Adelheid Manefeldt

“After all relationships had sell-by dates. Sometimes, the ones with the most passion were the ones to burn out faster. Others had a sweet and long-winding coil which burned with slow amicability. At times, it was true, people rekindled a dying ember with a new flame. But they hardly ever noticed the rekindling had come after some time of estrangement - whether physical or emotional. Because people needed newness to make a thing last indefinitely. To make it really last. And because Jan didn't like letting people go, she knew to look for the signs of love's waning. So she could tell how to ease it down slowly into its grave and keep her lovers as friends. Because she really believed people were meant to cross paths. People were meant to stay in your life. There was a reason for all encounters. And relationships had to be cosseted, no matter their shelf life. But they had to be allowed to change shape and form. It had to be given space to grow into something different.”

“The secret tugs at my sleeve.A child looking for attention.It is not a big secret.But it is not the only one either.“Strength in numbers” they say.For they are many.Many little things that – together –weigh tonnes.And take up space.And are quite noisy.The way only a lot of whispers can make noise.And they follow me.Little secretsof omission, desire,and denial.Of indulgence, hedonism,and exploration.Of peeves, passion,and deep-seated fear.Little secretsof despairanddisrepairandprohibited thoroughfare.”

“I sit on a rock and watch children playingin the park belowThey don't see meOr know my thoughtsOr that you haven't calledBut I forgive them their indifference todayAbove me a crow cawsPerhaps he smells the crumbs on my dressOr my angerBut he flits away over the treesProbably has a homeProbably has a wifeProbably knew to callThe children leaveThe coffee in my can turns coldThe wind nips at meSome street lights flicker onBut I won't moveNot yetI will wait for the night to chase meBack where I came fromUp the empty streetTo a quiet house”

“It had started to drizzle. The lamp poles cast a kaleidoscope of light dancing across the puddles in the road. The rain made Sam feel even more lost now, as if these shadowy events were invisible to the world. As if the night was cloaked in anonymity. This wasn’t a peaceful rain - it was a sad one. A drizzle, which wept for the inevitable. Sam knew even if she got Alison out of this alive, the cuts on their lives had already been made, pooling the blood of consequence beneath their feet as the night dragged on. Whichever way this went, they’d have scars from this night. Scars and scabs and things which could not be spoken. And that made her feel utterly hopeless.”

“He lived a quiet existence where the future was easy to predict and the past was a cancer in remission. It was meaningful, of course. But it was lonely.”

“Gone were the days where December locked coastal towns down in the grips of labour. Although it was still mostly true, things had changed ; Cape Town had adapted its rhythm to the influx of foreign feet. Tourism was a year -round thing and no longer limited to the summer. Most local tourists still flocked here during this time, but Capetonians didn’t seem too bothered to serve at their beck and call. Sam thought of Cape Town as France , and the rest of the country as England. The city, although relying heavily on local tourism – feigned ignorance when it came to the contribution of these outsiders to its wellbeing.”

“People tended to forgive only partially. They forgave in order to, one day, get a chance to remind those they’d forgiven about their failings. They forgave to feel righteous. That’s why forgiveness was so painful – because it meant conceding. It meant letting go of her case without a rebuttal. True forgiveness knew no justice. It was liberating, most probably… but freedom comes at a cost. Freedom is never free.”

“When you’re a kid, you don’t think about big stuff that could change your life. You think about small things that might terrify you –like a bad report card or missing a goal in front of all your friends or your friends no longer wanting to play with you. Because that's the biggest stuff you know. The biggest disappointments are all tied to this small little universe of yours, because bigger things cannot fit into a small universe. If you wanted bigger things in there you needed to have more room –or make more room. Perhaps you thought about your parents or your pets dying, which was rare. But all you knew was you would be terribly sad and lonely. And on those occasions when people or pets actually died, someone usually came along and distracted you from feeling too much of your actual feelings. Grownups did that –they never left you alone to feel alone or think alone too much. They tended to think you are too small to know how to think and feel in big heaps, so they took parts of your heap onto themselves. To help – but in the long run –it doesn’t help at all. Because if you do not see, or feel or think, or taste the bitter things in life, you don’t know they exist. You have not seen enough of the world to know how terrible it could be. And unfortunately for Sam, this inability to process change persisted into adulthood.”

“The endless ocean was his sole companion , and on some deeply sentimental level, it seemed sufficient. Almost apt. He aligned himself with Thoreau and Tolstoy, he felt like their peers. The kinship with nature devoted humans to a mythical state, a heightened persona beyond the reach of mere mortals. At least that was what he told himself on the lonely nights when insomnia played on his fears and the howling wind pierced through his soul.”

“Sam groaned. A warmth on her face alerted her to the new morning. She opened one eye and peered at the fuzzy daylight streaming in through the window. Her head throbbed like a bitch. Her mouth felt like a carpet. She pushed herself off the couch and stood up shakily, kicking bottles as she stumbled to her small kitchen. Every movement was painful and slow. She was a sloth tight-roping through time. She held onto the basin for a moment to steady herself. She grabbed a plastic cup and opened the tap, letting it flow as she filled and refilled it, gulping down as much water as she could. She splashed her face, neck and chest with water, then refilled the cup and dumped the contents over her head. She stood there, unaware of the moments passing by, as the water dripped down her body. Willing herself to wake up and feel better. Willing the nausea into oblivion.”

“And then, like most of the times she went down that road of thought, things started lighting up. Rays filtered through the smog like tentacles – and a quite intangible hope infected the darkness with its resolution. She never knew where these urges to 'move forward' came from. Their source eluded her – but she knew they were there somewhere, just as mysterious and uncontrollable as the darkness. Treacles of light had unwittingly penetrated these dark alleyways in her thinking. Illumination came slowly, but it was undeniable.”

“indelible waitingl'art poetique"..I will wait for the night to chase me..."I sit on a rock and watch children playingin the park belowThey don't see meOr know my thoughtsOr that you haven't calledBut I forgive them their indifference todayAbove me a crow cawsPerhaps he smells the crumbs on my dressOr my angerBut he flits away over the treesProbably has a homeProbably has a wifeProbably knew to callThe children leaveThe coffee in my can turns coldThe wind nips at meSome street lights flicker onBut I won't moveNot yetI will wait for the night to chase meBack where I came fromUp the empty streetTo a quiet house”

“That was the problem with ones actions. They would always remain ‘acted’. They always remained ‘being done’, and their influence on the world, whether small or big , would always be palpable. You couldn't refute the past. He would always remain liable for the consequences of his actions. Should anyone knock on his door and ask for reparation, he would give what was asked of him without question. There simply was no way of clearing the world of its history, and its history was simply a compilation of the existence of people and other organisms , and their actions. Of things which had been done.”