Category Archives: Creative writing

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Story postcard – wet as mangoes (1)

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 “Wait!” Jacobus’ shout swings Rudd around. “Wait, man!” he shouts again, as he strides to the door. “We have to shift this.”

Rudd hears voices calling outside. He, Tonderai and Jambee rush to help. They arrange themselves around the stove and begin to pull.

“Hurry … wet as mangoes … here …”

“ … is Fred …?”

Torchlight beams in around the side of the door.

“Hey, you’re blinding us with that thing,” Jambee shouts.

“Sorry.”

“Hold on. The door’s jammed this side. Won’t take long,” Rudd yells, as they grapple with the stove.  

The metal is slick, and the water higher around the base than when they’d first forced the stove into position. Crouched awkwardly, they shove and pull again and again, and at last the stove begins to swivel, slowly releasing the door until there’s enough of a gap for bodies to force through.

First in is Hansie, his torch flashing between them. “Eish … still tipping it…,” he says, wiping the wet off his face as Sal squeezes past him, calling for her uncle, urgency changing to relief when he replies.

“Where’s Jen?” Jacobus asks.

“They’re in Rudd’s old room down there. Their room now. Looks safe and dry. Said they’d stay. Katania did not want to come out in this again,” Hansie says, moving further to one side, to leave more room for the others.

“Sure they’re okay?” Jacobus asks.

“Ja. All looked good when I saw them. Not sure how long ago. I checked on the others, then came up here to look around when this storm started again.”

“They should be fine,” says Rudd. “They did a good job when they refurbed those rooms.”

“For sure,” says Tonderai.

“And Caralee?” Jambee asks.

Hansie reaches an arm around his little brother’s shoulders. “She’s fine hey. She’s in the room with Jen and Katania.”

Jambee nods, his relief silhouetted briefly by the torchlight, as they bend together to close the thrashing door. With the added weight of Hansie, the stove moves easily back into position, leaving only a slim, screaming gash at the top.

Rudd winces as Hansie slaps him on the back. “Good cave this.”

“Agreed,” Rudd says, rubbing his palms together, as they head towards the fire. Voices joke around them.

“Eish it’s lekker and warm in here …”

“How come you got the fire?”

“Any tea for us?”

“Might be some biltong if you’re lucky,” Jacobus shouts from his post by the door.

“Now you’re talking.”

“Good to see you two,” says Hansie, looming briefly over Fred and Bernard, en route to a seat of his own.

Rudd watches as the incomers arrange themselves along the far bench. He counts twelve, and recognizes a few, but not all. He sits and listens to the chat as bodies warm, Marybelle pinging questions into the thick of it, as she sets a fresh pot of water on the fire.

 “Swimming-pool’s just a flood.”

“Steps down to the bedrooms running like Vic Falls.”

“How’s the squash court?” Tim asks.

“Okay, but something hit the roof, and rolled off … maybe a tree …”

“Like a stampede of mombies on top of us. Just crazy.”

“I swear those walls are bending.”

Rudd throws in a question. “Anyone missing?” he calls.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Story postcard – sifting through the shadows (3)

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Rudd speaks cautiously, aware of the tension in Jacobus, his arms still rigid against the wall, his head dropped between his shoulders. “The vehicles closest to the gomo didn’t stand a chance. Some of those rocks are huge. I’m not sure where you parked your truck.”

“It was there. That side. Up against the fence.” Jacobus drops the words like stones to the floor. “My truck! Jeessus man!”

Rudd takes half a step towards him and then stops, as Jacobus pushes himself upright.

“I never saw your truck for sure,” Rudd says.

Jacobus turns to face him. “Maybe it won’t be mine. But that truck. You’ve no idea. I need it for everything,” he says, his voice low and bitter.

 “Sorry, sorry,” says Tonderai.  

Jacobus sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Agh … it’s only a truck man. Hey Tonderai? It’s only a truck.”

“Yes, but …”

“A truck,” Jacobus repeats, his voice flat. He sits down heavily, shoulders slumped. “You know how long it took us to get that through customs? How many bribes we had to pay? I don’t even want to think about it.”

“I love your truck, Jacobus,” Marybelle calls. “I’ll say a prayer for it.”

“Ha! Go for it Marybelle. I need it for everything, hey. All our vegetable deliveries. No truck, no business. Only vehicle we’ve got man.”

“May still be okay,” Rudd says, as he goes back to his spot on the bench.

“I’m not so sure, Rudd,” Tim calls. “When I went outside, all I saw up that end of the fence were buried vehicles. Some of them may be okay, if we can clear them. Just have to wait until the rain stops.”

“Ja. Let’s hope it’s not as bad as it looks. I reckon the kopje slipped because of all the clearing they’ve been doing round there for planting, and firewood.”

“Like building in a bloody swamp,” says Jacobus, as the rain begins another assault on the roof. “And I don’t just mean this storm. We’re so used to taking risks, hey Rudd? Jen said she’d heard something about a cyclone, and I told her she’d gone mad. And now look. I’ve spent so long scratching the lion’s balls with a short stick. Now …”

But Jacobus never finishes. Rain slams down and cuts him off. It pounds over them, the downpour so heavy that it seems to hammer up from the floor itself. For long minutes it drowns the space to talk, then at last it patters away.

Father Norman is the first to shout into the quiet. “Any sign of the mission truck, Rudd?”

“Not that I saw. Tim?”

 “The only vehicle I saw for sure was Fred’s, and that won’t be going anywhere any time soon.”

“Maybe I can fix it,” says Bernard.

Fred’s hand shakes up into the torchlight, lifting his creaking voice with it.

“Bernard will fix it. He’ll get us going.”

“Huh!” Bernard dips his head towards his friend. “Maybe you are right, old man. Maybe you are right.”

 “Of course he is,” Marybelle calls brightly. “Just got to keep our hopes up.”

“That’s all we live off,” says Jacobus.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Story postcard – sifting through the shadows (2)

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Rudd sits still, pleased to be in the shadows. Outside the storm picks up again, rattling at the door then shrieking off around the building, shaking the windows. It pushes, and shoves. It throws over tables, and kicks them into walls. Furious. Banging. Crashing. Slapping. Then slowly, slowly, like a child bored of a game, it steadies, sulking into corners.

Jacobus’ voice reaches out through the bluster. “Tonderai, this cyclone thing is new hey. None of us are ready. But this rain – all this rain that never stops. And the wind. Something’s wrong, hey? Let’s just hope the Nyahonde doesn’t get out of hand.”

Tonderai nods his head slowly. He speaks slowly. “But I am the one. The senior one. I tried to tell them. But some … they would not listen.”

“Agh, don’t worry about that man. If anyone had told us to leave, I would have told them to voetsek.”

“Tonderai …” Fred’s voice is shaky. He tries to raise it louder, clearing his throat. “They never listen to me …”

“Ha!” laughs Bernard. “That is whites for you. They do not respect their elders.”

“Not true,” said Jacobus. “We do, but they’re not the only ones telling us what to do.”

Tonderai’s eyes stay on the fire. “I am the clever one in my family. I went to the mission school. My mother worked every day to pay for school fees. But then what? Fighting. Independence. Working here. Busy, busy. But now there are no tourists. And this … ” he swings a mackintoshed arm out towards the storm.

Bernard clicks his tongue loud and hard against the back of his teeth, repeating the sound as he shakes his head.

“We didn’t know it would be this bad,” Rudd says.

“We saw the warning,” Tonderai replies his voice insistent.

“But the Government said nothing.”

“The Government?” Jacobus almost chokes on the word. “Really? This Government? C’mon man. Who are you kidding? As if they’d do anything.”

A bash of wind swallows Rudd’s reply, then Marybelle steps in.

 “Jacobus,” she shouts, voiced determined, “this is the only government Rudd knows. We’re old hey? We remember how things used to work. He …”

Rudd leans closer to try to catch what Marybelle is saying, but he cannot hear, for the wind has started its din again, battering the door against the old stove, faster and faster. But the cast iron block does not budge, and again the wind retreats, leaving just the rain galloping over the roof.

 “Tonderai, I’ll take you to your village when this is over. I’ve got my truck,” Jacobus calls out.

“Ah Jacobus…” Rudd hesitates, his voice shrinking, “the carpark …”

“What?”

 “That landslide out the front. Remember?”

“Ja,” says Jacobus. “Speak up man, I can’t hear you.”

“Okay. Looks like the whole kopje has come down. Car park is buried. And some of the cars… ”

“Some of the cars what?”

“Totalled.”

“What? No way!” Jacobus surges to his feet. “My truck?”

“I can’t say for sure.” Rudd stands slowly, anxious at the rage building in the bigger man. “But it doesn’t look good.”

“What? No!” Jacobus’ voice is taut.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023