ when she lost her life.

The story starts as one such fairy tale does, with the very young, and very shy, the mischievous and the kind Diana literally on her hands and knees, scrubbing floors, and otherwise being a nanny (and a very good one) to an American family in London. When she married Charles, although she loved him, she was not certain of his love for her, and she was aware of Charles’ mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles very early on. She confided in friends, and her father, just before the wedding that she meant to call it off. It is then that the most bizarre reasons are proffered for going ahead with such a charade: the fact that towels and plates had already been printed with Diana’s image on it. And indeed, how could the story have ended there? Without marrying Charles we would not have had the Princess, or the two princes born to her, or any story at all.

It is interesting to look back at the wedding, and all the pomp, and wonder what must have been going through Charles’ mind, knowing what he knew he was about to embark upon. One also wonders if the various soldiers on their horses, the carriage drivers, the priest who called it ‘a fairy tale’, the camera men, the crowds, had they known the dreadful conclusion to this story, would have shown up for the wedding parade in the first place? Would we? Unfortunately, the tragedy of life is that even knowing that something is doomed before it is begun, we still come together in the hope that it might not be, that at the very least life should be given its chance, and probably, this was the sentiment felt by both Charles and Diana, perhaps more by Diana.

On the balcony of Buckingham Palace, a taste of the life that awaited Diana was demonstrated right off the bat: Charles’ brother Andrew urging him to kiss the beautiful bride, and then the Prince asking his mother’s permission to do so, and the queen duly gave her permission.

There is a powerful sense of irony, knowing now how inadequate Diana felt (who was engaged at 19 years of age, and married 6 months later), that this same sense of insufficiency was soon to come to Charles. But imagine Diana’s early burden, not only having to deal with her insufferable, stiff upper lipped, controlling in laws, but also with an invisible third party, competing for her husband’s attention, hiding in the shadows both before and during the marriage. Perhaps in those early day’s Diana’s principal feeling was needing safety from the baying hounds outside, of feeling supremely vulnerable at first, and then unexpectedly, suddenly very lonely.

The irony emerges as an enormous wave that builds, breaks on itself, and mountains ever higher. Because of course Diana eclipsed the entire royal family, starting with Charles, who soon became a mere flower bearer, a gloved puppet, for the rising star. It was perhaps an overly cruel retribution for his deceitful ploys, but one suspected that the crowds joined Diana in feeling justified that Charles, initially at any rate, certainly deserved them. How could he find a way not to love Diana when the whole world did? Why after all would he love someone less lovable and beautiful than Diana?

In the movie The Queen Helen Mirren portrays Charles’ mother as someone who loathed Diana for her success, saw her as unintelligent, was jealous, incredulous and resentful of Diana’s popularity, and who over time developed terrible contempt for the girl. Was it not the Queen herself who invited Diana to Balmoral to meet Charles, and not even Charles himself? So it is somewhat sad that the Queen’s pride kept her from owning the situation between her son and the princess. Instead, she turned Diana into a threat, and an outsider. Perhaps more than anything the Queen felt a bitter sense that the Royal Family had somehow been robbed of adulation they had always felt entitled to. Diana’s legacy in part demonstrates that although the Royal family were perhaps entitled to fanfare and fuss, they probably did not deserve it. In simple language this simply meant that as people, they (the Royals) just weren’t as likable or as nice as Diana. Diana on the other hand, most people felt, did deserve the people’s love She was beautiful, and radiant, but also sensitive and kind, and in many ways just like us. She approached people, because she often felt such a deep sense of unworthiness. She reached out, because her family did not reach out to her.

And throughout this period, the press prodded her for vulnerabilities, and found them. She felt assailed by then, but at times perhaps the press – especially The Sun – sometimes were her allies in the involuntary war with the family she’d been married into. Diana had an affair after her two children were born, a long time after she’d first known about Fred and Gladys (Charles’ and Camilla’s codenames for one another), a long time after she’d found Charles wearing cufflinks on their honeymoon (given to him by Camilla), and the bracelet with GF engraved on it, (which he was to give to her immediately after the wedding).

While many, perhaps the Queen most of all, were horrified by Diana’s infidelity, we can’t but understand it as a very normal response of a lonely wife, who long knew of her husband’s infidelity, and who struggled to bear her own seemingly interminable suffering.

I do wonder, since the press was such a terrible burden, why Diana did not employ a number of doubles, to lead them astray. Imagine the waste of effort, the indirect counterfeiting of photographs and stories, if the media had been led astray as to the real whereabouts of the real princess, even for a season. If Diana had pulled this off, the press might have been defeated at their own game. So one can argue that perhaps both the Royal Family and Diana, at least on some level, consented to the ridiculous circus they attracted.

We can focus now on the paparazzi, but Diana cannot be brought back from the dead. We have to know with regret that in Paris she fought for two hours for her life, while a French doctor had his hand in her bloodied chest, and her heart literally in his hands. She suffered two heart attacks in that time, and then that wonderful, beautiful woman died, and was lost to the world that loved her so much. We can look at her sons, and ask: why are they being sent off to war, to Iraq or anywhere else? We could also pose the question to them, why they would want to participate in war at all (even one as unpopular and unethical as the Iraq war), when clearly they have the same heart to help the sick (think of Harry and his work with AIDS orphans in Lesotho), as Diana did?

Diana never lost her sense of both humility and sensitivity to others, and indeed, she seemed to find comfort and solace in the grim physical realities of the very sick, and the destitute. Diana’s legacy is that her life, her story and her beauty crossed all boundaries. One person really brought the world together, for a good cause. We celebrated her beauty and goodness, and she showed us the vulnerable, the poor, and the suffering in our own world. She gave humanity to humanity when we sorely needed it. If there is any doubt, we should ask ourselves how or why we find ourselves with no Princess Diana in the world today. The closest we have to Diana is arguably the heiress Paris Hilton. Not quite the same ring to it as Princess, and Paris Hilton is certainly different in many respects to the Princess of Wales, but she’s celebrated nonetheless. It says a lot about who we are and what the world has become since Diana died.