Now | The Last Reel

A convincing thousand-yard stare and a non-committal smile. Hiding in plain sight by the window. Keeping a stern eye on the comings and goings. 

Looking for the flaw in the security. Biding her time.

Suzanne knows that the sunny hills are just over there, beyond the greasy rain and the grey roofs. Most people just stare at the hills, their undulating waves of trees, the amber glow. Mesmerised. Lulled by the dull moans of opine trees and the swishing of ruffled leaves. Until the silence of a thousand noises drains out the energy of flesh, bark and even stone.

Stare, stop, sit, lie, die. 

Zanne knows better: she looks and sees, she listens and hears. She sees the hills as the infinite rage of continents, mountains of rock reaching out to the Sea, the unfathomably patient waves of stone rising up from the deepest depth and crashing down from the highest heights in petrified shingle. She sees, she feels rock for what it is: the everyday evidence of Life’s inherent violence, the eternal cycle of creation and destruction.

Telluric history, natural imperative. And humanity staggering about. 

François showed her that. He saw her, charmed her, quietly swore to be a companion for life, swiped her from her people. And together they ran, laughing, into the Eternal Forest. And they gawped, they marvelled, they walked ever deeper, ever further. They High Tea’d with the Mad Hatter, raced the Wild Hunt and found the Source of the River. And twirled and laughed some more under the green shade, in the orange dusk and the twinkling night-sky. 

But the fairytale waltz has to end before midnight, doesn’t it? And she stopped the music. 

Gone the Faeries, Oberon and Alice. Now for a Future. François choses the perfect spot, as always, whether for a tent or a fort: he reads the geography. She organises it, makes it suitable. Defensible. Impenetrable. A laager. She smiles at the old word. That was one of his from when he was young. Every time, a hilltop surrounded by a sea of trees, a river and the sound of a thousand species breathing in unison. 

Fizi, Kissi, Panda, Claviers: him outside, her inside.

In the serene shade, the Past, any past, transforms into irrelevant Old Stuff: flimsy, grimy, dusty, grainy. They live in a forever Now. Then is in the basement, in chests, suitcases and trunks, packed, stored and locked away. She shrugs. It is just Old Stuff, she always says. It just so happens that she never found the time to get rid of it. That’s all. Don’t be sentimental, it just roots you down to the spot. 

Regrets? She has none, just, sometimes, memories bob up to the surface. When no-one watches. 

Suzanne holds a finger up. Listen. The birds are about to start their concert. 18h15, you can set your watch by it. Except it does not happen today. So many things that were sharp-edged have become blurry. Birds always sing, don’t they? And the Sun shines. Maybe she can’t hear them through the window? The windows do not open? Why are there even windows? She asks around, and poke for a reaction. Nods, drool and a fumbling monologue answer. 

She reaches out for a glass of water with a gnarly, crochety hand. That thing is definitely not hers. She tchips, opens and closes it, puzzled. Sad.

How can she sew dresses like this? She sits upright at the memory: you, me and your sisters around the kitchen table, a few patterns laid out and all of us comparing, arguing, haggling over designs until everyone secretly thinks she has wrestled the best of the lot… And then she sew, morning and afternoon, until sunset, when the day is done and the storm-lamps come up like elven lights in the deepest woods. 

No-one is listening. A short stab of sadness. Who is she talking to anyway? She remembers: no-one asks her for new dresses anymore. Ask her nothing anymore. 

She turns in her chair, keeping the smile up. It always worked, you know, she puts to the silent jury of her life. I was once the conductor, the clock master. I shaped time and reality. I called time on Likasi. We walked up to the heart of darkness, when no-one else would. We danced till the End of … well… the end of … wait … it is … so confusing.

She will just wait by the window a bit longer for François to arrive. He always does. She sniggers: wait until you see him walking in with his pirate swagger and roguish smile …  

No one uses first names here, few even remember they once had one. She is used to defend her boundaries. She tucks her hands deeper into her apron, her shield, her pouch. Her stash of defiant secrets. This is where she shoved the plastic forks, the plastic bags. And the memories too good to throw. Suzanne, yes that was it. It is written on the tag. 

The Heart of Darkness, it is the end and the beginning. Up to you to decide which is what.

Some believe that the people at the Origin are wild, untamed, primitive. They shout, screech, argue, mumble, whisper, sulk. In fact, this is only how humanity behave, right here, around the final table, life drooling out. Nurses whistle, poke and herd the human flock to their trough under the inquisitorial neons. 

The putrid squalor no one ever wants to see. 

Memories swirl until they blur, dilute and dissolve, in medication, bleach and piss. The demented souls shriek and flail at the fading shards of who they thought they once were. 

Sucked out, drained, flushed. Forgotten.

Suzanne, … yes, Suzanne, sees flashes of unbearable Beauty: Jacarandas, a wild river, a titanic forest, ancestor trees. Children. She hears echoes of birdsongs and smells the morning dew, … A picture on the desk, the Kiubo Falls. 

She can’t remember any of it; what a life that must have been. 

Suzanne smiles her best knowing smile. He winks back. The Valkyries ride to the End of Times. 

The Heart of Darkness. Neither beginning nor end. 

The eternal waltz of lies. Danse Macabre.

Go on, keep staring at the pretty pictures.

The last reel spools out. The coils spill over the table, onto the floor, writhing.

Silence falls. 

Someone yawns.

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This was a society that existed but no one remembered.

This was a society that existed but no one wanted to remember.

This was a society that was already forgotten even when it existed.

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You read the Epilogue of Transvaal Blue Skies: the true story of how, early last century, Suzanne moved to Africa and built her laager. Start from the beginning HERE.