Love Books

And so we have results this morning.
After a fabulous, fun day of writing, stories were put to the vote. The Book Lounge team won! Congrats to a powerful team of writers!
And our Love Books team came a rocking second with just one less vote! Superb, methinks, especially with having to collaborate with such awesome writers from varied genres, crime fiction, literary and chic lit, to non-fiction.
Written in six parts, our stories went live in the order that we wrote as follows:

Fiona Snyckers, David Chislett, Jassy Mackenzie, Kate White, myself, and then Isabella Morris to round off a wonderfully surreal, incredulous tale.

Find my excerpt below, and read the full story at http://chainssds5.wordpress.com



*** ***


You can't just bomb Randburg," Peter spluttered, sending shrapnel of saliva into the tray of hors d' oevres.
The words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to think of what he was saying. His mind clicked into gear. "What I meant was, there will be no reason to bomb any place, you already have a war on your hands, Flotus!"
"And what is that supposed to mean?!" Juju bellowed. "There are no wars in Africa!"
Peter's cellphone shrieked a polyphonic rendering of 'The Final Countdown', startling everyone around him. He balanced the tray in one hand while he fumbled his track pants for the offending device.
Once retrieved, he swung around in what he thought was a polite fashion, to take the call away from his mixed bag of spectators. It made no sense to think of protocol standing between Obama's wife, his stepdaughter and the nations beloved Juju bear, when he was about to take a call from his mistress, Clarissa. She had been avoiding him all week, and he wanted to know why.
"Babe! Where have you..."
The tray caught on a basket of flowers that decorated the table in the foyer, sending flowers, pebbles and glass marbles all across the porcelain tiled floor.   Everything happened at once. What sounded like Mrs First Lady shrieking in super high pitch turned out to be Juju in obvious trauma at the wasted food now lying amidst the flowery debris. Adding to the sight that met poor old Peter's eyes was Corenza looking like she was about to faint. Security and bodyguards were ushered into the scene, looking every bit like one of those FBI secret agent shows on the television. Mrs Obama was ushered out by what seemed a dozen men in black suits. Juju was gone. He might have vanished into thin air for all you knew! Or he'd been raised in some apocalyptic stunt through the roof. It was difficult to look towards the raised glass skylight at this time of the afternoon, a bright golden hue swept into the atrium space and lit up the entire hallway.
"Clear the area, we're coming in!" More of these toy soldier types filled the area.
Corenza seemed to be in some sort of daze. One of the bodyguards grabbed the satchel at her feet. A blade poked out of it, a spark of sunlight glinting off it alerted the guard that he had found something potentially menacing. He glared at Corenza, but she seemed unfazed still, rooted to the spot like some disheveled Barbie doll. Only when the man reached inside the bag and pulled out the knife that she had hidden inside it, did she finally look up.
Peter reached her just as her knees gave way under her.
He lifted her into his arms, and made his way to the exit.
"Hold it, right there! Where do you think you're going, Mister?" the man with the satchel said. 
"She's ill. She needs a doctor," Peter said.
"She wasn't supposed to carry weapons," the man said. "We're taking her in for questioning. She may have tried to assassinate Mrs Obama! And you're coming with us, too!"
Peter looked towards the lift door that had just opened invitingly beside him. Using Corenza's limp body as he swung around, he managed to knock the guard off his feet. Once inside the lift he pressed the button for the top floor. He also pressed a few floor digits into the keypad so that they wouldnt know where he had gotten out. And then he dialed his house number. His son Sam would be home alone, Sulenza was only due back home later in the evening.
"I'm in big trouble. Come over to the Sandton Towers. Will send you a text. Just come get me. And don't tell your mother!" He got off at one of the floors and made his way down the hallway. He tried a few doors. Using a trick he had learned in the army, he managed to pick a lock and quickly made his way into room 1452. He tried to put Corenza down, but she clung to him. He reached for his phone and typed Sandton Towers, Room 1452, and then pressed the send button. 
Twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the door, and before he could get to it, the door was broken down. As expected, black suits clambered alongside army suits for a piece of him. And at the front of this mean looking gang, was non other than his wife, Sulenza. 
"What do you think you're doing with my daughter, you sick bastard!" she glared.

**** ****

the night he died...

My family never talks about the night that my grandfather died. I heard it all at the hearing. They came at 2am. They broke down the door. They dragged him out into the street. And they shot him.
I listened as people told their bits of the story. I pieced together these bits like a puzzle. The picture of that night formed in my mind. The little girl crouched under the dining table was my mother. I recognized the sad terror in her eyes that she carries with her still.
My grandmother’s grip on my hand tightened. We sat in the gallery as they spoke. We didn’t look at each other. Not once. But we knew. The pieces we collected here were important. They were pieces of his body. And of a wounded families soul.

I grew up in a small town in the North. Giyani, it was called. This was my mother’s family. A humble people, the sePedi. My grandmother packed up her things and moved back to her home soon after he died. She took whatever she could, the children, chickens, the furniture from the wedding, the old gramophone that made them the envy of the neighbours in Orlando. Even the photo’s of her white wedding.
They lived a glorious life. I heard it all. But not once did they talk about that dreadful night when it all changed.

He was a gentlemen, she said. He listened to those fancy radio shows, and read the poetry of those great English poets. I paged through some of his books. Yeats, Shakespeare, Byron. Im sure, if he was alive today, I would have been an educated man. Still, I knew I was meant to live different from the rest of the gents out here in Alex. My name is the same as his. David Zondo. Same blood. Same vision of better times and better things. He was David Zondo the school teacher, and great thinker of his time. I am David Zondo taxi driver, with great hopes. My father left before I opened my eyes to this world. It didn’t matter. I was the offspring of a hero. A martyr. That was all I knew. That was enough.

journey of memory

He watched as the train from Haenertsberg edged into the tiny station. It was mid-March, and the change of season was apparent. A gust of wind managed to unravel some of the tarpaulin that covered the luggage rack. The sign for Platform 25 creaked ominously above the man's head.

A stranger approached him: "Mr. Van Oppenburg, your car has arrived, Sir."

Van Oppenburg felt the now familiar mixture of confusion and anxiety. His eyes searched the luggage at his feet for the tag that confirmed his identity.

Experiments... Writing in 2nd person..

You're gloved and masked. You hold the warm heart in your hands. You can never really tell the exact moment when you made the decision to avenge your father's killer. But the adrenalin and the intent seem to feed off each other. Like that time when the desparation for justice surged to a point where every barber with a knife in hand would excite you to this gleeful sin. And the time when the sounds in the local butchery made you seeth with a new plot. And that very first time when your knife tasted the flesh of the man in the antique 'dagger collectors' store. You remember clearly now, the day after your seventh birthday. And the inspiration of that knife in a gloved hand, that drew blood from your father's stomach. From his heart. And from your heart.

Experiments.. Writing 1st person - present

I look the hijacker in the eye. I am not afraid. I am the one with the gun. I have read and heard people talk of a scant few minutes seeming like an eternity. This moment might be just one or two. I will never know for certain. But the energy between us is noisy almost. Eye to eye. Soul to soul. His eyes reveal the uncertainty in my hands. The lack of fear makes me feel oddly numb. I have never held a gun before. I marvel at the strange sense of power I feel. I savour it. Until my eyes reconnect with the unspoken words of this other human being. Two people suspended in a moment in time. The attacker and the attacked. The predator and the hunted. A finger fumbles the trigger. I feel like the victim as the gunshot echoes in my ears.