Pure Short Stories

[SQJ]

Warning the vast majority of the Short stories have big amounts of foul language, graphic violence and sex. You haff bee warned.

How much sex? How much violence? READ, FIND OUT!

I'm making thisthread to put up all hte short stories I've ever completed.


Remember making no comments is a comment on its own. X__X

Soooo....coment! Tell me how it made you feel. The reason I write, the reason I kick this keyboards ass every single day is to envoke emotion. What thoughts and emotions do I pull out of you with my words?

Tell me. I want to know, even the bad(hopefully there's some good ).

[SQJ]

SOLACE

Spoiler: Solace 

The ignition turned. The engine roared to life but the car didn’t move. It merely vibrated in the same place.

What now? What can I do?

I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t think. I was stuck. Cold and ghastly hands held my lungs, throat, arms and legs and yet somehow I was sweating. Tiny beads of sweat lined my entire body. Like an anvil they and weighed my arms and legs down.

Run? Where too?

I’m too scared to run. They’ll find me. It’s a new age and even though we, the people, don’t have any real access to technology it still managed to be the enemy of every free thinking man and woman.

Can I still call myself a free thinker? Do I have the right o call myself anything of the sort? I ran didn’t I?

I ran like a coward . I got in this car. The car I’m sitting in and floored it. They chased me. My God did they chase me. Four cars in all and only three had sirens and the blaring lights that tended to go with sirens. The thought of the fourth car chasing me made me shiver. There was no doubt in my soul of who the owners of the fourth car were. The silent police.

The car faltered and I turned the engine off again. Running away wasn’t hard in a densely populated area like this. I guess it was one of the positives of having a piece of shit for a car. It looked just like everyone else’s. All I had to do in the chase was stop. But I didn’t stop out of bravery or quick thinking. I’d given up.

Why run? What’s the point? Should I run?

No I’m already dead. They’d already killed me before I’d started running.

=======

[8 hours earlier]

“Did you reach anyone today?” Sun asked poking her head out of the kitchen just when I stepped into our tiny two bed room apartment.

“Think I was close today. But not a single child raised their hand or added any input. I could have said anything and it wouldn’t have mattered. All they did was stare” I said closing the door behind me.

“Isn’t that what a teacher wants?”

“No. Any teacher that wants absolute silence throughout is no teacher at all.”

“Really? Then what is a teacher?” Came Sun’s voice after she disappeared inside the kitchen. Typical I thought. Sun could drown you in questions and if you tried returning with your own. She’d turn it around on you without a doubt. She didn’t need answers she could live off her own questions. In a way she was like a child. It was probably why I loved her such much.

I rushed behind her and hugged her before sliding my hands to her thighs. She stopped stirring the black boiling pot and held my hands as if to pull them off her, but she could have easily pulled me free if she wanted to. Slowly I worked my way up to her hips then to her stomach. It was funny how small Sun was. Her skin was so soft that it felt like I was holding cloud.

“You want to know what a teacher is? A teacher is a person who inspires his or her students to learn in order to better themselves and the people around them thereby liberating a nation.”

Sun burst out laughing when my fingers tickled her skin as they kept moving upwards.

“Those are strong words. Tell me are you a teacher by that same definition?” Sun asked in a playful voice.

“No I’m not,” I sighed, “My students point that out to me everyday when they just stare.” Sun went back to stirring when the pot started bubbling heavily again. Her whole body shook and almost seemed to rattle under my own when she stirred her pot.

“You did teach one child.” She said when I kissed her on her cheek.

“Yes and have you heard from our daughter?” I asked playfully, knowing she couldn’t have.

“I have actually. I used the internet.” She said simply.

I stopped kissing her immediately. The internet wasn’t something a person used freely.

“Which one?” I asked quickly letting go of her. She felt me tensing on her and stopped stirring.

“Don’t get upset. I used the home one” She said.

Without thinking I stepped back from Sun as if she were some kind of poison. I was trying not to be upset and it was surprisingly hard. The internet was only useable under direct super vision and all out-of-country sites were banned and blocked from everyone. There was no real way to talk freely to our daughter from overseas and most conversations were heavily monitored. We had made our own satellite connection from our own research but we never used it without making precautions and we never used it alone.

“Why Sun? Why did you use it?” I asked softly.

Sun was staring at me now before choosing to examine the floor. There were few things Sun could hide from me one of them was not emotion. She was clearly hiding something else.

=======

[Present Day]

I cant run. I can’t hide either.

I started the car now that I had regained the ability to move my arms. A siren blared out and I immediately turned the engine off. It was only a medic van.
Were they even looking for me?

Of course they were. If I could somehow cross the border. There’d be hell to pay. I’d make damn sure of it. I’d tell the world! My daughter would help too. They’d give me my Sun back. I wanted her back! The engine shook as I kicked the car seat. I calmed down. I’d never make it. By now every member of the police knew what I looked like. Also I didn’t want to drag my baby into these affairs. She’d be safe with me dead anyway. But I needed to talk to her first.

For the third time the engine roared to life.

=======

“What is it?” I asked her. There was a moment of silence where she just stared. The boiling pot began to burn. I stepped past her and moved the pot. She flinched. Now for the first time I was scared. I’d never touch her if she didn’t want me to. “Damn it Sun what’s happening? Is it our baby? Is it our little girl?”

“No” Sun cried “It’s nothing important like that. but” she hesitated “I got into an argument”

“So?” was my response, it was immediate. I was just dumbfounded about the reason why she thought I’d be upset but slowly the gears in my head started moving and added one and one together. I sighed curious of what would be said next. “with who Sun?”

“Some preacher”

“A real preacher or someone preaching” I asked.

“Someone preaching”

“And?”
Sun lifted her sleeve. There was a purple mark on her skin. I was stunned and furious. My feet rooted firmly to the ground.

“Who did this the ‘preacher!’” I yelled I was truly furious now. There was an uncrossable line that I felt was crossed by touching Sun.

“It wasn’t just the preacher. There were others they said they were police but they wore plain clothes. They tried to grab me but I pulled free and lost them in the crowd.”

“I’m sorry Sun” I said hugging her. I didn’t want to let her go. Every breath I took was for her. Thirty years and I still couldn’t imagine living without her. Right now my imagination was driving me mad. Sun could be too inquisitive and playful for her own good. One wouldn’t think such a sharp mind lurked behind her eyes. I had no doubt about what had happened. Sitting on the sides watching our country dissolve deeper into madness and stupidity tested even my patience. I couldn’t imagine how Sun suffered watching it all.

Not going to school was encouraged here. Ignorance was the oil that fuelled the power of the police and the idea of plain clothes police and equally dangerous copy cat cops made the government as a whole a fearsome force.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there” was the best I could say. Sun hugged me back, she was crying now. Sun wore her heart on her sleeve so easily. Maybe I was the mad one by agreeing to live in this country. Here was a woman who couldn’t help but be who she was. And because I didn’t put my foot down about leaving Sun was suffering.

“Sun let’s leave. We’ll move to America or Japan or South Africa. We can forget all this and start over.” Sun cried even louder now. “I can go back to teaching English. You can teach too with your studies” Sun sniffed the tears away before she responded.

“No I won’t leave. Not until we do our part. Even if it’s tiny.”

“Our part in what? What about our D-”

“She knows and she understands.” There was very real determination in her voice.

I stopped.

“That’s what you were talking about on the internet wasn’t it”

“Yes” She said.

“Sun. What ‘difference’ are you talking about?”

=======

The car revved and I pressed on the accelerator. The car moved slowly out of the drive way. The car turned out and into the street before reaching a shopping mall I’d driven past before but I’d never stopped at. I was stopping today that was for sure. I fixed my collar and got out the car. There was spare tie in the boot. I jiggled the key inside the boot and pulled up on the key. The solid felling of the key turning without obstacles was a relief. The boot opened and I rummaged for my tie. I found it and put it on. It was important to me that I looked the part.

=======

“I’ve been talking to people” Sun said losing her tearful face for a determined one.

“Which people about what?” I replied.

“Friends and family about our daughter and how we can’t talk to her without risking jail.”

“and did it turn out well?” I asked. There wasn’t hope in my voice when I asked. It was all automatic reactions running ahead of my panic-stricken mind.

“I think it did actually. I was impressed by what some people said” Sun said brightening up slightly.

“I don’t really care what they said Sun. I only care what you said. You should know that there’s a chance that they were fishing for your input on the government.” I said. Sun pulled away from me and dished into two plates “So Sun? what did you say?” I continued, pressing her on this issue.

“Only what I feel” Sun said flatly.

Typical I thought again.

“When did you do all this ‘talking’” I asked slowly holding myself from losing my mind.

“The past month” was her reply.

I was still fuming but if nothing had happened in the past month then chances were that nothing was going to happen. I felt hope for what felt like the first time.

I left the kitchen to the window of our bedroom. It wasn’t a big room but it wasn’t a big apartment so the room was big enough. I took off my tie and unbuttoned my shirt. I opened the window and a soft breeze cooled my skin but not my mind. Sun wouldn’t leave and if she didn’t leave then I wouldn’t leave either. It was as simple as that. Looking out of the window lights below attracted my attention. We were three stories up and you couldn’t see much other than the parking and the opposite apartments parking area. The lights belonged to more than one car, which was something that rarely happened. Some of the lights looked a lot like police lights but still nothing registered in my mind.

=======

I stepped into an internet café. There was a guard there but I brushed past him. I went straight for the clerk.

“I’m in a rush I need to hand in important results to the head of schools”

He didn’t seem to care at all. But then again why should he? He nodded and stuck out his hand. I really didn’t want to cause a scene and I could see that guard taking a second look back at me and the clerk. I had no choice. I took out my identification and handed it to the clerk. The clerk checked it to see if was real. I knew it had a stamp that said teacher on it so my story definitely checked out. After almost a minute he nodded and logged me on. As I expected there was no one on a PC in the whole café. Internet cafés were for show only. They were there so when the outside world looked we could say we have it. I sat on the furthest PC and typed quickly. As expected all sites useful to me were shut down. Sun had showed me how to find a proxy she had created. She had showed me how to exploit it to its fullest. I logged on to GMail and wrote my message. I hadn’t read English in a while and the sudden change was disorienting. I wrote my message for my daughter who was offline. I was grateful for that. It made writing this so much easier.

=======

Police lights? Inside our parking lot? I’d never seen that before. I tried to ignore it by looking at the other windows of the opposite flat. All lights were on but only a few apartments looked active. Slowly I started to notice a trend. Faces were appearing in widows. They had noticed the lights too. My curiosity muddled with my mind but all my thoughts seemed to settle on one undeniable fact.

Something was happening.

=======


DAUGHTER THIS MAY BE THE LAST MASAGE I CAN SEND TO YOU

=======

There was knock on the door.

“Sun?” I called out and Sun called back oblivious of the commotion below. The knock repeated but louder this time. I stepped out of the room just as the door burst open. Sun screamed and before I could think of anything I was already running. Three shots fired. All I could hear in my head was Sun’s scream. I’d never heard her scream like that. I sprinted into the room in time to see Sun fall dead. With three bloody holes in her chest and one in her head. Stunned I ran toward her and turned away in time to avoid getting shot. I could hear shouting and then running. I ran into my room and shut the door behind me. Within seconds the door burst open but I was gone from their views and hanging precariously out my own window. My heart was racing so hard it hurt my ribs. My ears were ringing painfully. My strained fingers and eyes were burning up. Now is not the time to mourn! I yelled in my head. Turing around I saw faces staring at me but none willing to help in the least. They’d all seen me before but they would be told that I would bea terrorist and that would be that for them and that would be what I was from then onwards. I was three stories up hanging and I was losing my strength fast.

=======

I WANT START BY SAYING THAT I’M SORRY. YOUR MOTHER IS DEAD. SHE’S BEEN SHOT BY THE POLICE. I’M SORRY BABY. I’M REALLY REALLY SORRY. THAT’S NOT ALL I WANTED TO TELL YOU. YOU MUST NOT COME BACK. PLEASE DON’T COME BACK HERE. THE REST OF OUR FAMILY WILL TAKE CARE OF US EVEN WHEN WE’RE BOTH DEAD. IF YOU WERE TO EVER LISTEN TO ME, CONSIDERING THAT YOU NEVER DO, LISTEN TO ME NOW. DO THAT FOR ME AND SUN.
=======

Death seemed to be staring me in the face grinning at me, ready to swallow me whole. I tried to avoid thinking about the ground. The only other thing I could see was Sun’s face. I looked down and the ground was all I could think of again. Someone stuck their head out of my room window the same second some one opened theirs a floor below. I jumped scraping my fingers against the walls until they found the lower ledge and froze in place. I was staring my neighbour in the eyes now. He didn’t move a inch. There I was hanging on the second floor and all he could do was fucking stare. Ignorance and just plain stupidity was an amazing thing. I shuffled across the widow and jumped again. I hit the next widow, safe, again before I jumped off the first floor. I landed on a car hard.

Windows shattered around me and I lay hurt but surprisingly not broken. My car! I thought desperately searching for it till I found it.

=======

DON’T RUN AWAY FROM LIFE MY CHILD. INSTEAD LEARN FROM THIS. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A HERO TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. YOU DON’T HAVE TO SHOUT TO BE HEARD NOT WHEN THERE’S SOMEONE WILLING TO LISTEN TO YOU. LEARN FROM THIS MOMENT, LEARN FROM US, LEARN FROM THE WORDS OF PEOPLE WHO LIVED BEFORE YOU.
LEARN, SO OTHERS MAY LEARN…

I looked up from the screen and realised that someone was calling me. I looked more carefully and realised it was the guard. I ignored him and finished writing the last thing my daughter would ever hear from me. I typed faster. He was calling me by my full name now. I typed faster than I’d ever typed before. I waved back at him and I raced to finish my message. The thought of this being my last message filled my lungs with poison. I could taste it in my throat. The guard gave up on calling me and strode towards my PC. I clicked SEND and watched as it viewed a sending screen. It sent finally and I logged off. The guard grabbed my collar just as I switched off the whole window. He was talking but my stunned fear of being held by the guard deafened me. He was leading me to the clerk. I stepped ahead and kicked back in time to catch him in the groan. He fell slowly and my other foot helped him down with a kick to the head. I broke into a run and the clerk tried to get in my way. I blasted into him using my greater size and momentum. Within a minute I was in my car again turning the key for the fourth time and like ‘old faithful’ the car’s engine roared to life. Beyond thought I began pulling and pushing on levers and sticks I couldn’t think of let alone name. My car roared into action as if listening my soul’s request rather than what my hands and feet were doing. I say my soul because my mind was dead. The sweating had returned but the hands that held before had never once let go of me, not since the moment that my house door had burst open.

Where am I going? What am I doing?

I was driving but I didn’t know where to. All I could think was of that it was ‘away’. That’s what mattered. The security guard had spoken but he couldn’t have known about me or his gun would have been out or he would have brought assistance. What had he wanted then? It didn’t matter, what did matter to me was that my name was probably being run on a police wanted list right now and the murderers who killed Sun knew where I was or at least had an idea of where I was. I wish I knew where I was, I thought numbly to myself.

Ten minutes passed and the car stopped. My hands moved to the gears moving the stick to park. I watched myself turn the key and listened as the engine died down. I felt like a puppet being played by an invisible force. When I looked out my door a smile etched on my face for a second before my sadness took hold. I was outside my school. If anyone led me here it would have been Sun. She knew I wasn’t going to leave. The car, I felt maybe because I’m crazy, had helped too.

My car wasn’t new. It wasn’t anywhere near new. Rust lined various parts of the car’s exterior. Time had worn out the edges of the seat and the leather dashboard. The engine was twice as old as the car looked but somehow it never let me down. And now I wasn’t going to ride it anymore someone else would own it or tear it up. I was grateful that it had taken me so far.

I absently checked my hair in the rear view mirror. Tear lines stained my face. I’d been crying and I hadn’t realized it until now. The funny thing about wiping tears away is that the act of cleaning had a knack of making you look worse. My eyes were red and my tears welled up all over again to replace the ones wiped away. Great now I AM crying! I thought as I dried my eyes. I leaned on the steering wheel for comfort. The worn thin leather of the steering wheel became a shoulder to cry on as I beat, the unfairness, the frustration and the finality of my pending death. I tried to beat the anger of not being able to do anything out of my soul. I screamed as loudly as I could spitting out the salty tears and mucus that flowed into my mouth. I screamed again shaking the whole car but it wasn’t enough. No amount of screaming would be enough to turn back the hands of time. No amount of screaming could give me my Sun back. I screamed anyway. I screamed until I couldn’t scream or cry anymore.

Slowly I worked my way out my car and fixed my tie. I opened the boot and pulled out my suitcase. It was a good thing I did everything outside my home or I would have left the suitcase.

My school wasn’t a big one and only had a few classrooms. One teacher taught one class all subjects till the end of the year. I was only half an hour late and I prayed they hadn’t phoned my home. When you are late you’re supposed to report to main office but there wasn’t chance in hell of that happening, not today anyway. I opened the door and entered the school. The whole school had only two passages that crossed to form a T. I walked across the passage watching the walls in case my eye met another person’s before I got to class. All the walls had not a single piece of art that belonged to the kids of this school. The only picture to be seen was that was of the man who killed my wife and countless others with his regime. I prayed for the day it would end but I knew I’d never see that day. It was a day Sun wouldn’t see either. I found myself involuntarily punching the wall just less than an inch from the picture of my future murderer. Instant jail would have been my fate even without last nights events. I stopped at my classroom door struck still by my own fear.

What was I doing? What the hell was I doing?

To my surprise there was another teacher there inside. Did they already know? it didn’t mater if they did. I opened the door fast and caught the female teacher by surprise.

“Good morning!” I said extending my hand at her. She almost flinched from my hand but eventually took it. I gently held her hand and led her unstoppably out of my classroom comforting any complaints she had.

“Thank you but I’ll finish the class” I began.

“But I thought” she tried but was cut off.

“Yes well I’m sure you did. Good bye.” And with that I slammed the door in her face. Now thirty-five students ranging from ages eight to ten stared at me. There were times when just looking at all of them was overwhelming. But most of the time when I looked at their young faces which held blank expressions that didn’t suggest that they wanted to learn at al,. I found myself struck by sadness again. The most success faces like these would get would be that of the simple order following policemen who killed my Sun. Most of them if not all would melt into the simple working industry. Sewing, moulding and mining was their futures but I knew in my soul there was a leader in at least one of these kids. It would only need to be one child. Even if that child wasn’t my own daughter but one of them.

The whole class stood up in a rush of screeching desks.

Of course what could a child do when I couldn’t anything? We were two and the mere idea change had ruined my everything. Did I have the right? Who the hell was I to put much pressure on so few when they were so young?

It wasn’t pressure though. I just wanted to add a question mark. You’ll be amazed what a simple question mark will do to anyone, I told myself. I blinked and realised that they were all waiting for me to return their greeting and seat them again.

“Good morning sit down. What book do you have today?” I pointed to my shortest student. She stood up and shouted ‘history’ before sitting promptly with the rest of the class. I sighed. I didn’t have the right books but I didn’t need them I reminded myself yet again.

“Okay close your books and listen. Because chances are you’ll never hear this from anyone ever again. Not from me, you’re parents or any other in here. Okay?”

I got silence

“Who wants to travel the world?” I tried that first. I needed an ice breaker.

There was silence that was only punctuated by their staring.

Have I wasted my time? What would Sun do?

“Have you ever left the city?” I tried again

Not a single hand was raised.

“You don’t have to wait for me to call any of you. So who has left the city?”

Again not a single hand was raised. I called up the girl again. She shook her head in response to the question.

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know” she replied looking scared as if I was going to bite her for not knowing.

“Why don’t you know?” I was grinning now. It seemed to add to easing the mood. She shrugged. I got the same reply from every single child. Not one had left city limits. I was surprised.

“Okay lets try this has anyone seen an elephant before?”

One hand raised and my heart soared. This was finally a start. The students saw that the boundary to which they had to adhere to strictly was stretched and they weren’t held back. For once this was the closest thing I’d seen to a child acting like a child.

“What does it look like? Show me.” I asked.

The boy spread his arms to show it’s size, he also spread his legs. He then stuck his shoulder to his nose and waved his arms. I burst out laughing and members of the class grew slow smiles. If the children mentioned this to anyone I’d be out of a job. School wasn’t for having fun. It was for learning and if you weren’t learning then it was time to work. That was the way it worked here.

“What does it sound like?” I asked still laughing. The rest of the class laughed as a whole when they all heard him make his elephant noise.

“Okay can anyone think of any other animal they’d seen?”

To my surprise there were quite a few hands up, at least half the class. I let them all have a chance at being an animal. It was such a simple game but I could tell that it was something that effected them well. Maybe they needed it as much as I did? I was exhausted from all my laughing. I laughed so hard tears ran down my face. I was crying while laughing all the time silently wishing Sun was here.

But I was wasting time.

“Kids. I want to tell you something. Like animals there are a lot of different people. Some are scary like lions!<Roar!> other are mean like snakes<hiss>” and others are quiet like mice or silly monkeys!” I got a tiny patch of laughter. In terms of me breaking the ice with he children, it was like watching the polar ice caps melt in fast forward. There was a face by the door of my classroom. A face I’d never seen before on school grounds. I ignored the face. This repertoire I had with these children was a rush. Then the one face became three. I was running fast out of time now. I sighed heavily trying not to cry.

“Listen I don’t have the time. So I’ll say this quick. School isn’t about knowing things” I said flipping through my history book and throwing out the window. Much to the amazement of my pupils.

“School is about learning and understanding the world and each other so you can all grow as people”

There was a knock on the door.

“Do you know how you learn?” Do you want to know how to better understand things? You do simply what I’m doing.” Do you know what that is? I’ve already done it three times. Still confused? Now I’ve done it four times. What you should do is… ASK QUESTIONS!” Raise your hand and ask a question. You’ll be amazed how much you can understand just by asking and looking for the answers. Of all the rubbish I’ve been teaching you let this be the one you remember” The door opened and armed police barged in. But for a reason I couldn’t understand I was smiling I even started laughing. The police’s confusion only to added to my amusement. I didn’t resist my arrest but I was pulled anyway. Each and every child was standing and they had their hand up to the police and the headmaster. Tears for the tenth time welled up in my eyes it was too beautiful to ignore. Before I left I winked at my students and waved good bye.

Suddenly I felt like I wasn’t just staring at the faces of the future main working class I was looking at leaders and fighters who would surpass their parents and expect to be surpassed by their own children. They looked like the faces that I had originally wanted to teach when I had taken my masters degree and taught with it. I saw all that in the one second I had before I was pulled out of the class room. The door slammed behind me and I was now being led out the passage by gun point.

“What’s your greatest fear?” I asked one of the guards. Something solid hit the back of my temple and my knees automatically buckled. The policeman pulled me up again. “fine. I’ll tell you what it is. Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate but rather that we are powerful beyond measure.” I felt the heavy and solid form a pistol barrel against my head. “it is our light that scares us not our dark.” We left the school passage another plain clothed policeman was shouting while holding his own pistol. I ignored him since it looked like the other police were listening “We ask our selves who are we to be magnificent? But in truth the better question is” . The gun cocked “who are we not to- ”

“ be magnificent. And when we liberate ourselves. We automatically give others the ability to liberate themselves” Seo said reading the message. Her fingers were shaking. She couldn’t hold back her tears anymore. She’d been trying not to cry in front of the camera in front of her. She apologised when the reporter gave her a tissue.

“Its okay to cry Seo.” She tried.

Seo couldn’t stop crying though. This moment was exactly the same as when she had received the email the previous year. She had respected her father’s wishes until she found out what happened to him. Now Seo wanted to go back home.
Seo sucked it up until finally she was able to talk again.

“Before we end this interview is there anything you’d like to add? Something you’d like your country to hear? ” Seo nodded weakly with her make up all over the place.

“I know what happened to my mother and father. Their deaths won’t deter me from getting their views across. You can’t blind our people from seeing the world that surrounds them and you can’t hide your evil from the outside world either. I’ll survive for my parents and my country. And even if I were to die I know that I would be survived by my family and countless others who oppose the government’s way of thinking. I will get my message across to the people I love, by this I promise. I know people inside are already waking up. It’s only a question of time before I am able to bury my parents with honour. You can bet on that.”


SQJ Productions
Short Story: Solace
Written by: Vuyisile Sibeko.
Genre: Political, Drama
Edited by: Vuyisile Sibeko.
Special thanks to: Anyone who reads it.

[SQJ]

Spoiler: The Mural 

Thomas wiped the paint off his face. He had no idea how, but somehow he’d managed to add paint to his face.

Again.

He picked at the paint only making it worse. He sighed giving up on it.
Am I painting my face? I might as well have. It's not like the paint's helping the mural at all.

”Fuuuck…" Thomas groaned heavily. He rested his head against the wall next to his mural. It really was an awful painting. It didn't matter how it looked though, so long as it...
…
..was there.

Thomas's stomach churned for what felt like the hundredth time in the last minute. The last wave of pain hit him like a sledge hammer causing him to lose balance. He dropped, turning in time to avoid the mural. It really was a piece of shit drawing but he needed something to be there or anywhere.

There had be something there or else... or else...

Using his shoulders and legs, he worked his way up to his feet. His useless hands were trembling again. Slowly he opened his eyes, working through the pain, and stared at them. Of course my hand’s shaking, Thomas thought through what felt like a gritted brain tensed up to block out the very thought of the near future. Thomas gave a pained smirk at the idea of a future.

Thomas spat at the mural, before mixing the colours on his stand and painting over the bubbly mucus and phlegm that centred the god awful image.

There was a sound up ahead. The all too familiar sound of a metal door slamming into a metal frame. The pangs of pain switched themselves off, and for only a second Thomas felt relief.

Maybe everything was going to be alright; maybe this piece of shit would mean something to someone and I'd live forever as a part of something...

The pain returned moving up to his ribs. Thomas ran as fast as he could. Vomit projected itself out of his mouth letting itself be seen by floating in the air, before letting itself be heard by hitting the base of the toilet seat with a sickening splash. Only about a tenth of the spew made it into the actual toilet. Not that it mattered. He wouldn't have to look at it much longer anyway. Another metal door slammed against a metal frame. It sounded much closer this time. The stench of his own vomit hit his nostrils turning his stomach once more.

Thomas retched and vomited again. Ridding himself completely of the bacon and egg hamburger, made extra crispy with a ton of lard. Thomas stared at a yellowed piece of beef hanging, glued to the seat. "Just the way mama used to make it" He said grinning painfully watching it fall before it diffused into the seat.
Thomas made his way to the sink and filled it with water. He stared over the sink. There was supposed to be a mirror there but there wasn't. Only cement. A drop of sweat splashed onto the pool that filled the basin. Thomas didn't pay heed to it until a flash of crimson caught his eye. The sink was red. Another crimson drop fell from his face hitting the centre of the sink causing perfect ripples in the formerly be-stilled water.

It was then that the true finality of what was to come hit him. He dropped his face into the water washing himself clean. He didn't deserve to sweat blood. He was no son of god and he wasn't going to act like Jesus now. The sound of metal doors came once again this time from right behind Thomas. One solitary tear fell to the ground. It started clear but became crimson before falling to the earth alone. A true reflection of what it meant to be Thomas Grey.

Thomas washed the puke and blood off him before a strong hand grabbed his shoulder, squeezing hard. He was unresponsive, still washing his face. He wanted to be presentable for what would happen next. Thomas was turned roughly.

He now faced a beady eyed guard with an indifferent priest next to him. Great I'm going straight to hell, Thomas thought looking at the priest who seemed determined not to make eye contact. 'You can't catch my darkness pastor!' was what Thomas wanted to yell but the guard’s truncheon suggested otherwise.

Thomas was shunted out of the cell and led to his final destination. The priest rattled on like someone who really wanted to get this over with. Thomas ignored him as best as he could.
"What's gonna happen to my mural?" Thomas asked trying to sound as aloof as possible
"Does it matter? We'll probably wipe it off and leave it open for the next child murderer who comes for a stay."
Thomas sighed, he probably deserved that.
"Typical" he sighed again using his shoulder to wipe another solitary tear that dissolved into nothingness.

Another perfect reflection of the life of Thomas Grey.

[SQJ]

The Jump

Spoiler: The Jump 

Jump, or fall as most of us preferred to call it, was all I had to do at the start and THAT would only be the easy part.

The word jump was an easy thing for our leader to say from home. But…
Right now, sitting in the middle of a space freighter in orbit around the planet Earth, made even thinking about the word so hard that my stomach churned. It was my first jump and would most likely be my last. No one had denied that. Not my superiors or my fellow soldiers.

The distance from the freighter to Earth was not something I knew. To a grunt like me it was irrelevant. All I needed to know was that it was far, too far.

All that mattered to our cause was that I survived the jump. And if my respirator and/or bones didn’t break, then I was to shoot everything and anything in sight. Munitions and food would be something our squad of millions would have to fight to get as supplies would be dropped in specific areas. Give or take a few Earth miles.

IF they came at all. Earth was an unstoppable force that bullied other worlds solely because they could.

My feet felt tight and constricted in the flight boots we were all wearing for the jump. They had flaps around the gaps between our arms and legs so it looked like we were a flat circle or a child’s kite.

A voice crackled overhead. It was the voice of our infallible leader. All the soldier listened to our leader speak. Most of us were nothing more than workers, a part of our planets large labor force that stretched across two planets.

Our leader spoke clearly and calmly dictating the situation that was happening in our homes at this second. To anyone else not of our homeland it would only have sounded like static but to my fellow soldiers they were the words that struck fear into all of us to hardened our resolves for the bloody war that was about to come after today.

‘Men and women of our home planet, Sonashra.
I fear the worst for our homeland. The “Humans” have blocked our supply of fuel from us. We cannot survive as a race in the cold of our planet without the supply of oil we receive from our secondary planet Neabudis. Neabudis I know is also considered by all to be our secondary home since, I know, that all of us have, at least one friend or family member working hard to mine and refine oil for our very survival from the harsh cold’

Neabudis was an uninhabited planet we had discovered millennia ago and used to cultivate and refine ancient fossils into what humans called oil. They used it too but in vastly larger amounts than us. I couldn’t believe what we used as an extreme necessity for our survival in the cold temperatures of our planet for centuries, they had whittled away for their ‘convenience’. I rubbed my forehead washing the sweat covered frustration out of the rough pores on my hard skin. All the while the voice crackled on.

‘We’ve attempted previous peace talks but they have only lead in the “Humans” forming a blockade against us. Closing US off to the thing that is to us the very blood in our veins.’

The voice grew angrier and more aggressive as a beat formed inside the freight. It was the strong and sudden sound of our energy rifles hitting the ground in unison. The force of the rifles caused the once slow thumping of my chest to increase rapidly. I couldn’t help but stick my head out and look down at the line of soldiers. The line continued far down until it was out of sight. Somewhere my brother was in-between the line of what ,at the very least, was five million of us.

‘Their attempt to cut the blood that kept the hearts of our cities beating has been considered an act of war against our people. I will not lie. They have power greater than ours and the technology to match but we have the need to survive. We have the love of our homeland.’

There had been constant talks of a plan being made for peace. I knew there was no chance of peace. Most of us didn’t want peace since they were the ones who claimed our life blood and rationed it for themselves. The humans had brought forth an age of poverty. Life had became more costly for each and every civilian on our homes causing families to combine or burn their own homes for warmth. All the while getting increasingly weary of Earth’s limited and weak “support"

‘You are our first and most powerful wave. You all stand ten million strong in each of the twelve thousand vessels we’re sending today. You the brave men and woman of our home lands. There will be no artillery support from space. In fact these ships will most likely be destroyed as soon as we enter we Earth’s atmosphere. That reason is why you’re jumping… ’

The word jump made my head reel as the slamming of the guns grew louder in my mind. The truth was the banging had already stopped but I could still hear it inside my head as my heart thumped in tune to the now invisible beat. All men and woman involved stood tall and ready for war. I strapped my self into the suit I was given making sure it was tight. Looking behind me I saw a round box. It was to be where I would be locked in before being flung into humanities deceiving gravity.

I had been to earth before and nearly died. I had been chased by men who waved a red flags while firing at me and my colleges. We’d only come to address the issues involving the oil refineries and their wasting of it. In my past life I was an engineer sent to help the humans save the oil they used. We never made it to our destination and we were chased back to our diplomatic safe points. The human monitoring forces or ‘police’ had promised to make an “investigation” on our college who had died in the chase. Even though I knew exactly who had committed the crime. Nothing had ever happened.

‘Remember when you’re released from you chambers, spread out your arms and the wind will do the rest. You are to speak English at ALL times. Get used to their words so you can make plans beyond their understanding. They will be out done by our will and strength’

The beating returned. It lasted ten seconds then stopped again.
To clear my head I thought of the kiss I’d given my two daughters as they’d cried. They were so smart at such a young age. They would be the beaker that lit up the future and I believed it with every fiber of my being. My sons had built a frame filled with items from a past only my wife could have known of, but it didn’t matter if she’d cheated in helping them or not. What mattered was what they’d done to show me that there was something worth surviving for and something worth fighting for.

‘Our complexions, forms, shapes and proportions match those of their people. Or at least one shade of them. So infiltrate and destroy. Use everything we can give you to fight with. For it is everything we have and hopefully everything you need.

Remember heroes of Sonashra, you are fighting for the survival of our home planet.

The voice of our leader seemed to break down now and the beating came back slowly as if the sound itself had sowed down to listen to it’s troubled leader.

‘You are fighting for the future of our people. Our neighbors, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, children, sons…

The voice took a breath before it quivered at the next few words.

…and daughters’

There was a silence as the voice that hovered overhead was overcome. I couldn’t hold back a tear that zigzagged across the rough texture of my skin that would easily give away the true nature of my species.

‘May the will of the Gods be with us.’

The transmission ended but the beating didn’t. It rang out until a shout rushed from the far side of the freighter, deep in the darkness. It was the war cry that had once been used by Ishavara our greatest leader when he fought against people who had tried to invade our planet four thousand years ago to oppress us. Just as the humans were today. It grew louder and it came up to me. I shouted at the top of my voice praying for the spirit of Ishavara to lead us to victory. I listened carefully as the shout disappeared into the darkness again, this time on the other side of the freighter. We all stepped back into our pods checking our rifles which could pass through steel and burn living energy or tissue. We held them to our chests as a single unit. Music played around my head on the inside of my pod. Looking through the pod door I saw the stars and the night spreading out to every part of the universe. The music sounded so powerful and morose at the start. It was a story of a woman who had lost everything to war. I tried to practice my Earth languages as I translated her song to my self.


I have loose… um... lost my sons
I have seen men take my love from me.

The songs tone without losing it’s powerful meaning grew more passionate as she sang with the softest sound of hope.

I dream of the future.
Where I can hear my children’s laughter.
Where I can see their happy faces in the warmth of our land.

The tone grew ever more passionate as she felt the seed of her love to her home land growing inside her.

I couldn’t fight the urge to cry and I didn’t want to fight it at all. I forced out the longing, the fear, the sadness and embraced my love in the form of tears. Right then I was caught in the grip of her voice, it felt like it would have been a travesty to hide my emotions from the music in my head.

The whole room lit up as one by one the pods blasted of the ship. The side of the ship burst into flame just as I felt a jerking sensation that sent the pod falling off towards the Earth. I felt free of the fear and regret that would constrain the enemy in battle. The enemy that would soon be standing before me in it’s full malice, intolerance and greed.

Out the front of the Pod the freighter’s flames spread out to the whole freighter before it, like our pods ,sunk too. Succumbing to Earth’s pull breaking up slowly on the way down. Pieces fell past my Pod as I watched the freighter fall. The ship was moments from catching up to me as it had with thousands of other pods. A second before the ship caught me in its searing embrace. My Pod, along with millions of other Pods exploded down the sides splitting in half and releasing us from its hold. I watched thousands upon thousands of human tracer bullets fly up at me as almost a hundred thousand Earth tons of hell fire fell from over head. I spread my arms and the wind caught the flaps that had been added to my clothes. I just missed the flaming comet that was our way back home.

I turned my body away as it crashed down into the crowds of humans and comrades alike.

That was the easy part

Slowly I glided down the earth.

Whether it was to death I flew towards, or the greatest of glories. I only hoped that our seeds of hope would grow in the hearts of our children. Then and only then would all this be worth it.

End.

SQJ Productions
Short Story: The Jump
Genre: Sci-Fi, Alien
Edited by: Vuyisile Sibeko.
Special thanks to: Any one who reads it.

[SQJ]

Crappy start. Bad Grammer.

Spoiler: Best Friend Forever 

The alarm went off signifying the beginning of another day.

It was finally a Friday. There was no better day in the week. It was one of the few days a week when most people were glad to be alive or just felt good about themselves.

Thanks to my Empath abilities I could feel good too. I’m what people would call an Empath. For those who don’t know what that is, I basically live my life parallel to the emotions around me. Unfortunately most of the time its a drag. My abilities were the main reason I didn’t have friends but I couldn’t let it upset me today.

It was a Friday after all.

Yawning and scratching my ruffled blonde hair, I worked my way up to sitting position. Bored, I scanned my room.

To say my room looked like a war zone would have been too flattering. Most of my books lay scattered across the floor. There was a white plate with chicken bones from an unknown date on the ground. Ants had had all but turned it black with movement just to get to the now very dry bones.

I ignored it and stretched my arms wider to absorb as much of the happiness as I could. Feeling the joy I jumped eagerly out of my bed. Still stretching my arms, I stood in front of a large full-length mirror. Looking at the mirror I saw a scrawny pale white man, who looked more like a teen than a young adult. Next to him was a full-grown male, his almost pitch black skin contrasting sharply with that of the kid’s. The darker man standing a full head taller and dressed in black jeans, plain black hoody with a black tie.

“Hi Thulani” I said sheepishly waving at the mirror.

“Hey yourself.” Thulani said leaning on my wiry reflection. I felt his weight on me causing my knees to buckle. Thulani stared at me with his eye brow raised before relieving me of the pressure. Thulani sighed as if I’d failed some kind test of strength or will power. I kept smiling sheepishly at him. If it was a failed test it would have been a drop in the ocean of previous failures.

“Look I’m going to take a shower. I’m so fucking sick and tired of sharing a bed with another man, especially you.” Thulani groaned “Just stay here and I’ll be right back. As if I can fucking go anywhere else…” Thulani mumbled leaving
I saw his reflection leave and heard the shower turn on. Obediently I sat on my queen size bed facing the mirror, making sure he wouldn’t disappear. I didn’t know the rules but I knew enough to understand that if I left the range of any reflective plane he’d disappear and he’d be pissed when he got back.

I lay back on my bed spreading my arms out and basking once more in the joy that surrounded the city. It was difficult to be sad when there was so much happiness to be felt.

We lived by ourselves Thulani and I. Thulani always complained that no women came over but I knew that was just him being him. It wasn’t like I could change that. I couldn’t even get friends let alone a girlfriend. It was hard to imagine a girlfriend who would be able to see to Thulani or talk to him let alone have any sexual relations with him.

I know Thulani doesn’t really exist. I created him. He’s merely a figment of my imagination only visible to me. He can only exist or touch things when I’m in front of a reflective surface. It’s the basic rules for him. I don’t ask why, because it wouldn’t make sense to him either after all he’s in my head.

Living in this city with difficult enough to handle. Being an Empath made things so much worse. There weren’t words that could ever explain what it was like for an Empath to be without friends or family. Every day, every hour, every second, every moment seemed worse than the last.

To make things worse I’d bottled up all the rage, sadness, angst, malice, greed and jealousy that flowed around and inside of me and when the time came for the bottle to explode. Instead of the bottle popping my feelings grew a face, a body, arms and an attitude that was too cold to be human.

He told me his name was Thulani, I couldn’t remember ever hearing the name before but it didn’t matter. I must have heard it somewhere. Thulani was mean, crass and self centered but even with all his issues he was still treated me well and listened. It was more than I could ask for from anyone. He was my one and only friend.

Luckily for me Thulani wasn’t the type of imaginary friend who took over people’s bodies like the ones in those awful horror movies. I was too strong for that but…

There had been 4 occasions when I’d been so scared that I let Thulani take over, just to get out of difficult situations. I’d blacked out with a sharp pain in my skull. Only to wake up somewhere else with a cold feeling inside me and a lump on the back my head. Sometimes though, there was blood on my clothing. At first I’d been sure I’d been doing it on my own until I saw that Thulani had blood in his own clothing and hands, a clear mental signification of my guilt. He soon explained everything to me.

I often tended to find myself in difficult situations as the cities emotions took over my weakened heart. It led to me doing unthinkable things, like loud out bursts and even violence. Something that was never good if one were ever as scrawny as me.

On some of the worst occasions my arms had been broken in two places and I’d even been stabbed in the stomach. On both of those occasions I wondered how my body had managed to get up at all. It was lucky the stab didn’t hit any thing important. I liked to look on the bright side. Thulani always called me an idiot because of it though.

Now with Thulani around the outbursts had decreased and the fighting was gone too. He’d saved my life more times than I could count and more times then he would ever know.

The shower stopped running but I could still hear the sound of the dripping showerhead from all the way out here. I stared at the bathroom door and strained my ears to listen to the soft patter of feet on the tiles. The door opened and hot steam burst out the door defusing the further out into the light as it flowed. The steam divided in the center as a floating towel moved towards me. Between the darker bathroom and the light bed room I could almost swear that I could see a black smoke bouncing around in Thulani’s shape.

As it got closer I couldn’t see any darkness at all. Instead I stared hard at the floating droplets forming the shape of an extremely masculine man. There was a trail of water footprints leading from the shower to me. The bed sunk next to me raising me up slightly. I saw his completely naked form fully in the reflection of the mirror.

He was drying himself when he caught me staring at him.

“What? Are you going to fantasize about me now?” He threatened.

I turned away and moved to the shower. I could feel the heat from the steam hitting my face as I inhaled the densely humid air. I closed the door. The handle felt surprisingly cool to the touch even in the suffocating heat.

Drip! Drip! Drip!

The sound coming from the showerhead annoyed me. I closed it feeling instantly better by the action, I looked around my bathroom. It was big. In fact I could take five steps in any direction without bumping into anything. Stepping in front of the medicine cabinet where the sink jutted out the wall from underneath the cabinet.

Thulani soot behind me, grinning from ear to ear.

“Jesus!” I cried swallowing down my heart, which had just climbed into my throat. My knuckles had turned a bright white from how hard I’d clutched to the sink.
“Sorry. I was just curious why you turned off the shower when you were going in anyway?”
I could sense Thulani’s emotions and felt that he was bemused by my actions, which wasn’t very different from my father’s feelings when a question like this came up.

I staring at nothing and I fell back to a time when I had asked him a similar question, the stress and anger that oozed out of his every pore had made me burst into tears, but that hadn’t been the 1st time I’d burst into tears after just looking at someone. My dad was about to answer but stopped as my tears filled him with pity for only a second before his anger redoubled and he stormed out of the bath slamming it behind him and screaming at my mother.

“Just because I want to,” I replied waking up, “so, please just leave me alone.” I managed slowly trying not to think about my mother and the fake feelings of mourning his father held at her funeral.

I opened the cabinet and Thulani disappeared.

Inside, the cabinet was full of bottles. Each bottle half filled or almost empty. Most were antidepressants, coke, and crystal-meth all from a time before Thulani. All a testament to my own weakness.

The steam from Thulani’s previous shower still made the air heavy.

I turned on the cold water tap on the sink and put the pressure on maximum before I took off my shirt and briefs.

My body shivered involuntarily as drops of cold water ricochied off the sunk and onto my exposed skin. I turned the tap off when I felt the air become light enough to breathe easily again.

I sighed heavily, smiling at myself. The time I took in the shower was my favorite in the word. It was the only time when my own emotions were fully in charge of the way I acted. I hated being a puppet, being pulled by tens of thousands of miniature strings each being held by a different member of the city. The showerhead let a burst of hot water out.

Oblivious to the heat, I held onto the taps, controlling the temperature making sure it was cold but not freezing. The water needed to be cool for me to enjoy it fully. The cool spray was what I imagined happiness would feel like if it was solid. Thulani was always hot to the touch.

I stood and cleansed myself of all the hate of the day before leaving whatever love and joy I had scrounge for along the way, even though it was never aimed at me.

--

An hour and a half passed and found me standing before my mirror fully dressed and ready for my psychology classes. Thulani dropped his hands around my shoulders pressing down on me once again.
“Finally! You’re done so let’s get ready.” He said

“Ready for what?” I asked knowing full well what the answer was. I flinched under the sudden pressure Thulani had put on my shoulders as he squeezed hard.
“Don’t do this.” He breathed dangerously. “You know exactly what. After all it was you who said you wanted to help people” Thulani said. There was disappointment in his tone and my heart sank.

“I know, but not by hurting someone!” I exclaimed defensively.
“You felt the surge of hate inside of her. She’s evil. She has to be with all the negative energy inside of her and here’s you’re chance. You’ve seen what your own outbursts have caused. You’ve seen the blood on our hands. The police sirens rushing to pick up the bodies you left behind. This was your suggestion so make the world a better place!” Thulani said encouragingly. It was a speech that would have made any General brim with pride if the speech wasn’t about killing another human being.

I looked at Thulani’s reflection in the eye before looking away unable to hold my own against his eager glare.

I had liked her. She was beautiful, smart and quiet, like me. Just like me. Me before I met Thulani, before I was pushed by the hate, anger and sadness which covered the city like a fog. I was always surrounded by those feelings.

Those exact feelings. At the exact same times.

“Is she… like me?” I asked Thulani. The answer dawning on me for the first time.

The pressure of Thulani’s grip lessened. Relieved by the feeling of blood rushing back into my shoulders, I looked up questioningly at him. He was clearly lost in his own thoughts. Each one completely out of range of my curiosity and Empath abilities. Yet another thing I could never presume to understand about him.

“Yes, she is.” He finally let out. I could hear the apprehension in his voice, “but unlike you, who can control your power. She’s controlled by her power making her a bitter vessel held down by the burden of life. She is beyond your feelings of love and understanding. She is even beyond the feelings you forged me out of. You... We… cannot reach her.”

I knew how that felt like, it was the only thing I felt. My breath was heavy as I imagined my life without Thulani helping me block out those surges. I wouldn’t have been alive. It was something I would never wish on my worst enemy. Let alone someone as beautiful as her.

“Okay.” Breathed unable to even imagine how I’d do the deed What do we do?”
Thulani grinned as he rubbed my shoulders and told me his plan.

SECTION TWO

The sun set and the city lit up all around his apartment. The city was buzzing with activity as people started to get ready to have a good Friday night. It was already way past 7 o’clock and the night life was revving up around me.

I stood once again in front of my mirror. Thulani lay on the bed with my radio on his stomach. Hip-hop music blared out. The bass of each track’s beat stopping my rushing heart. Every lyric spoken spoke of death and hardships constantly being punctuated by the word fuck. I turned away from the mirror and looked at him. I couldn’t see him, all I could see was a floating radio which swung gently in the air.

After a minute I looked back at the mirror and stared at the same scrawny kid, who looked way younger than he really was. The kid was wearing black jeans and a black linkin Park top and in the center was a shiny silver dog tag. Thulani saw me checking myself out and stood up. The sun had completely set now and darkness swallowed the sky.

I still felt good but I was nervous too. Thulani switched off the radio and patted me on my back.
“Its time to go. How do you feel?”
“Good but I’m nervous ”
Thulani laughed and slapped my back nearly knocking me head first into the mirror. A part of me wished he had.

“That’s good. I would have been nervous if you weren’t” He said reassuringly. It worked I felt a little better. I was right to be nervous considering what I was about to do.
“Look in your pockets.” Thulani said to me.
I looked and pulled out a balaclava and chloroform.
“Put that on a cloth then put the cloth over her mouth. It should take the fight out of her.”

I put them back in my pockets and went to the kitchen. It was just as dirty as my room. The sink was full of dishes and cutlery. Gently I lifted most of the plates covering the sink and pulled out a large butcher knife with my left hand. I put it on the sink and gently places the plates back down, careful not to break anything.
“No that not right.”
I looked around and saw Thulani's face reflected on the stainless steel blade.
“It’s too big and wide. You’re not strong enough. Take the bread knife and a spare, make it thin too.”

I followed all of Thulani’s instructions.

After 5 minutes I walked out of our apartment. It wasn’t too long of a walk to her house, which was why I wasn’t going to take a car. I didn’t’ want people to identify my car anyway. I locked the door and headed down the stairs. I should have taken the elevator since we live on the 6th floor but it had 3 mirrors and right now I rather felt like being alone to think this through. As I walked slowly down the stairs I measured the distance in my head and worked out how long it would take to get there.
“+- 30 minutes” I thought out loud as I reached the last step.

25 minutes

I fingered the sharp end of the knife hidden in my sleeve. I remembered how it felt for me when I had been stabbed. It wasn’t like TV. There was more blood in real life. Either that or it just felt like more blood when it was yours.

15 minutes

I looked to my left as I crossed closed stores. All I could see was black behind the thick glass panes. One the other side of the glass I saw myself and Thulani walking next me. He was unusually quiet. I, for the 1st time in a while, took a good look at my only friend. He tall at least a full head taller than me. He was almost as thin as me but unlike me I could see his strength. Muscle took up every inch of his body. He was so strong I could swear that I could even feel it at times.

10 minutes

I’ve finally left the stores, bars and nightclubs. The district had been of people huddled in groups walking around doing their own things, I had tasted their emotions and shuddered. They where full of false security and fear but every now and then there was genuine joy and pleasure, even love. I did my best to hang onto that but I couldn’t.

I’d left that area and was now in the quieter residential suburbs. I was glad to be out of Main City, away from all those people. Now, I knew that if you saw people here then you were probably getting mugged, you just didn’t know it yet.

5 minutes

That was a close one. A neighborhood patrol car had just turned before seeing me. It was important I wasn’t seen. Not yet anyway. Not yet.

3 ½ minutes

Shit! Shit! 5 guys up ahead. This scenario had the potential of turning bad, really bad, and I could just see the front of her house behind them. If they looked at me I’d nod and move on. Oh God I prayed they wouldn’t look at me. If they robbed me and they’d found the knife I’d be dead before I knew it. Not even Thulani could handle all 5.

1 minute

I thanked God twice. They passed without looking in my direction, they had been talking loudly but I couldn’t hear a word.

My ears were too busy listening to the insanely loud drumming of my heartbeat on my chest.

I stood outside the gate. I was a minute off but that didn’t matter now. I pulled out the knife and pointed the flat of the blade towards a street lamp behind me. The light exposed Thulani’s face.

“Don’t try waltzing through the front gate.” Thulani whispered disparately pulling me to the next house. Too numb to protest I let myself cursing my own stupidity. Standing in front of the neighbor’s massive wall, I put the blade in between my teeth and climbed.

The wall was really tall but I managed to use a near by tree to get me up. No one had seen me yet but it was only matter of time until someone did. This suburb was way too quiet for my liking. It made my drumming heart sound too loud and made my ears suspicious of even the smallest noises. I froze on the top of the wall and waited until every rustle or creek had been exposed as nothing. It took about 5 minutes before I jumped to the other side. My feet hit the ground with a thud, which sounded more like a bomb to my overly sensitive ears. I was breathing fast now and that mixed with my drumming heart sounded like a circus was marching through my head. After a minute I found the energy to move towards the 2-story house.

I was scared. So very scared!

Why was doing this! How could I do something as evil as killing someone? I was a weakling compared to most people even her. I was sure of it.
I stopped outside a thin brown back door. It had no windows but there was a line in the center signifying that it could split in half so only one side, top or bottom, would open. I took a deep breath as I realized just how big this house was. There was no way only one person lived here! I panicked. Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner! I made a move to leave when Thulani appeared in front of me. There he was in all his glory.

I opened my mouth to speak but he put his hand over it.

“There’s only one extra person and you have to kill her.” I was nervous now.
How had he known what I was thinking? I remembered that Thulani was in my head so it only made sense that he knew what I was thinking. But how had he known about there only being one extra person inside? And how had he known it was a girl? I made to touch him but he avoided me and pointed to the back door.

As usual I obediently opened the back door and turned back to see that Thulani had disappeared again.

The globe over his head lit up the whole backyard and the changed everything from dark to light so fast I was blind. My heart jumped as I heard talking nearby. In my blind state I could already feel the prison bars closing on me. I was already coming to terms with my arrest.

But nothing happened.

I couldn’t see anyone when my vision returned. My heart was beating so fast that it felt like someone was doing a drum roll on my chest with spanners. There was nothing else to it now.

I swallowed hard and stepped inside. I could hear the voices conversing now. The conversation was animated but still I decided to follow it ignoring everything around the kitchen. I followed the passage until the passage walls disappeared revealing a large TV room. There were 3 couches surrounding the large screen. I saw a red hared woman laughing at the TV in the middle couch.

I had been sweating profusely since I’d stepped into the house but all at once each droplet ran cold sending a shiver down my spine. The red head stopped laughing and TV became mute. I hadn’t made a sound but somehow she’d heard me.

I walked silently but quickly towards her couch with chloroform in my hand. She was just about to turn but my hand caught her mouth and covered it with the chloroform cloth. I clung onto her as she struggled.

Although she was a girl she managed to lift me with ease. She pulled at my hand as she turned her body left and right nearly flinging me off her each time. I felt myself loosing the battle.

She was just too strong, either that or I was really weak. She crashed herself into a wall using me as a shield. There was a mirror on the wall and I saw Thulani watching from a safe distance. Why wasn’t he helping? This had been his idea now all he was doing was watching.
She took 2 steps back and crashed into the wall again. This time my head hit the wall and I fell off her. She broke free.

“Don’t let her go!” Thulani shouted, I’d never heard him sound so desperate.
She ran to a drawer next to the couch and turned to me but I was already right in front of her. I moved so fast that I’d lost control and bumped into her. Our faces collided with each other hard. My nose felt light and awkward, like it was about to bleed.

We both fell over the drawer, pushed by our momentum. We landed on the ground behind it with me on top and with the spare knife resting in her stomach.

I looked in her eyes as she squirmed on the floor. I still held the knife tight, too shocked and scared to move it or let go. I watched, frozen, as she moved up reaching out for the gun she had pulled out of the drawer. She lifted the gun and put it next to my head. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, I must have punctured a lung or something. She looked at me with distraught eyes. It looked like she was to say something as I eyed the arm which held the gun. I was still too scared to move.

Looking again in her eyes I realized she wasn’t looking at me. I was too scared to turn my eyes strayed to the mirror ahead. It was Thulani! She could see him. The gun wasn’t aimed at me but at him.

“NO!” I screamed. I pushed the knife so deep my hand entered the wound. The gun went off and fell with her hand. Two tears rolled down the side of her face as her she stared frozen in frozen shock…

…staring at me.

I had felt her heart beat as it slowed to a stop before I was hit with a final rush of emotion from her. My vision blurred as I looked back into the red heads eyes. I felt her emotions right up to the end. Each one more passionate than the last.

Fear, anger, determination but there was bigger emotion that had run all the other ones. I’d never felt it before. I didn’t know what it was.
I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder and I looked at it before shaking it off. It was had blood on it. Surprised I turned and saw that she’d managed to hit him in the side. Thought he didn’t look bad. He held into the wound loosely like has was holding a paper cut.

“You did it!” Thulani’s voice came from behind me. I ignored it as I pulled my knife out of the red head’s stomach. It was disgusting and surprisingly cool compared to the warmth he’d felt before. My vision was blocked by my own tears. My fingers trembled. Things were moving too fast for my head to handle. I needed reassurance and I needed it now.

“How could she see you? You’re supposed to only be in my head. So how did she shoot you? You’re not real!”

Thulani was wounded by the gunshot but not gravely, thanks to me.

I no longer needed a mirror to see him. He stood clear as day in front of me. Thulani grinned and was about to answer but stopped. His grin disappeared and he left the room leaving me with the dead body of the person I’d just killed. The TV was still on mute and the only sound I could hear was that of Thulani’s foot steps as they climbed up the stairs and a clock ticking from a wall.

Eventually I couldn’t hear the footsteps any more and the only sound that was left was that of the clock.
Tick
Tick!
TICK!
Each tick of the second hand sounded louder than the last until the sound seemed to cover the room hurting my ears with every second which passed. I heard a scream but it was cut off.

Then there was silence.

After a few seconds I heard footsteps and something else I couldn’t make out.

It sounded like something was being dragged down the stairs. I saw Thulani holding the girl, she looked younger than she was, she was my age, my height and about the same size as me. He held her limp form with one hand.

Her eyes were closed and I wasn’t sure if she was alive or dead. Thulani threw her next to me and I scrambled to check her pulse. My hand was shaking and my tears still burned into me.

Fortunately I managed to find something. She was still alive. There was a current of fear running inside her, as she lay unconscious next to me. There were also the same levels of hate and anger that I’d detected before. I could feel them in myself too.

Thulani looked at my confused expression and his grin returned. How could he have done this? He wasn’t real. How could he pick her up and be visible to everyone? HE WASN”T REAL! He was supposed to only be a part of my subconscious.
“Well I guess that’s all of you for this city.”
“Who are you?” It felt like a stupid question but it seemed to be the best way to understand.

“Me? I’m the reason you go to church, I’m the reason you put up a dream catcher, I’m the reason the small kids are good, I’m the reason you put bricks under you’re bed, I’m the reason you put on a night light. I’m the fear inside of everyone. But so you’re simple mind can handle it let’s just say that I’m that bad guy!” Thulani laughed out. He bent down on one knee and held the dead woman’s head lifting it up and rubbing his head against hers. Her open eye’s stared at me as her head moved with Thulani’s, “Now she’s a special kind of person. She makes sure the world stays stable. How you ask? By keeping the good guy alive. I guess to a nerd like you that makes her the… Guardian right? Or whatever your stupid games would call her.”

Pointed his eyes at the still unconscious girl next to me my own followed relieved to be able to look away from the Guardian. “You’re kind are the good guys you’re like sponges that take up the anger an area. That’s why some cities are brighter than others but when I’ve killed you both this will be the worst place in the world”

I had bearly absorbed a word he’d said. I’d just taken the keywords him bad, red head good, other girl good. I didn’t include myself since I’d killed the good guy.
“Why didn’t you kill her yourself” I said referring to the red head. I was stalling but I had no idea for what. The pair of us were in allot of trouble. Thulani had clearly thought this through.

Thulani was still holding the Guardians head up. He pulled it up higher then dropped it with a thud.
“I can’t touch her or any of you when she’s around but when she’s gone…”

Thulani walked up to me and lifted me up by my hair. I screamed and screamed as he put me up against the wall.

“Don’t do this! You’re supposed to be my friend!” I cried but he just laughed.
“I was never your friend. You were supposed to have a friend but luck was on my side! Now I’m going to kill you then her but after living celibate in you’re house I think I’ll have fun 1st.” He grinned at me and pulled harder. I was on my toes now.

I remembered long before Thulani came I was supposed to have a roommate. But he’d died in a car accident before I moved in. I guess a part of me was too desperate to have a friend, too desperate to have someone to care for me to see things clearly.

However, on the ground was someone who needed to be cared for way more than I ever deserved to. I suddenly felt what the red haired woman had felt. The emotion that had run through her like a raging river ran through me to.

Still an able to name it he knew it was fueled by the need to protect this one person. I felt stronger than I’d ever felt before. I grabbed Thulani’s wrists. He howled in pain as I pulled his hands away from me.
“How? H-” He was cut off as my bread knife cut into his spun before twisting. He fell and behind her stood the girl. She looked sad and I could feel it inside me. I was filled with the urge to care for her. I hoped she hadn’t caught on if she really was an empath like.
“I’ll be your friend.” She said as she hugged me tight.
My heart was filled with joy and sadness, relief and anxiety. I’d didn’t know what to do but hugged her back as hard as I could praying to God that his emptiness would fade.

[4 years later]

I stood in front of the mirror and saw the same scrawny kid from before and behind him was the most beautiful woman in the world. She was holding a baby and shouting at another down the stairs. I grinned as I read my newspaper-taking note of the headline.

“City rated as friendliest city in the world”

Meanwhile down the stair a 4 year old little boy was drawing a picture on the wall it was him, mommy, daddy (me), the baby and next to him was a tall black figure its smile wider than the head itself.

SQJ Productions
Short Story: Best Friend Ever
Written by: Vuyisile Sibeko.
Genre: Horror, Suspense, Supernatural
Edited by: Vuyisile Sibeko.
Special thanks to: Prudence, my inspiration for keeping this and to keep writing.
Contact Details: Good reviews can be sent to SQJPure@gmail.com
Or Sms Vuyisile Sibeko at 071 02 88 44 9

[SQJ]

Spoiler: Sanity's Last Ride Part 1 

Seth Humphreys had never done a kilometre per hour over 125 in the entirety of his life. Right now he was doing 240km per hour on the down hill on the slope of Rubenstein street. Seth felt his heart jump into his throat. He held his breath when the road the bottom of the sharp down hill slope levelled out and changed into an even sharper uphill slope.

His Nissan TT roadster hit the bottom with a completely unnatural crunch. Seth had never gone over 1245kmph. Right now he was striking tar at 3000kmph. Sparks flew everywhere before the tyres screeched in agony as the axis was pushed to its breaking point. The roadster seemed to jump and hover in midair where the tyres screamed against the damp floor before launching the roadster forwards.

Seth was flung back into his seat the car and rattling his brain. The shock of the impact only lasted a second before he got over it and his foot had never once released its pressure on the accelerator. The forth vehicle he’d ever owned in his life which, exactly like the previous vehicles, had never crossed 125kmph was pushing 200 on a wet uphill. Seth flashed his hazards as he reached the top of the hill.

The light at the end of the road was red, and at 20:30 on a Saturday night, there was a continuous line of cars crisscrossing across the path leading to Lois avenue. Seth didn’t slow, he couldn’t slow, he would never slow. The roadster swerved away from a powder blue Citi Golf waiting at the traffic stop and the whole roadster slide before his tyres caught the road once more. Determined and strong he swerved into the passing traffic. Luck wasn’t on his side. Almost instantly his car clipped a white Mazda on his rear and the car spun as it slide forwards across the busy intersection. The pressure from the high speed spin was tremendous. Seth could feel an unknown force pushing on his whole body forcing his eyes off the road. Seth forced his head up and found himself staring into of blonde women. Each one couldn’t have been a day over 22. The blonde in the driver’s soft features with thick pouty lips and sapphire blue eyes which stared widely as him as if she understood everything which had happened and was appalled at him for his incredible failures. IT was as if she understood exactly why he was driving so fast and why slowing down was the equivalent to murder and suicide in one. The car’s skid nearly clipped a nearby lime green Toyota Yaris, sending out of control. Still the moment between himself and the blonde driver lingered. The sapphire double orbs bore into him cutting him deep. Paranoia and fear made his arms limp.


He crashed into the pavement and the car veered straight into Lois street like an arrow. Seth didn’t need to look to know that the sides of his roadster was a disaster. He didn’t care, not for a second. The car was moving, and in a straight line. That was what mattered.

He was on another slope leading down. The vehicle which had never gone above 125 was doing 3000 once more. His hazards flashing, he sailed past another red light. This time it was others cars who swerved out the way as he barrelled through them. Seth’s heart sank into his stomach when he heard a siren blare behind him.


His eyes darted to the back and silver suit case which was supported to the passenger seat like an infant. There was blood all over it but it wasn’t his blood and that fact brought grim satisfaction to him. They’d to take it from him and then they’d tried to kill him. But he’d won out in the end. He’d gotten the case back. They hadn’t expected the car to be able to barrel through the steel electric garage, let alone with such force.


The garage doors had bucked with such childish ease against the powerful force of the custom modified TT roadster. The Car was his baby, which he looked after like a child. The car ploughed into the woman who had the bag. She was hit hard and rolled up the car only the roll off and roll out of sight when the car stopped half way out the drive way. It happened so fast that it caught her by complete surprise along with her muscular companion. Though to call him muscular seemed to be an understatement of epic proportions, he had to be twice as thick as Seth. The woman rolled off the roadster Seth had already started reversing to catch him but he was out of sight. Luck favoured Seth and at that moment he stepped away from the wall with his gun cocked and aimed only to step into the car’s path. The car shook with the heavy slamming of man and car. Car won. He let off two gun shots which missed completely.


In the spur of the moment Seth had jumped out the car and aimed his own, store bought Glock 20 with 10mm rounds, one of Seth’s favourite guns in his gun collection, which he’d never fired in life. Seth at the male companion until the clip emptied. Seth, at some point, had his eyes closed but opened them when the clip emptied. The large companion lay on his back with blood and chunks of meat and guts lay strewn on around him. Seth stared for what felt like the longest time, unsure of exactly what had just happened. They’d caught him off guard just as he was about to leave with the case and tied him up next to his gas stove in hopes of blowing him up and making it look like an accident. But they hadn’t killed him. No, he’d made it out of his home alive on his own. Grim satisfaction filled his lungs as he stared hard at the dead body in front of him. Seth got to his feet only to be dropped on his stomach by the flat wieght of his steel and leather case. The woman, a brunette with deep hazel eyes, let out an animal roar of fury as she dropped the case onto his back again and again.


Without any conscious though Seth Reached for the partially closed door next to him and yanked it back. She screamed and dropped and on his back before slinking backwards to the ground, clutching her leg. There was blood spouting out of both knees. Seth could actually see the bone stick out her left shin. Seth scrambled like a soldier crawling under barbed wire up to the car seat and pulled himself up as high as his almost rigid back would allow. He clung onto the steering wheel for support.


The brunette had finally stopped screaming. An act which scared him more than it relieved him. The driver seat door squeaked unnaturally and the low riding TT roadster sunk lower than it already was. A second later the door slammed on his back making him scream. Seth screamed loudly as the door bounced backwards only to be slammed bodily into his back again. His back arched and a solid white burning fire form on his back setting his whole body on fire. The door slammed into him three more times and with every one she yelled out in animalistic fury. Seth kicked his legs into the ground, throwing his whole body backwards at the door as it came down on him once more. The impact was harder that all the previous hits combined. Seth let out a gargling scream but so did the brunette. Her scream fell like knives in Seth’ brain. The impact hit both ways. Seth’s wieght trumped her attack and the door flung her backwards. The side winder cracked as the back of Seth’s head slammed against it. Both parties lost consciousness.


To Seth’s surprise and to his great relief he wasn’t dead. Unfortunately the woman who was trying to kill him was still alive too. He could hear her every breath which seemed to come out in dry sobs, it reminded him of a steam train coming to a halt. But it wasn’t her sobs which had woken him up. It had been the steady beeping of her cell phone, which in the quiet Moreleta Park suburb was quite loud in his ears.


Desperation hit him harder than it had ever hit him before. He stood up and slammed the door shut so he could find her. She currently lay on her side folded into the foetal position. The eerie glow of her cell phone, some sort of Sony Ericson, reflected off her, showing her face. There was something about it. Seth didn’t know what. He dove for the phone getting a few of his fingers around it before she pulled at it. She managed to get it free from his grip but Seth jumped at her once more. They both struggled for the device with Seth using his wieght as leverage on her while she pressed the phone close to her body and used her head as a weapon to beat him off. Unfortunately she was winning this fight. He was losing is grip. She lifted her head and sunk her teeth deep into his shoulder. It was at this moment that head butting her occurred to him, right after it stopped being an option.


Seth screamed as her teeth scrapped and dragged across the bone of shoulder. Suddenly the phone was forgotten by both parties. Seth bit back and punched her in the chest constantly but he could feel his own strength bleeding out of him. /she punched back, she was a hard hitter. Either that or he’d finally gone soft and weak in his old age, not that he considered 40 to be very old at all. Seth pushed himself off of her at great cost to his own health as she managed to pull flesh before letting go. The cell phone was hit away in the struggle and landed on the edge of the pavement. She sent after it instantly and Seth turned and went after the car. He scramble for the door and pulled it open with his sore shoulder screaming out. He scrambled for the car’s hand brake. Seth pulled on the steering wheel and threw his whole body against the roadster’s door frame, ignoring his back and shoulder for as long as he could.

At that moment she had just picked up the phone and finished dialling. The second there was a ring tone she dropped the phone and screamed. Her powerful cry cut through the air before the roadsters front connected with her body with force. The whole car shook and rose before it dropped. There was a sickening crunch and blood splattered across his driveway and onto his shoes.

The cell phone covered in blood but Seth picked it up anyway. There was something about the phone that forced him to stare at it. He could barely take his eyes off of it. Right then he remembered that he was late.

The blue siren behind Seth brought him back to reality quickly. The police van was right behind him. Seth slammed hard on the accelerator. He knew the area. He’d rented a home for a year and a half in Erasmuskloof while working as head surgeon at the Fearie Glen hospital. He threw his whole body into twisting his steering wheel to the right before pulling on his hand brake. The tyres locked and skidded before Seth took control once more and entered into Bill street. The road son met a T junction where Seth took a sharp left turn and entered Wendy Street. Seth took the first turn left entering Joy street. The street much like Bill street was short and crossed into a long winding street that, if he turned left once more, would take him back to Lois street and back to finish what he needed to finish.


Seth didn’t turn on the corner, instead he turned earlier into a driveway leading to a cream coloured house at least two stories high. The drive leading to the electric doors had a concrete wall surrounding it. Seth swung around the cream wall and killed the engine. His heart was drumming unmercifully against his chest. She cruelly his chest ached, it felt as though his ribs would crack and break at any moment.


The police van, a white two seater bukkie with a white canopy and blue decals with the word police plastered over the sides. Each flash of the glaring blue light seemed to pound into him. Stabbing at his eyes. The bukkie stopped and Seth’s heart stopped. He put his hand on the key ready to plough into the van should it stop for too long or start to reverse.


To Seth’s relief the bukkie turned right with its light and siren still blaring. Seth hesitated before turning the key. Something about the phone he’d taken struck him. He picked it up. The screen was cracked heavily, covered in blood and therefore of no use but what he wanted to see wasn’t on the phone’s memory, it was inside the phone itself.


Seth opened the back flap and took three breathes before turning it and showing the phones guts. The battery was silver and black, a standard for that exact make and model. Relief, dread and desperation hit Seth all at once. It wasn’t the phone his wife had said had been stolen from her those three months ago. His hand held the keys once more and he started to turn it just before his hand stopped again. Batteries could be changed, entire back flaps could be changed. They could have changed his wife’s old pink battery if they’d had the hindsight for it. But they couldn’t have changes that back cover. They couldn’t have gotten ride of the gold sparkles at the back of the phone, not without buying a whole new inside for the phone.

Seth pulled out the silver and black battery and looked for the gold sparkles. He screamed.

The pain in his shoulder was forgotten, the pain in his back was forgotten the loss of blood, the mental fatigue, the desperation, the dread was completely forgotten. There was nothing now. Only him and his silver and black suit case.

An hour passed and his own Sony Ericson started ringing. He let it ring. He knew who was calling. He could remember the first time he’d gotten the call. It was only two days ago, when they had taken his wife away. Only had they? Had they really?

The phone stopped ringing and Seth’s whole body started trembling. Tears rolled down his cheeks and he buried his face into his steering wheel. He thought he could see blue light against the kin of his eye lids. He ignored it. His phone beeped three times. Seth pulled it under the steering wheel to see what it said. He had a voicemail. No doubt another clip of her screams for help. No doubt another clip of her pleading for help. How convincing it all sounded.

Seth looked up and found the van waiting on the corner street once again. The siren had turned off and whole world was suddenly too quiet for Seth’s liking. He had never realised this before but he hated the suburbs. His whole life he’d lived in the city. He’d studied in Rezes too. He’d lived it, he really had. His first suburban home had offered him the horrific pain of two miscarriages that had torn him apart in way he didn’t think possible, in ways that he could never forget. And now the second home…

The mature, life good life. The miserable life would have been a better term. It drove him up the wall how it all looked from an outside perspective, it was all driving him crazy and he couldn’t stop himself. No, that was a lie. Crazy suggested that he was confused, out of sync, two waves short of a full tide, one sandwich short of a picnic basket, one screw short of a full nut case. God forgive them for they know not what they do and that bullshit. Seth didn’t need forgiveness, he knew exactly what he was would do, he knew exactly what he was, angry. Very fucking angry.

Just a the police started to turn to turn left. A blinding light appeared on their left. The light was so bright both police men couldn’t see what car it was. Though the bright light was incredibly annoying there was still a mad driver moving through the suburbs. Choosing to give the car a break, they carried on turning. The cop on the passenger’s side raised his eyebrow the light was getting bigger and brighter. The cop frowned. The light was staying on next to him all through the turn as if it were following him.

One and one finally connected and the cop screamed grabbing his seat belt. It was the car they were looking for and it was headed right for him. The light lifted everything burning into his pupils. Then the light disappeared sinking below his door The searing pain of the bright light lingered but was soon forgotten.


There was crash then another. The door of the police van crumpled and caved before breaking off its hinges. The low gravity of the TT roadster just as it landed on the tar easily trumped the heavier high suspension police van. The van over turned and then rolled twice before laying on its side silent and dark.


Seth was still roaring at the top of his lungs when he Lois street once more. All of his windows were either broken or rolled open and wind buzzed through the car pressing heavily but therapeutically on his ears and black shirt which flapped constantly beating on his chest. It was surprising. His cuts and bruises were nothing more than needle pricks against his body. Only his back could gave him a problem but he could live with it.


Lois tuned on a Y junction and Seth followed Lois down the right. He expected the pain to come back when he turned but it didn’t. He expected his back to hurt so badly that it would bed with such severity that he’d look like he was doing Yoga, or maybe he’d look more like the MacDonald’s arches. He flipped on his radio. Music. Seth immediately started singing at the top of his voice. “Whoa black betty! Bam belam! Whoa black betty! Bam belam! Black betty got a job! Bam belam! ” Seth lip synced the next few words before catching them again.


“She’s always ready! Bam belam!
‘She all rock steady! Bam belam!”

Seth turned up Atterbury Road with a heavy heart. Three more stops and he’d be at the meeting point.

First stop. The anger was slowly fading and slowly it was being replaced by fear. Where was he going? What was he doing? They’d already tried to kill him. What if they tried again? They’d kill him for sure this time.

Second stop. He’d force it but the anger was coming back steadily. They’d kill him? Him? As if he’d ever let that happen! He wasn’t wrong. They were the bastards. The anger started to bubble up inside of him. Fury controlled his every move without an inch of restriction.


Final stop. There was no future for him. He was being childish. They had planned to kill him from the start. There had been no planned exchange. No real meeting point. Seth slammed on his brakes and the roadster screamed to a stop. A pale yellow Yaris swerved heavily and slammed his own brakes stopping the Yaris right next to Seth’s Roadster. Both cars were only cent meters away. him. The driver, who looked furious, opened his passenger window with a determined anger of a man looking for a fight and a readiness for war. He soon found the barrel of Seth’s reloaded black and silver pistol inside of his own car and pointed at the centre of his head.


Seth looked at the man and looked away. He flicked the barrel ahead and the Yaris screeched away. Seth’s back was already acting up again. He didn’t ignore it so much as endure it. He didn’t have the time for such trivial shit.


The TT roaster slowed and turned into the grassy field on his left. It was a pretty shitty field as far as fields went. The grass and weeds grew unchecked, even small trees had started to grow in areas, a sign that the local municipalities weren’t living up to their requirements.


Up ahead a Mercedes Benz Compressor, not doubt stolen, no one would be so dumb as to bring their own car, Seth thought, or no one who expected to leave witnesses. Instinct told him it was the latter that was true. They’d tried to kill him in his home. Why not kill him here too?


Seth stopped his roadster less than three meters from the Compressor. For a moment both cars faced each other, their headlights obscuring the sights of the opposite driver. Both cars revved, were facing each other down. Then everything fell silent. Both cars had killed their engines and darkness took over their own little suburban territory.


Seth was the first person to step out of his car. It was a painful process, his back had seized up very severely and the pain had doubled when he shoved his gun into the back of jeans. Seth tried his damndest not to limp, slouch or grimace as he move forwards. They didn’t have the right to see how hurt he was or how badly they’d broken him. They didn’t’ get to see that. If Seth couldn’t help it they wouldn’t get the right to speak.


The door of the compressor opened and the kidnapper stepped out. It was no one he knew, he wasn’t sure he could handle that, if it had been someone he knew. He was younger than Seth. He was most likely in his thirties with a square jaw and stubble which covered half his face. His pale face was a strange contract to his own tanned and less angular features. His hair looked allot like Seth’s before he’d cut it for the more professional look. It was a rugged and unstyled look or rather a styled to look unstyled judging by the gel that was visible in the dark.


He wore a blue polo neck jersey and baggy jeans, a weird combination if Seth had ever seen one. He looked happy. Happy to be there, happy to be alive. Smug.


It set Seth off. He didn’t have the right to be happy. He didn’t have the right to be so completely smug.

Bang!

Seth’s gun went off.

Bang! Bang!

The driver fell back landing on his compressor’s bonnet. The Driver screamed clutching his shoulder.

Bang! Bang!

The next two shots missed. One didn’t hit anything and the other completely destroyed the side mirror. Seth fired again.

Bang!

Blood exploded out the driver’s leg and the driver pulled his head back and screamed but his scream was drown out by another scream. Seth’s own.
Bang! Bang! Bang!

The driver rolled up and then off the bonnet and landed in a bloody heap on the floor. It took everything Seth had not to empty the whole clip on him.

Seth dropped the gun, it felt heavy in his trembling hands. It weighted a little too heavily on his body. Everything weighted too heavily on him. He wiped his fact but there was nothing there to wipe.

[SQJ]

VERY M
This is one of my fucked up stories*I have like 3* so I'm putting on mother fucker of a warning. If you're easily offeneded dont read this. Dont worry this is one of the very mild ones of my Stories.

Spoiler: Follow the Shinning Star 

‘I’m sorry Mr. Ndebele but the bank cannot approve a loan on you.’ The bank manger said getting up and fixing up his suit, riding it of creases he couldn’t possibly see.

I knew the sign, this was the fifth time I’d seen it in one month. I made to walk out of the suffocatingly small cubical, his so called manager’s office. There was no way a manager like him could work in this small prison. It was small and it didn’t take much walking to reach each of the walls, which were a dirty beige carpet like design.

The manager made to lead me out the opening which made for the door but I cut him off. The painful sinking feeling of complete defeat had reemerged inside the pits of my belly. It was the same sinking feeling I’d gotten from the four other branches in the past month.

To fail yet again on something so surefire was awful. The loss didn’t physically hurt like a punch or being knifed, though right this. I thought to myself feeling breath getting short. I’d have preferred both rather than this awful sinking feeling. He couldn’t do this to me I had to make him understand.

‘Wait I don’t understand, I came to you. I did just as the advert said. My business plan is here! Written down! You have to understand what this means to everyone in my home. It would be a charity event that would be good for your bank. It will work!’ I pleaded.

‘I’m sorry Mr. Ndebele’ He said, I couldn’t see any real sympathy behind his eyes. I was determined not to stop until there was.

‘It’s Sbu. Call me Sbu.’ I said all but bouncing on my heals with desperations. I was getting truly desperate now. It was clear in my tone and in the way my chest heaved back and forth as the sinking grew more intense, it felt as though my lungs were being pulling into a black hole. My pleading, my desperation wasn’t doing anything though.

‘We can’t-’ He began. My eyes widened.

‘Take the risk?’ I exclaimed cutting him off ‘You can’t take the risk? You’re a bank! Damn it! There’s nothing wrong with my idea is there?’ I demanded. The manger sniffed and spoke in the exact same indifferent tone that drove me to such desperation.

‘We simply cannot take the risk on your hope. May I suggest some of the more local banks’ He continued.

‘I’ve tried. I’ve tried them but.’ It was his turn to cut me off.

‘Then why would we be any different?’ The manager answered in the same indifferent tone, there was an edge of amusement there too. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or not. I couldn’t believe what he’d just said. It didn’t seem possible for a bank manger to say such things to a customer. For a moment I felt like a child who’d just heard his teacher swear for the first time ever in his life.

‘You’re supposed to help people!’ I bellowed.

‘I’m afraid I’m going-’

‘I know the drill. You bastard shit.’ Was the answer that came out of my mouth. It wasn’t what I meant to say but I felt better saying it. I stared at the indifferent bank manger. I would have called it a race issue if he wasn’t black. It had been the case for the other banks but not this time. This was the first time I’d seen a black manager. He wore a brown power suit with shoes so pointy they could stab a hole in concrete.

The bank manager was black yes, very black in fact. His dark skin seemed to absorb all the light in the now silent bank. His pitch black skin and his black gums filled me with disgust. I was glad I had left my pocket knife at home now. His English was nearly as good as any white person I’d ever met. There was a touch of an accent that most definitely wasn’t of this country.

‘You’re all fucking cockroaches!’ I shouted as security guard grabbed my shoulders and pushed me out of the thick glass doors of the bank with force. I nearly tripped off my own feet but I pulled myself up in time.

I was left standing outside the mall staring at the manager who almost immediately had moved on to the next customer. The customer was white and the manager’s expression had changed to a much warmer one. The manager led the customer to a different room, a bigger one. I wanted to scream and throw up at the same time.

I didn’t linger outside the bank.

No, I would never give them the satisfaction of knowing they’d successfully destroyed my spirit. I took one last glance the thick glass doors, life inside the bank had continued without a hitch. There were still people shooting me the odd glance. It made sense. My special navy blue suit was a now a mess and my hair was even worse, and worse off it was still morning, the day had just begun with the end of life. I needed to fix myself up again, not that it mattered anyway. I was done for the day. There was only so much complete and utter humiliation I could stand in a day.

I was standing at the bottom of the Crystal City mall in Table view. Rich people came here to relax and poor people dressed up have fun in a classy place so they could pretend to be rich for the day. I didn’t have to look for long to see the general pattern of it. [Continue here ]Everyone there pissed me off. The high roof and golden rails gave the massive mall a golden aura that radiated throughout the mall pissed me off too.

Walking off in a huff I stopped outside an antique store. I stood staring at my reflection. My dreads were a mess. I tried to fix them up when I realized that the proposal was still in my hand.

The plan was clearly bad or at least not good enough. Even though I was sure it was an easy cash cow. The bin behind me made a loud clanging sound as my proposal bounced off the edges and inside.

Fuck it.

Just fuck it.

It wasn’t going to work out. What was I even thinking? I kicked the bin hard drawing attention to myself for the second time in one day. Took the lift two floors up to the ground floor and stepped out side. The harsh South African sun hit my eyes burning into my brain. I shielded my unadjusted eyes until everything regained its focus. The parking lot was full, which made sense it was a Friday morning after all. There were a lot of nice cars, too bad none of them were mine. Up head there were minibus-Taxi’s filling up to go. I rushed after one of them.

She had been wrong I thought to myself as I marched to the minibus-Taxis still in a huff. Great! I’d missed the only Taxi that was heading for Langa. The rest were headed to town or Guguleto. So I had no choice but to wait for another Taxi or catch a passing one. Nothing was working for me at all. What I bullshit day. She was so very very wrong.

I waved my arm and pointed to myself with my armed fully curved as if I was holding an invisible watermelon. It was the symbol for Langa that taxi drivers understood. A few taxis passed each shaking their head at me. Frustrated, I looked at the street corner and saw a self built barber shop consisting of a chair and a tent filled with posters of heads and hair styles. The music that played was of another land probably Nigerian. I assumed it was since its always Nigerian shit playing in barber shops. It was the sound I’d always hear wherever I went. They were everywhere taking everything away from my homeland, My South Africa.

‘Those fucking Cockroaches spreading their AIDS and their drugs but not before they took our jobs and money.’ I muttered.

A minibus filled with at least twenty people stopped. It would be a tight fit for me but my money would a have a lot of space in the driver’s pocket. There was no doubt about that. At least the driver was working hard earning his money. I just hoped I’d be able to do the same for the woman of my dreams and the mother of my hopes. Today she’d been wrong yet again. There was nothing working out for me in anyway. Just for the people who jumped out of their own broken and shitty homelands and into the jobs hard workers like me deserved. I would never borrow from a loan shark. There was no way I’d ever do that, my dad had died because of sharks. There was no way I would kill myself for a shark. The minibus crossed the perfect roads in Century City and trundled along the dirty streets of Langa as I passed my money along to the dozen faceless people in front of me. We turned of the main street that divided the black area and the colored areas. Shacks littered the whole area with seven shacks for each house. The shacks were made from scrap metal with no water, no electricity, and no toilets. Shacks were so vast in Lang and Guguleto that they made their own communities. Right up until a fire broke out then it was every man for him self and it was guaranteed that you’re house would burn down. Fucking Governments best solution was to install taps and toilets around settlements. I still thanked God everyday that I was gone from there.

I took a breath and tried to clear the unjustness of the world out of my head and thought of my love. She’d been wrong about her prediction but maybe she wasn’t. I tried to recall what she had said exactly. It wasn’t too much to remember.

When I thought about it, the message was more ominous than I’d thought.

“Tomorrow you will get everything you ask for and more.”

It seemed clear to me at the time exactly what she had meant. After all today was the day of my interview. She’d been wrong though, completely wrong. Maybe something was wrong or maybe she was trying to protect me from something I wouldn’t be able to understand. I hoped that wasn’t the case. I’d been as understanding as one man could be. The taxi drove past my area.

‘Robot!’ I shouted quickly. The taxi came to a stop as the robot ahead turned red.

Finally I was out and feeling relieved to be out of that stuffy taxi. Looking around I felt the usual twinge of hatred that I always felt when ever I came home. It was a dump. A five floor set of flats made by government to beat the unbeatable.

Homelessness

I hadn’t cared at all when we’d first moved here. I didn’t understand her gift and I wanted to do everything to understand her and be a part of her life. She was the best part of my life.

I walked up the stairs to our home on the third floor. I stepped over toys and ducked under the clothing lines of people too wise to use the lines outside. I greeted everyone in my path with a smile that was so forced, I felt as though my cheeks would remain in the same position for life.

Opening the door to my home felt good. Even though I hated it with every fiber of my being. It wasn’t much better than my shack.

Me, the refugee on my own land. I thought begrudgingly as I entered into a completely dark house save the light from the door. I hadn’t expected such darkness since it was so bright outside. The door slammed closed behind me making me jump. I found myself enshrouded in darkness and blinded from the shock of switching from light to such an extreme dark. When I eyes made their second recovery for the day, I saw my love. My love’s face was hidden in the darkness of the door way. One light shone blue until it split into two smaller ones. I held my breath as my eyes fully adjusted to the dark viewing her bright blue eyes. White fangs appeared as she grinned. My mind fumbled for options of things to do next, running was the label that looked the most attractive and stuck in my mind. But I couldn’t. I stood frozen on the spot as my love drew nearer, slowly and carefully but full of confidence. She was a predator that knew her prey was cornered. Even she was stalking me everything I loved about her outshone everything I feared about her. I loved her voice, the same voice that hissed at me. I loved her every movement even now as she stalked towards me. She jumped or pounced, I couldn’t tell. I caught her tight as she bit into my neck. The warmth of my own blood drew cold as it ran down my back. She bit hard trying to pull meat out of me but I didn’t care. I held her tight and squeezed as hard as I could. She jerked her head up and I felt the cold of her flemm along with my own blood against the side of my head. I squeezed still, harder and harder as she struggled against my bear hug. I shut my eyes as she clawed at me face. I shut my eye lids even harder as she aimed specifically for them. They’d nearly given way to her sharp nails that were jagged at the end from endless nail biting. Finally she fell silent but I knew her. She was my love after all. I squeezed harder and turned her from left to right jerking her around. She woke up fully and attacked again. I adjusted my hand so I held her lower ribs with my hands digging into her diaphragm dropping myself down the struggling stopped abruptly as her whole body froze in pain. I pushed down harder until I was on my knees and her knees were behind her back bending her spine even further. It was hard to do as the loss of blood was finally getting to me. I felt the air change and a sudden searing pain that covered my neck and face became numb. I was now immune to death, immune to every thing but my need to be with her. Her head fell onto my shoulder and the rest of her body fell limp. She was still alive, I knew the drill she would be fine in a few minutes and life would carry on for her. I didn’t understand it. And I most likely would never understand but I would try until I died. I would do anything for her. She who loved me as much as I loved her. I picked her up and placed her on the bed watching her sleep. On the bed she woke staring into my eyes. I knew she wasn’t looking at my eye but rather my soul. I blinked awkwardly to hide the tears that constantly threatened to run free whenever she woke. She was oblivious of everything that had happened.

Her words were soft and full of concern. How could any man be angry at her?
‘How did it go?’ She asked.

‘You know how it went’ I shrugged and she nodded and tears brimmed in her eyes. I was always stunned at how easily she cried.

‘I’m sorry they said no to you.’ She cried.

‘Don’t’ I said feeling awful and not knowing why. It didn’t matter. She was crying and I just wanted to do everything to save her. I pressed my lips against hers ever gently. She matched my kiss and fell back into the bed. Undressing me as I worked blindly on her ripped up top. We undressed with our lips touching constantly unable to part for even half a second, only breaking contact to move her top over her head. I felt ripples in my spine as she moaned softly. The light brown of my skin against her pale white skin moving constantly. The contrast in color only added to the beauty of our carnal act. Her cries and moans were getting deeper as I pushed on rocking and switching. The darkness of the room unable to hide the beauty of her exposed body as it touched, rubbed, pushed against mine. Our breath deepened as our movements intertwined and increased in speed as we raced towards the height of our passion. She held onto my body tightly and she cried as I continued to push harder and faster. I sped up and her gasps and moans increased steadily until she let out a gasp that imploded within it’s self to come out as she silent scream. I felt myself exploding too as her nails dug into my back. I fell exhausted under her grip as she still pushed herself into me. As if trying to enter my whole body. I didn’t question her actions. I knew better than that. All I could do was listen and be a comfort to her. I could see the sweat glistening off her naked flesh even in the darkness we lay in. I wanted nothing more than to open a curtain and see her in her full beauty. My idle thoughts cleared completely as she quivered and as she continued to press her face against my chest softly biting me as she spoke. ‘Si-bu please don’t. Don’t it.’ She whispered as she pushed herself onto me. She never seemed to say my name right. It was one word but she said it as two. Yet she could say the full name, Sibusisu. She had no problems with that.

‘Si-bu don’t take them, please don’t. Don’t leave me. I don’t mind living like this really. Just please don’t. I’ve-I’ve’ she paused to kiss me ‘never blamed you for it never.’ She continued to kiss me. I didn’t expect this. This had never happened before. Her pleading like this, she could get tearful. Yes but she’d never done this before.

It was a first and I found myself in unfamiliar ground. Normally it was safe to ignore her but right now I just didn’t know.

Her movements slowed as she fought back a yawn. I was relived She must be dreaming or something. She continued to talk.

‘I did this for…’ I didn’t get to hear the rest. She fell asleep.

I couldn’t and wouldn’t dare to move for even a second. She needed her sleep and I wanted to give it to her. So I lay there for a while. I felt restless on the bed as she slept peacefully. She went though an endless stream of issues. There was Demon possessions, night terrors, future sight and other amazing things no one had ever seen before. Yet I still hadn’t figured anything out to help her or at least absorb the pain she felt. I was helpless, useless and pointless to her.

I could feel the frustration bubbling inside again and the sinking feeling that I had from that fucking Nigerian who thought himself better than the world. If I could I would transfer my loves sorrow to him and multiply it by ten.
‘All I want is capital to open my business. Then we’d be free of the hole me and my love live in’ I pleaded to God.

There was a change in the air. I could feel it as filled my nostrils I knew what bore that smell.

“Ghost…” I began.

Before I could move my love woke up and threw up on my chest. If smelt and felt rancid. The heat of it trickled down both mine and her skin as the vomit flowed gently down in the line that linked me and love. I held her as she feebly struggled to clean it up off me and the sheet. I held her tight trying my best to ignore the vomit that was now sticking to my skin as it flowed down slowly. The stream of vomit froze on our bodies. Picked her up moving along with her until we were off the bed and within reach of a towel. I wiped excess vomit off us and led her to the toilet and with a wash pot. I washed the puke off her soft skin thinking about the spirit that had just come. It wasn’t likely it would return. They rarely did since I set up all manners of crosses, tribal charms and dream catchers. I got up and look at my kitchen. There was rotten food everywhere even in the fridge. It had all rotted as soon as the spirit had walked past. I hadn’t eaten so there was nothing in my stomach to affect me. At least that’s what I understood of it. In the case of my love the devil must have rotted the very food in her belly making her throw up. I took the duvet and the sheet rubbing the extra vomit off me. I threw everything into a stinking pile, including my favorite beach towel.

Shit. Shit! Shit!! SHIT!!!! Fuck! FUCK!!

I spat out the taste of vomit that the smell had created inside my mouth. I took a cold bath with the same pot and got dressed. I apologized to my love and locked behind me. I leant against the door as it shook under her constant banging. She yelled after me and then she screamed. I rubbed my face of a tear and adjusted my dreads. There was a hoot on the ground floor. The banging grew more intense as I peeked over the rail. In front of the flat were two of the only people I could truly call friends. They weren’t used to English but they were used to me speaking it constantly. So they let me speak English and they spoke in Xhosa. I ran down to the ground floor and waved.

‘Heita!’ Shouted Tsepo. He stuck his whole body out the window of his Citi Golf. Tsepo idiotic grin was a welcome sight.

‘What you guys doing here?’ I yelled back.

‘[Visiting you obviously.]’ Replied the much sharper Tolani. Who sat back in the drivers seat.

‘Well it’s good timing’ I said getting in the car.

‘[Something wrong with you’re white woman?]’ Tolani asked his eye brow raised.

‘Don’t call here that.’ I answered dismissively.

‘[It’s a better name than bitch]’ Tsepo said as the music in the car blared so loudly that any talking was out of the question. They drove fast and wildly attracting the attention of anyone with hearing range of the custom speakers that were Tolani’s pride and joy. They stopped for alcohol before driving again. I felt good and I was having fun. We crossed the townships then we went past the industrial Uppington area before town. After a while we drove to the more posh parts of town where big houses were everywhere and there wasn’t a piece of litter to be seen.

The music played softer and Tolani’s driving became more deliberate.

‘What are we doing here?’ I asked in a whisper. I was whispering and I didn’t know why.

‘[Giving back to the black community of South Africa.]’ tsepo laughed.

‘[And Sbu’s white woman]’ laughed Tsepo

I ignored him and bit my lip. Nervous at the prospect that WASN’T being offered to me at all. Backing out would end three years of friendship in a very deadly way. As if to confirm my suspicions Tolani pulled out a gun and passed it to Tsepo before pulling out a gun of his own. We were parked outside a white house with a wall that stood at double our heights. It was toped with electric wire. I knew the main weakness of most houses. It was common knowledge to us as Tolani pulled out a jack from the boot. He attached it to the edge of the gate and turned the Jack. At first the wall it’s self cracked but it held as a whole and the gate gave way to the strength of the Jack. I went in first and Tolani followed with Tsepo taking the rear. Tolani then took out a crowbar and started powerful but slow work on the door. It opened and the gate gave way letting us in without waking a soul. I felt something chilled brush my hand and I jumped in shock. It was Tolani holding a bolt of petrol with a cloth on top before he gave it to me. It was a petrol bomb with sand at the bottom for sticking power. I didn’t ask questions but rather moved on. We worked the entertainment room before working though the unused rooms. I walked into a room that turned out to be the master bed room. The bed was larger than life. With two people fast asleep on the bed. There was a muffled cry outside the bed and I found myself running out of the room and following the sound. It was Tsepo. I shut my eyes as the cries came in quickly but repetitively. Tsepo was fucking some kid in the other room.

I felt sick thinking about it but he had the gun. As sorry as I was for the girl I needed to stay alive for my love. I cleared my head of the muffled screaming as went to look for Tolani. I thought about my loves kind and wise words before she’d been taken over. She was a historian in the making she liked doing all kinds of research. She had said the in the forgotten book of Solomon. She said Solomon had been given not only wisdom beyond measure. He was given the ability to control the very demons of hell. They had mined his gold as his people prospered. She’d said that as soon as Solomon lost his path with God the demons had cursed all the gold. It was a bullshit story but it helped me forget. I found Tolani inside the master bedroom.

‘[Sbu you still got that bottle?]’ He asked

I gave him the bottle but he didn’t take it.

‘[No Sbo this is for you to do. I know how much you hate these life stealing “Cockroaches”]’ Tolani laughed no longer whispering at all. The noise woke up the people on the bed. They’re words were cut off by Tolani’s gun cocking. They stood up by the sides of their beds. They’re faces where invisible in the dark all I could tell was that they were black. The room lit up slightly as the bottle in my hand lit up. I dropped it in shock and both me and Tolani jumped away from it. To our relief it didn’t explode.

‘What are you doing!’ I shouted at.

‘[What? Why did you-]’ Tolani began.

The man made his move at Tolani’s gun. I saw his face and nearly fell over in shock. It was the bank manager. Before he could get the gun he took a bullet in the stomach. He stared directly at me before the bottle flew back into view and exploded on his head. Tolani had kicked it with skill that reflected a past of soccer bliss. The managers black skin lit up against the flame. He reached around lighting up the master bed. He nearly caught me but I avoided him in time. Tolani kicked him into his wife who’s nightgown caught alight. She screamed as she beat at him and at herself. It would have been comical if it wasn’t happening but it was. But it felt too unreal too inhuman. Like a tour of hell. She managed to get him of her as he fell to the ground rolling too slowly to put the fire out. She ran away only to end up in Tolani’s arms.

‘Tolani don’t’ I tried to tell him to stop.

‘[Don’t worry. I know I’ll get sick if I fuck this cockroach.]’ He stepped back as he placed the gun against her head. She screamed the whole time until the gunshot silenced her forever. Blood covered my shoes as it poured out of her skull. It was as if the blood in her head was pouring out.

‘[Keep searching for money]’ Tolani ordered waking me from my trance state. The blood had stopped pumping out of her head instead it merely oozed. It looked like something thick was blocking it. I couldn’t stomach to imagine what it was. I opened cabinets and drawers until I found a safe. Tolani saw the safe and came to me. I held my breath now officially afraid of my best friend since my love had decided we should live here. Just then Tsepo came in.

‘[Tolani you have to try some of this. Just once]’

‘[We’re trying to make money. Not play games]’ Tolani yelled back.

‘[Trust me if I’m wrong. I’ll wash you’re car for free okay?.]’ Tolani considered it then walked. He stopped and looked at Tsepo before looking at me and looking back at him again. He didn’t trust me I was sure of it.

‘[You sure?]’ Tolani asked.

‘[Just try once. I’m on break anyway]’

‘[No more breaks. We’re leaving after me. Okay? Then you wash my car.]’
I watched them talk about car washes and other trivial and horrific matters as if they were the same. Scared witless I absentmindedly tried the safe before it opened. Inside was jewelry of the kind I’d never seen before. The items that attracted me were the eight golden rings and that stood with the letters on them.

WWJD and HWHY

The first letters I was sure I knew.

What Would Jesus Do.

I had no idea what the other letters meant. I tried them one and they fit perfectly. I tried changing the order of the letters but each time the fingers wouldn’t fit. Even the ring that had gone on my index finger had not been able to fit in my pinky. I gave up and took everything in the safe and kept the rings for myself. Rings were a feminine thing for me but these added a few notched to my balls as far as I was concerned. I left the scorched and smoky master bedroom for the two dead bodies. My loves words echoed in my head.

“You’ll get everything you asked for”

I stopped outside the girl’s door. The girl wasn’t screaming anymore instead I could only here them then silently. I put my head to the door to listen there was crying on the other side and the sound of grunting on the other. The door opened suddenly and I fell through into the dark room. Tsepo was on top of a girl who had to be no older than fourteen years old. Her head was shoved into the ground as she tried to scream. The darkness of the room was lit up as Tolani flicked a switch on. To my relief the sudden change of light blinded me from seeing the horror but it was only for a second. Tolani wasn’t wearing a shirt and so wasn’t the girl.

‘[Sbu you’re just in time for the last rounds. I see you found that jackpot.]’ Tolani laughed. As he put his shirt back on I saw a cut on his neck and his back. It looked a lot like the marks I had gotten from my loves harsh attack. Had she attacked him? And what of Tsepo? I found myself asking because the two were never a part. Even in a crime they never parted. I cringed as I watched Tsepo rub the girl’s back. His large palm almost reaching both sides of her back as his fingers dug deep into her skin as he moved his hand up slowly and then down even slower. Tolani pushed Tsepo off her and she made a run for it in Tsepo’s confusion. Tolani grabbed her by her braids and pulled her to the bed again.

‘[Why’d you push me?]’ Tsepo asked.

‘[Because I think Sbu is getting jealous.]’ Tolani said smirking.

‘I’m not’ I answered. Shit! I answered too quickly and I knew it.

‘[Of course you do. We did all the heavy lifting for you so you’d better have some fun too.]’ Tolani said there was a finality in his tone.

‘It’s okay.’ I tried but Tolani only grabbed her and lifted her up before putting a gun to her head.

‘Girly open his zip’ Tolani pushed her using her hair he pushed her towards my pants and I made a break for it. Tsepo’s gun was what blocked my way as he aimed it at my forehead. Pushing me against the wall with it. I felt the blood rush on it’s own as she unzipped my pants. She stopped and Tolani pulled her hair again. She still didn’t budge.

‘What?’ demanded Tolani.

She cried as she fell to her knees ‘Dad!’ she cried holding her head to prevent more roof being pulled out.

‘Okay girly do this and we’ll go away and you’ll see you’re mom.’

I wanted to scream but Tsepo’s gun hadn’t budged and inch the whole time. Why hadn’t anyone come? Why could we take our time like this? We’d been here for at least forty-five minutes to an hour. We destroyed the wall by the gate and no one saw it? The girl returned to opening my zip. I felt ashamed as a rush of blood headed back down the unintended area.

Ten minutes later I was out side the room listening to them through tear the walls.

‘Daddy!’ She screamed. Tsepo was laughing hysterically again. I punched the ground expecting the rings to dig into my fingers. I would have preferred that to feel anything else. I punched the ground again.

‘[Look what I found! Think it will fit?]’ Tsepo laughed.

‘[It’s pretty big but it looks like a good way to finish this.] Okay girly. This is it. You’re Papa is just in his room and he can’t hear you must scream as loud as you can when I use this. Okay? Ready.’

I shut my ears but the piercing scream cut though easily. The screamed bounced in my head before it was suddenly and horribly stopped by a gun shot.

I looked at the ground ashamed of my foolish decisions I have left my love who was in need, for this massacre. Looking at the ground I saw two words. They were spelt the same way I was letters on the rings. It said: KILL THEM

The words were alarming since I really didn’t have any idea of what they meant of where they came from. I touched the ground with my knuckles as if I was stamping the floor.

There was a new word now: BOTH

I punched the ground again and again until it made a sentence: YOU ONLY NEED ONE PUNCH FOR EACH ONE.

I needed to know more:

THEY FUCKED YOU’RE WIFE. I believed the rings. I would have believed a talking monkey also after seeing what he’d just seen.

‘Tsepo I need help here with this.’ I said as I walked away. He followed me out the room. ‘Where’s Tolani.’ I asked hoping he wouldn’t call him just yet.

‘[He’s testing out the difference between dead cunt and living cunt.]’ Tsepo laughed. ‘[He says he can’t tell! Ha! What you need help with?]’

‘Did you fuck my… what you would call my… “White bitch” ?’

‘[Did Tolani tell-]’ I knew the answer and I was done with him. My fist collided with his stomach. The wall directly behind him cracked and fell apart. There was blood pouring out of Tspeo’s belly as my hand was nailed into him. The blood reversed into the rings. I could see the blood moving on it’s own moving against gravity. Tsepo was dead he stared directly at me and I couldn’t have cared less. I felt a rush of fear and I ducked. At that exact second a gunshot went off.

‘What did you do?’ Shouted Tolani switching to english.

‘What did YOU do? Tolani did you really come to my HOUSE?’ I shouted as I ran past across the passage into the dead girl’s room.

‘Yeah I had fun you’re crazy girlfriend had more fun than me or Tsepo though she scratched me on my back and bite my fucking neck and after wards Tsepo gave her a mouthful. HAha’

I could hear him on the other side of the wall. I stamped the wall with my fist. ‘Is it true?’ I asked. I lifted my hand and screamed. Tolani had just walked past the gap in between the hinges of the door. I hit the door the every fiber of my being. My eyes were shut as I swung. I opened my eyes and saw the door hadn’t budged. Before I could question weather I was alive or not I saw the explosion of blood that smeared the wall. I sat next to the body of the girl who lay face down in a pool of her own blood. Without thinking I touched the back of her head and stroked it from the roots. Soaking up the blood of the innocent girl that covered my fingers.

I finally reached my home. The home that held my love. In her was my future my past and my present. I’d walked the whole way and now the sun started to show its light over the horizon. I reached my door but didn’t open it.

‘Cant you hear me love’ I asked placing my ear to the door.

The sound was soft but it was audible. ‘Yes.’

‘Did you-’ I retched at the thought of it.

‘Wait before you talk. I want to know this. I grew a normal suburban girl. I wasn’t as popular as many other but I still went to school and lived normally. Did you?’ To be honest I couldn’t remember. I only knew that I hated it. It didn’t matte though everyone went to school.

‘I’m-’

‘Let me finish please. Sibisisu. You’re the one who attracts the demons not me. I’m just susceptible to them. You’re the one who actually attracts them.’ I didn’t get it. It wasn’t sinking in.

‘All those years of fighting demons?’

‘Their the demons you brought!’ she cried

‘So it’s my fault then?’ I shouted.

‘No!’ she screamed I could hear her shuffling against the door. ‘I’d never think anything bad for you. I endured it all to be with you. Sbu I lov-’


I hit the door it wasn’t very hard but the talking on the other side stopped abruptly just as the little girl had. Blood run under the door. It trickled out in a line down the gutter and poured out over the edge of the fifth floor. I leaned back against the door contemplating her words and everything she’d said. WWJD and HWHY were still written on his rings. I had the money I’d wanted and I got the revenge I’d wanted.

‘She had been right after all. I’d gotten everything I’d asked for but nothing I wanted.’

[SQJ]

SANITY"S LAST RIDE IS NOT COMPLETE!! HOLY FUCK!!!

Spoiler: Sanities Last Ride PART 2 

Here's the rest of the story!!
Seth dropped the gun, it felt heavy in his trembling hands. It weighted a little too heavily on his body. Everything weighted too heavily on him. He wiped his face but there was nothing there to wipe. No tears, no sympathy, no warning. He didn't deserve one. He'd never deserved one from the start.
Seth looked inside the cars through the windscreen when the phone rang.
It wasn't his phone, the ring tone was a little too jovial for Seth's tastes. His attention was taken away from the car. He looked down to the dead body laying on the ground. It was coming from him. Seth felt numb, there was no anger, no joy, only a numb and light buzzing in his chest. The phone stopped ringing then rang again. Seth rolled the body on its stomach. Blood and dead bodies weren't new to him, though this was the first time he'd ever searched a body of a life lost through his own two hands. Even in the surgery room. He was a maverick, a surgical God of Godly proportions. Now he was a killer, a multi time killer. A mass murderer.
Seth scanned the driver's jeans. He found the phone, an old pure white Nokia 7210. It felt familiar, very familiar. Seth shrugged it off as a coincidence, there'd already been too many of those in the day. He answered
"Is she still alive?" Asked the voice on the other end almost immediately.
It was Katrina, his love, his one and only, his alpha and omega. His life had started with her and would end with her because his life was nothing without her. Or at least that was what he had said in his vows to her. The vows which ran over and over in his head. He remembered them well. she cried when she'd heard them. She wasn't crying now.
"Is she still alive?" She repeated but louder this time. She sounded intense. She sounded like she was holding down a tidal wave of emotion, and the restraining walls were breaking apart fast.
"Your sister? I thought you were an orphan?" Seth replied trying his best to sound cold. it didn't come out the way he wanted it to. It came out chocked and tearful.
"Is she alive?" She said much louder and angrier this time. Seth lifted his head. He could have sworn he heard her actual voice.
"I'm alive, how could she be?" Seth said standing up. He looked more closely at the car. He thought he saw movement.
"Tell me!" She screamed. The double sound came again but he couldn't pin point it and he couldn't find her.
"I don’t know, she should be by now. I ran her over, you just have to look at the blood on my shoes and car!" Seth screamed into the phone. "It would take a miracle for her not to be as dead her butch friend! So Kat! So Kitty Kat! My love! My baby! My everything! She'd dead. Laying all across my driveway. DEAD!" Seth screamed.
"NO!" She cried, this time Seth was sure she heard her voice. He could see light from her cell phone, it was coming from the back seat. Seth couldn't make out a face though. He squinted his eyes and leaned closer for a better look.
BANG!
The windscreen exploded outwards. A force pulled Seth backwards on his shoulder and Seth fell back until he hit the bonnet of his car. His shoulder felt odd. It didn't hurt, not until he looked at it and tried to move his hand. Pain exploded out of his shoulder, the cell phone slipped out of his hand, he couldn't move his fingers, his whole arm was dead. More shots were fired. His windscreen exploded inwards and the same force clipped his neck. With a yell Seth grabbed his neck tightly and rolled off the bonnet of his roadster.
"You killed her!" Seth heard her scream. The door of the compressor opened and slammed shut again. Seth just kept panting on the ground holding his bleeding neck. His body was screaming out in pain but no specific area hurt more than his shoulder. Seth turned off his shoulder to his stomach and just lay there. He could hear her coming.
"You killed her and her husband you son of a bitch!"
"You killed them!" Seth yelled back. "you sent them to cut me off and kill me! It your fault-"
"Shut up!" she yelled.
Bang!
A gun shot went off peeling through the bonnet and hitting the roadster tyre. The slow hiss of the tyre next to his ear sent a chill down his spine. He desperately wanted to get out of there. He wanted to survive this. Everything was so completely different from what he had expected. He'd expected the possibility of death. But now that it had turned into a certainty of death, he couldn’t accept it. He wasn't going to die. Not if he could help it. He dug his fingers into the grass tearing at the roots when he pulled against it. With great effort he slide forwards.
"Why Katrina! Why are you doing this?" Seth yelled, wishing he could throw his voice incise she shot in the direction of his voice.
"You have no idea. You still have no clue." she said softly. She sounded distant. More grass tore in Seth's hand as he pulled himself further. Seth didn't know, he really did have no idea. not in the slightest. He wanted to know but he was hurt, badly. He was bleeding and he could barely move. He wanted to know the truth but survival needed to come first. He inched himself forwards. "I'm doing this because." She paused. "BECUASE I HATE YOU!" She fired into the car twice, punching through the front of the car and out the side. Both bullets missed Seth's legs my mere centimetres. "I hate you and your hot shot attitude! you think your sooo amazing!" she cried out. Seth could hear she was getting closer.
"Look I'm sorry. Here. I brought the three million in the passenger seat." Seth managed to get himself on his knees. He opened the passenger door. The pain and fatigue got to him and he fell sideways inside the passenger seat before rolling back down to the grass.
It was a life saving move. In a moment his car turned into a sieve, his windscreen exploded inwards on his side of the car. The passenger door broke off its hinges and landed on top of Seth's bad shoulder. Seth screamed and writhed in agony until it fell of him. The new pain in his shoulder brought new life to his arm. He could move his fingers again.
She was coming again.
Seth could hear her every foot step on the grass. He could see her feet under the car. She'd be on him in a second. Seth's breath was thin, he could barely breath. the finality of the situation seemed to hit him hardest at that exact moment. This was it. She was going to come over the corner, stand over him and kill the shit out of him.
There was no adrenaline rush only a heaviness which crashed down on his whole aching body. Except his chest, his heart was still hammering and his chest felt so light it was as though it was floating away. If it weren't for his heavy arms and legs. Her feet stopped moving, they were positioned closely in her standing pose. Her pose made her look human, act which only seemed to add to the finality of the situation. She wasn't some monster, she was just a woman, like any other in the world, and this wasn't some movie. this was it. He could only imagine what she was waiting for or looking at.
Seth pulled himself up and dove into the car. In mid dive, Seth managed to get a glimpse of her. she was much like he remembered her. She didn't know why but that was also incredibly disturbing to him. she was still smallish, she was still curvy, she still had the hour glass figure he loved so much to hold. Her eyes were still the sharp hazel he knew so well, the same hazel as her sister's. Her skin was tanned evenly giving her that golden Italian look she sought after. Her lips were still as full as ever, though they seemed dry and pulled tight, her hair was still long reaching down just below her, still full breasts, except her hair was frizzier than Seth was used to seeing, considering how much work she threw into her hair. Her face had a pulled look he'd never seen before, crazy. It was a face Seth could would never get used to. She saw him too and for a moment they both stared at each other. She had her own gun opened at the bottom and it looked like she was just slotting in her new cartridge.
Seth landed hard on in the middle of the car. Pain hit him like a thousand walls which dropped on him from every angle. He was starting to lose control of his left arm and fingers again. He reached out for the steering wheel. The act of reaching out was a torture session in itself. He screamed as he pulled himself closer to the wheel. A bullet tore into his left leg and side. blood exploded out of his side and both the driver and passenger seat were in a spray of blood. Now Seth was sure that this moment was really it. He reached out with his good arm and gripped the key on the ignition. The car turned on and the engine roared to life. Immediately he slid down and pressed on the clutch and he pushed on the gear stick, moving it to first gear. Seth pressed down on drive and the car lurched forwards with the speed and power of a sports car, which had been street modified constantly over the course of ten years. It almost flew with the amount of torque and power that had been thrown in.
Katrina let out a panicked yelp which was cut off by a heavy crash. The car revved on for a moment and the car lurched forwards once more. There was a gargled scream. Then suddenly the car filled with smoke and died down. He hadn't noticed the shaking of the vehicle till it stopped. It was distressing and the stillness brought the pain back. All of it. Almost immediately he slipped out of consciousness.
Seth blinked and woke up when he thought he heard sirens coming from way off in the distance. They passed.
A high pitched whine rang out softly in Seth's ears. Seth pulled himself up to his knees. It was a near impossible task and he felt sure he'd pass out. He didn't. He swayed slightly but regained enough strength to use his one good arm to steady himself. Seth heard Kat's laugh and he turned to her. The car was a wreck. it was impressive considering the two vehicles were so close together in the start. the two bonnets looked as though they were melted in on each other. There, in the centre stood my Kat. The heavily bent bonnets lifted Kat up to her standing position and propped her back up in such a way that she could only lean a few centimetres backwards and no further.
There was a blood splashed around both bonnets. Her dressing was pulled tight and torn horribly by her waist. Her whole dress was pulled around in such a way that her outfit became tight fitting and revealing. Her cleavage was pushed out heavily showing the edge of her nipples. Her hair was frazzled and spread out like a n explosion forever stuck in time. She looked delirious and blank. She didn't move for what felt like the longest time. Seth began to wonder if she was dead or not. Kat coughed and blood drool out, in a thick and steady stream pooling on the bent bonnet before dripping off. There was allot of blood. She looked up and grinned at Seth so Seth could see her bloody smile. Her teeth were like an ivory and crimson piano keyboard. She coughed again and brought a trembling hand to her mouth. There was a moment where fear at seeing her own trembling hand made her look human, but the moment didn't last. Her grin was back. She looked weak, fragile but she also looked insane, she was a shattered crystal vase or a broken porcelain doll.
Seth knew he, himself looked so much worse. It took everything he had to pull himself out of the car from the windscreen. Being a doctor he knew some extent of the damage but not all, not without the right equipment. He knew enough to be scared, Seth worked a keg up and over with his good leg. It was enough to land him on the glass edging. He let out a low cry before rolling away from the glass only to lose control of his movements and roll down the bonnet. He rolled to a stop in front of Kat. Seth blacked out.
The black out, much like the last didn't last. Something wet and heavy woke him up from his black out. Two bloody and wet hands were clamped around his throat. Seth's eyes burst open and he grabbed at his throat. He found himself staring into her determined and unblinking gaze. Her jaw clenched and she swallowed before hunching her shoulders to squeeze harder. Seth wormed his way around ever faster squeezing her wrists and trying her hardest to twist free. He was losing strength and fast. He started kicking out and hitting nothing but the bonnet of the car until his knee caught her chest on her side. The was both a crack and a tearing sound. Kat let out a horrific scream and let go and Seth rolled on to his side, gasping and coughing for air. He didn't out this time. Seth could hear sirens now. He could also hear Kat laughing piteously again.
"Why?" She laughed before taking a pained breath which sounded like hissing, "Why, wont he die?" She burst out laughing at this. Seth didn't answer, he only watched trying to get his breath back. The sirens were coming close now.
She laughed again. "I forgot I had this"
Seth looked up just as a revolver was dropped in front of his face. The sirens which were getting forever closer were suddenly worlds away.
"We're in allot of trouble Seth" Katrina said softly.
"No, your in allot of trouble" Seth replied. talking brought the pain in his side back to life. He grit his teeth and clenched his jaw to fight it. Katrina merely laughed once more.
"I'm going to kill you and I'm in trouble?"
"Your going to jail for the rest of your life." Seth said closing his eyes to fight the pain. "I know your tastes. I know your attitude. You wont last."
"You don’t know me. I've been playing you hard, baby. You've never known anything about me. I’ve been trying to punish you since we met." She said with a satisfied cackle. Seth’s mind dropped to the two miscarriages she’d supposedly had. That had to be what she was talking about. Seth’s heart broke over the two children all over again. Seth took a breath to keep his cool.
"You have, your right. I can never forget what you’ve done to me, but you can't fake your love of nice things Kit Kat" It was the best job Seth could think of under such conditions.
"Like I said you don't know me. I'm not some rich orphan girl. I really grew up in-"
"It doesn’t matter" Seth cut in. You've been a rich girl four years. The way you'd smile when I came back with a new gift. The way you'd spread yourself on our custom bed." The sirens were still too far off. Seth needed them now, there was only so much stalling he could get away with. "your heavy orgasms on top of our Egyptian silk sheets." Seth got no answer. Seth didn't look up and only prayed the sirens would arrive. Bits of metal splashed on the bonnet of the car, ringing in his ears.
"You're right. You're absolutely right. Another reason I hate your every breath, your never wrong are you Seth? But I changed. I could change again.” She paused, “But I don’t want to change again. Your so right" She stroked the side of Seth's face. Her fingers were covered in blood and sticky with it. But still she felt good. He couldn't recoil from her touch. Something hard pressed against his temple. It was the butt of her revolver. She pressed it down hard and Seth yelled out, unable to shake free of the hard steel against his temple.
"You don’t know why I hate you. I'll tell you. I was happy once. The happiest I'd ever been in my life. It didn't have riches I didn’t have a big home. I had love instead, love and a baby. My baby died in your care" She didn't sound angry. She didn't press down harder, she just sounded calm and relaxed. Seth could feel the tears welling up inside of him. "My sister was there when you Gave us the News. When you told me my baby was dead. Then you said those four words. I know how you feel. I think it was then that all this started. It was then that I first planned out my revenge. You kicked me out the same day. You told the nurses that I was fine! I wasn't! I had to go back because of an infection! My sister went back to your hospital and saw that you'd given my bed away!" She was crying now. Seth was crying too, he couldn't remember them per se but he could remember his time at St Luke's hospital in Marabastad, that could only be the time he could think of. He'd been overly ambitious and he'd known it. Anything it takes was his motto. He'd often recited that a good doctor was professional at all times and emotional at home. A simple solution he met by never going home at all. This was all about the pain of a lost baby, there was something horrifically ironic about it. There was nothing he could say. Kat continued. "I was sick for weeks afterwards. I lost my love and my baby all while stuck in bed, if you’d diagnosed me correctly I could have saved my relationship but I could do was lay in a hospital bed held down by bed restraints pulling and fighting until my both my arms broke as he walked away. You were never up for blame for anything. 'No doctor could have guessed she was allegoric to penicillin in those conditions ' they said to me and my sister. 'Your infection was small in the hospital and most doctors do not look at those functions in general.' Most doctors? In general?" She screamed. Seth felt like the barrel of her revolver was moments from crushing into his skull. "We trust you bastards in your white coats! Your stethoscopes, X-ray machines and God Damn charts! We trust you!" She stopped and the pressure disappeared. She regained her breath and laughed. Seth heard the screeching of tyres. He couldn't move. He wanted police but he needed an ambulance. Even with an ambulance, things would be dicey, his chances of survival were lower than dirt.
"Looks like things are coming to an end for both of us. Or one of us." Her bloody fingers scraped across the bonnet and she picked up two bullets. The click and clack of the revolver rang out louder in his ears than the sirens themselves.
Bang! Bang!
Seth pressed the side of his head hard against the bonnet to ease the pain in his ears. "Stay back or I shoot the other one too!"
Seth could hear her opening the gun again. Seth heard the clicking roll of the chamber bring spun wildly before rolling to a stop. It snapped shut and the barrel was on his temple once again.
She pulled the trigger .
Click!
"Back off!" she yelled to someone who immediately started running away. Seth could hear their foot steps fading, filling Seth with hopelessness. He really didn't have time for this."Back off God damn it! " She screamed leaning over him. She hung there for a moment before pressing heavily over Seth. He screamed with what little energy he had left when she pressed on his shoulder. She pulled herself off of him.
"Sorry its my turn." She said with a pained sigh, which sounded allot like a stream engine coming to a halt. "One of us isn't gone home ever again."
Click!
She breathed a sigh of relief.
Seth tried to look up at his wife. "You think I'm going back home if I make it out of this? You’ve killed us both. Me sooner than you. Then you mutilated my dead body with a second punishment. But still I stayed with you." Seth said just as the barrel's pressure dropped on his temple once more. The pressure lowered. "You've seen me Kat, I changed, I became a much better doctor. I was a better person. We were real," Seth's words died as soon as the barrel was pressed down on him once more.
"We were a lie! You've never come close to making anything up! You never changed. Your still the same person!" She yelled in his ear. Seth screamed.
Click!
Seth couldn't stop crying now. If he could have, he would have curled himself in a ball and wept forever. He'd never prayed before and he was incredibly reluctant to do so, even now. It was a pride swallowing affair even under these circumstances. In his head, his pride allowed one word, to convey his desperation: 'Please'
"You're being weak Seth. It's very unlike you. Shit I think a police finally arrived, don't want to see them crying do you? Maybe you should have another turn. I think you should but that's cheating isn't it? As if life is fair." She laughed. "Oh look they’ve started to run with big guns. No time to waist." She laughed, with no real humour in her tone, a tone Seth had heard many a time before. It was a reaction which made Seth cry louder. Kat shook her head. "Damn it Seth, stop being such a bab-
BANG!



SQJ Productions
Short Story: Sanity’s Last Ride
Written by: Vuyisile Sibeko.
Genre: Suspense, Drama
Edited by: Vuyisile Sibeko.
Special thanks to: Anyone who reads it.
Contact Details: Good reviews can be sent to SQJPure@gmail.com
[IMG]file:///\Users\SQJ\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip _image002.jpg[/IMG]Or Sms Vuyisile Sibeko at 076 2237 486

- - - Updated - - -

SANITY"S LAST RIDE IS NOT COMPLETE!! HOLY FUCK!!!

Here's the rest of the story!!
Seth dropped the gun, it felt heavy in his trembling hands. It weighted a little too heavily on his body. Everything weighted too heavily on him. He wiped his face but there was nothing there to wipe. No tears, no sympathy, no warning. He didn't deserve one. He'd never deserved one from the start.
Seth looked inside the cars through the windscreen when the phone rang.
It wasn't his phone, the ring tone was a little too jovial for Seth's tastes. His attention was taken away from the car. He looked down to the dead body laying on the ground. It was coming from him. Seth felt numb, there was no anger, no joy, only a numb and light buzzing in his chest. The phone stopped ringing then rang again. Seth rolled the body on its stomach. Blood and dead bodies weren't new to him, though this was the first time he'd ever searched a body of a life lost through his own two hands. Even in the surgery room. He was a maverick, a surgical God of Godly proportions. Now he was a killer, a multi time killer. A mass murderer.
Seth scanned the driver's jeans. He found the phone, an old pure white Nokia 7210. It felt familiar, very familiar. Seth shrugged it off as a coincidence, there'd already been too many of those in the day. He answered
"Is she still alive?" Asked the voice on the other end almost immediately.
It was Katrina, his love, his one and only, his alpha and omega. His life had started with her and would end with her because his life was nothing without her. Or at least that was what he had said in his vows to her. The vows which ran over and over in his head. He remembered them well. she cried when she'd heard them. She wasn't crying now.
"Is she still alive?" She repeated but louder this time. She sounded intense. She sounded like she was holding down a tidal wave of emotion, and the restraining walls were breaking apart fast.
"Your sister? I thought you were an orphan?" Seth replied trying his best to sound cold. it didn't come out the way he wanted it to. It came out chocked and tearful.
"Is she alive?" She said much louder and angrier this time. Seth lifted his head. He could have sworn he heard her actual voice.
"I'm alive, how could she be?" Seth said standing up. He looked more closely at the car. He thought he saw movement.
"Tell me!" She screamed. The double sound came again but he couldn't pin point it and he couldn't find her.
"I don’t know, she should be by now. I ran her over, you just have to look at the blood on my shoes and car!" Seth screamed into the phone. "It would take a miracle for her not to be as dead her butch friend! So Kat! So Kitty Kat! My love! My baby! My everything! She'd dead. Laying all across my driveway. DEAD!" Seth screamed.
"NO!" She cried, this time Seth was sure she heard her voice. He could see light from her cell phone, it was coming from the back seat. Seth couldn't make out a face though. He squinted his eyes and leaned closer for a better look.
BANG!
The windscreen exploded outwards. A force pulled Seth backwards on his shoulder and Seth fell back until he hit the bonnet of his car. His shoulder felt odd. It didn't hurt, not until he looked at it and tried to move his hand. Pain exploded out of his shoulder, the cell phone slipped out of his hand, he couldn't move his fingers, his whole arm was dead. More shots were fired. His windscreen exploded inwards and the same force clipped his neck. With a yell Seth grabbed his neck tightly and rolled off the bonnet of his roadster.
"You killed her!" Seth heard her scream. The door of the compressor opened and slammed shut again. Seth just kept panting on the ground holding his bleeding neck. His body was screaming out in pain but no specific area hurt more than his shoulder. Seth turned off his shoulder to his stomach and just lay there. He could hear her coming.
"You killed her and her husband you son of a bitch!"
"You killed them!" Seth yelled back. "you sent them to cut me off and kill me! It your fault-"
"Shut up!" she yelled.
Bang!
A gun shot went off peeling through the bonnet and hitting the roadster tyre. The slow hiss of the tyre next to his ear sent a chill down his spine. He desperately wanted to get out of there. He wanted to survive this. Everything was so completely different from what he had expected. He'd expected the possibility of death. But now that it had turned into a certainty of death, he couldn’t accept it. He wasn't going to die. Not if he could help it. He dug his fingers into the grass tearing at the roots when he pulled against it. With great effort he slide forwards.
"Why Katrina! Why are you doing this?" Seth yelled, wishing he could throw his voice incise she shot in the direction of his voice.
"You have no idea. You still have no clue." she said softly. She sounded distant. More grass tore in Seth's hand as he pulled himself further. Seth didn't know, he really did have no idea. not in the slightest. He wanted to know but he was hurt, badly. He was bleeding and he could barely move. He wanted to know the truth but survival needed to come first. He inched himself forwards. "I'm doing this because." She paused. "BECUASE I HATE YOU!" She fired into the car twice, punching through the front of the car and out the side. Both bullets missed Seth's legs my mere centimetres. "I hate you and your hot shot attitude! you think your sooo amazing!" she cried out. Seth could hear she was getting closer.
"Look I'm sorry. Here. I brought the three million in the passenger seat." Seth managed to get himself on his knees. He opened the passenger door. The pain and fatigue got to him and he fell sideways inside the passenger seat before rolling back down to the grass.
It was a life saving move. In a moment his car turned into a sieve, his windscreen exploded inwards on his side of the car. The passenger door broke off its hinges and landed on top of Seth's bad shoulder. Seth screamed and writhed in agony until it fell of him. The new pain in his shoulder brought new life to his arm. He could move his fingers again.
She was coming again.
Seth could hear her every foot step on the grass. He could see her feet under the car. She'd be on him in a second. Seth's breath was thin, he could barely breath. the finality of the situation seemed to hit him hardest at that exact moment. This was it. She was going to come over the corner, stand over him and kill the shit out of him.
There was no adrenaline rush only a heaviness which crashed down on his whole aching body. Except his chest, his heart was still hammering and his chest felt so light it was as though it was floating away. If it weren't for his heavy arms and legs. Her feet stopped moving, they were positioned closely in her standing pose. Her pose made her look human, act which only seemed to add to the finality of the situation. She wasn't some monster, she was just a woman, like any other in the world, and this wasn't some movie. this was it. He could only imagine what she was waiting for or looking at.
Seth pulled himself up and dove into the car. In mid dive, Seth managed to get a glimpse of her. she was much like he remembered her. She didn't know why but that was also incredibly disturbing to him. she was still smallish, she was still curvy, she still had the hour glass figure he loved so much to hold. Her eyes were still the sharp hazel he knew so well, the same hazel as her sister's. Her skin was tanned evenly giving her that golden Italian look she sought after. Her lips were still as full as ever, though they seemed dry and pulled tight, her hair was still long reaching down just below her, still full breasts, except her hair was frizzier than Seth was used to seeing, considering how much work she threw into her hair. Her face had a pulled look he'd never seen before, crazy. It was a face Seth could would never get used to. She saw him too and for a moment they both stared at each other. She had her own gun opened at the bottom and it looked like she was just slotting in her new cartridge.
Seth landed hard on in the middle of the car. Pain hit him like a thousand walls which dropped on him from every angle. He was starting to lose control of his left arm and fingers again. He reached out for the steering wheel. The act of reaching out was a torture session in itself. He screamed as he pulled himself closer to the wheel. A bullet tore into his left leg and side. blood exploded out of his side and both the driver and passenger seat were in a spray of blood. Now Seth was sure that this moment was really it. He reached out with his good arm and gripped the key on the ignition. The car turned on and the engine roared to life. Immediately he slid down and pressed on the clutch and he pushed on the gear stick, moving it to first gear. Seth pressed down on drive and the car lurched forwards with the speed and power of a sports car, which had been street modified constantly over the course of ten years. It almost flew with the amount of torque and power that had been thrown in.
Katrina let out a panicked yelp which was cut off by a heavy crash. The car revved on for a moment and the car lurched forwards once more. There was a gargled scream. Then suddenly the car filled with smoke and died down. He hadn't noticed the shaking of the vehicle till it stopped. It was distressing and the stillness brought the pain back. All of it. Almost immediately he slipped out of consciousness.
Seth blinked and woke up when he thought he heard sirens coming from way off in the distance. They passed.
A high pitched whine rang out softly in Seth's ears. Seth pulled himself up to his knees. It was a near impossible task and he felt sure he'd pass out. He didn't. He swayed slightly but regained enough strength to use his one good arm to steady himself. Seth heard Kat's laugh and he turned to her. The car was a wreck. it was impressive considering the two vehicles were so close together in the start. the two bonnets looked as though they were melted in on each other. There, in the centre stood my Kat. The heavily bent bonnets lifted Kat up to her standing position and propped her back up in such a way that she could only lean a few centimetres backwards and no further.
There was a blood splashed around both bonnets. Her dressing was pulled tight and torn horribly by her waist. Her whole dress was pulled around in such a way that her outfit became tight fitting and revealing. Her cleavage was pushed out heavily showing the edge of her nipples. Her hair was frazzled and spread out like a n explosion forever stuck in time. She looked delirious and blank. She didn't move for what felt like the longest time. Seth began to wonder if she was dead or not. Kat coughed and blood drool out, in a thick and steady stream pooling on the bent bonnet before dripping off. There was allot of blood. She looked up and grinned at Seth so Seth could see her bloody smile. Her teeth were like an ivory and crimson piano keyboard. She coughed again and brought a trembling hand to her mouth. There was a moment where fear at seeing her own trembling hand made her look human, but the moment didn't last. Her grin was back. She looked weak, fragile but she also looked insane, she was a shattered crystal vase or a broken porcelain doll.
Seth knew he, himself looked so much worse. It took everything he had to pull himself out of the car from the windscreen. Being a doctor he knew some extent of the damage but not all, not without the right equipment. He knew enough to be scared, Seth worked a keg up and over with his good leg. It was enough to land him on the glass edging. He let out a low cry before rolling away from the glass only to lose control of his movements and roll down the bonnet. He rolled to a stop in front of Kat. Seth blacked out.
The black out, much like the last didn't last. Something wet and heavy woke him up from his black out. Two bloody and wet hands were clamped around his throat. Seth's eyes burst open and he grabbed at his throat. He found himself staring into her determined and unblinking gaze. Her jaw clenched and she swallowed before hunching her shoulders to squeeze harder. Seth wormed his way around ever faster squeezing her wrists and trying her hardest to twist free. He was losing strength and fast. He started kicking out and hitting nothing but the bonnet of the car until his knee caught her chest on her side. The was both a crack and a tearing sound. Kat let out a horrific scream and let go and Seth rolled on to his side, gasping and coughing for air. He didn't out this time. Seth could hear sirens now. He could also hear Kat laughing piteously again.
"Why?" She laughed before taking a pained breath which sounded like hissing, "Why, wont he die?" She burst out laughing at this. Seth didn't answer, he only watched trying to get his breath back. The sirens were coming close now.
She laughed again. "I forgot I had this"
Seth looked up just as a revolver was dropped in front of his face. The sirens which were getting forever closer were suddenly worlds away.
"We're in allot of trouble Seth" Katrina said softly.
"No, your in allot of trouble" Seth replied. talking brought the pain in his side back to life. He grit his teeth and clenched his jaw to fight it. Katrina merely laughed once more.
"I'm going to kill you and I'm in trouble?"
"Your going to jail for the rest of your life." Seth said closing his eyes to fight the pain. "I know your tastes. I know your attitude. You wont last."
"You don’t know me. I've been playing you hard, baby. You've never known anything about me. I’ve been trying to punish you since we met." She said with a satisfied cackle. Seth’s mind dropped to the two miscarriages she’d supposedly had. That had to be what she was talking about. Seth’s heart broke over the two children all over again. Seth took a breath to keep his cool.
"You have, your right. I can never forget what you’ve done to me, but you can't fake your love of nice things Kit Kat" It was the best job Seth could think of under such conditions.
"Like I said you don't know me. I'm not some rich orphan girl. I really grew up in-"
"It doesn’t matter" Seth cut in. You've been a rich girl four years. The way you'd smile when I came back with a new gift. The way you'd spread yourself on our custom bed." The sirens were still too far off. Seth needed them now, there was only so much stalling he could get away with. "your heavy orgasms on top of our Egyptian silk sheets." Seth got no answer. Seth didn't look up and only prayed the sirens would arrive. Bits of metal splashed on the bonnet of the car, ringing in his ears.
"You're right. You're absolutely right. Another reason I hate your every breath, your never wrong are you Seth? But I changed. I could change again.” She paused, “But I don’t want to change again. Your so right" She stroked the side of Seth's face. Her fingers were covered in blood and sticky with it. But still she felt good. He couldn't recoil from her touch. Something hard pressed against his temple. It was the butt of her revolver. She pressed it down hard and Seth yelled out, unable to shake free of the hard steel against his temple.
"You don’t know why I hate you. I'll tell you. I was happy once. The happiest I'd ever been in my life. It didn't have riches I didn’t have a big home. I had love instead, love and a baby. My baby died in your care" She didn't sound angry. She didn't press down harder, she just sounded calm and relaxed. Seth could feel the tears welling up inside of him. "My sister was there when you Gave us the News. When you told me my baby was dead. Then you said those four words. I know how you feel. I think it was then that all this started. It was then that I first planned out my revenge. You kicked me out the same day. You told the nurses that I was fine! I wasn't! I had to go back because of an infection! My sister went back to your hospital and saw that you'd given my bed away!" She was crying now. Seth was crying too, he couldn't remember them per se but he could remember his time at St Luke's hospital in Marabastad, that could only be the time he could think of. He'd been overly ambitious and he'd known it. Anything it takes was his motto. He'd often recited that a good doctor was professional at all times and emotional at home. A simple solution he met by never going home at all. This was all about the pain of a lost baby, there was something horrifically ironic about it. There was nothing he could say. Kat continued. "I was sick for weeks afterwards. I lost my love and my baby all while stuck in bed, if you’d diagnosed me correctly I could have saved my relationship but I could do was lay in a hospital bed held down by bed restraints pulling and fighting until my both my arms broke as he walked away. You were never up for blame for anything. 'No doctor could have guessed she was allegoric to penicillin in those conditions ' they said to me and my sister. 'Your infection was small in the hospital and most doctors do not look at those functions in general.' Most doctors? In general?" She screamed. Seth felt like the barrel of her revolver was moments from crushing into his skull. "We trust you bastards in your white coats! Your stethoscopes, X-ray machines and God Damn charts! We trust you!" She stopped and the pressure disappeared. She regained her breath and laughed. Seth heard the screeching of tyres. He couldn't move. He wanted police but he needed an ambulance. Even with an ambulance, things would be dicey, his chances of survival were lower than dirt.
"Looks like things are coming to an end for both of us. Or one of us." Her bloody fingers scraped across the bonnet and she picked up two bullets. The click and clack of the revolver rang out louder in his ears than the sirens themselves.
Bang! Bang!
Seth pressed the side of his head hard against the bonnet to ease the pain in his ears. "Stay back or I shoot the other one too!"
Seth could hear her opening the gun again. Seth heard the clicking roll of the chamber bring spun wildly before rolling to a stop. It snapped shut and the barrel was on his temple once again.
She pulled the trigger .
Click!
"Back off!" she yelled to someone who immediately started running away. Seth could hear their foot steps fading, filling Seth with hopelessness. He really didn't have time for this."Back off God damn it! " She screamed leaning over him. She hung there for a moment before pressing heavily over Seth. He screamed with what little energy he had left when she pressed on his shoulder. She pulled herself off of him.
"Sorry its my turn." She said with a pained sigh, which sounded allot like a stream engine coming to a halt. "One of us isn't gone home ever again."
Click!
She breathed a sigh of relief.
Seth tried to look up at his wife. "You think I'm going back home if I make it out of this? You’ve killed us both. Me sooner than you. Then you mutilated my dead body with a second punishment. But still I stayed with you." Seth said just as the barrel's pressure dropped on his temple once more. The pressure lowered. "You've seen me Kat, I changed, I became a much better doctor. I was a better person. We were real," Seth's words died as soon as the barrel was pressed down on him once more.
"We were a lie! You've never come close to making anything up! You never changed. Your still the same person!" She yelled in his ear. Seth screamed.
Click!
Seth couldn't stop crying now. If he could have, he would have curled himself in a ball and wept forever. He'd never prayed before and he was incredibly reluctant to do so, even now. It was a pride swallowing affair even under these circumstances. In his head, his pride allowed one word, to convey his desperation: 'Please'
"You're being weak Seth. It's very unlike you. Shit I think a police finally arrived, don't want to see them crying do you? Maybe you should have another turn. I think you should but that's cheating isn't it? As if life is fair." She laughed. "Oh look they’ve started to run with big guns. No time to waist." She laughed, with no real humour in her tone, a tone Seth had heard many a time before. It was a reaction which made Seth cry louder. Kat shook her head. "Damn it Seth, stop being such a bab-
BANG!



SQJ Productions
Short Story: Sanity’s Last Ride
Written by: Vuyisile Sibeko.
Genre: Suspense, Drama
Edited by: Vuyisile Sibeko.
Special thanks to: Anyone who reads it.
Contact Details: Good reviews can be sent to SQJPure@gmail.com
[IMG]file:///\Users\SQJ\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip _image002.jpg[/IMG]Or Sms Vuyisile Sibeko at 076 2237 486

[SQJ]

This is not a short story.

This is nothing of the sort.

This is...a blurb of the mind.

I hope you like it.

Do not write me peotry

What am I supposed to do with it?
Hang it up on my wall with prestic and celotape?
Make others squint and strain at a clear white wall, like their looking for the Predetor?
An alien form hidden around a ceam coating
Concrete without the jungle.

Then smile as others look up upon it and ask;
"Did you write this?"
Accusing me, like it's a crime to have believed in your words.
save the Rhym
Save the heart
I do not deserve to be trusted

So please do not write me peotry

What would make me worthy of such a brag?
"She did this for me"
"She is thinking of me"
These are not the thoughts of a middle child
The too's that have most to do with me are;
"You're too young to play with your sister"
"Too old to bother with your brother"

So please, save your positive attention for another

DO NOT WRITE ME PEOTRY

It doesn't gleam
It doens't shine
It just sits there
A curisity I'm not curious about.

I do not rhyme
I do not match my words together in the hope that they breed
And hopee what comes out is worthy of being pawned over and adored.
"aw, that's so cute"
Can you see that comming from me?

Do not write mee peotry.

I am not a bad guy
Not too old to be too young for peotry.
It is not my thing.
Amongst my things, it is not A thing.

That is not to say the work you did was nothing.
Among the things that have been
It is much!
Too much
It's too big
It's too Strong
And to risk another beyonce quote...
It's too wrong.
Impossible to justify and therefore unjust.
Unfair and unwarrented.
Capabable of putting out an APB, placing me under cardiac arrest.
Locking up all thought and sanity!

so plesase, just please.

Do No Wirte Me peotry

What do I do back?
What do I give back?
Do I smile and thank you?
When all I am thinking is what do I give back to you?
What matches a peom telling me that you love me?
That you will always be there for me?

Always?
Forever?
For eva eva?
Eva eva?

I can't buy you a car, a yought
But I'd die for you.
Sail the world to you!

Just becuase you told me to.

but ntow I''m panicking over your peom.

I've survived Car crashes, head on bashes.

And yet your words have me running from you
Killing someone with kindness is still killing someone
You're crushing me with sensitivity.

Please do not write me peotry.

You've already won me over
Already planted your flag.
when does it start being cocky?
when does it stop being cute?
You love me
I don't deserve it.

You love me
I don't understand it.

I understand me.
I get me
I get that I don't need your poetry.

I love you, I know you love me.
I'm happy, I'm sated.
I know my love is not unrequated.
With your feelings you're never hesitted.
I hope these words leet you know I can't hesitate with mine.

I love you

I want you

I need you

I will want's love and worship you.

Like the super size in macdonald fries.

you complete me.

But god please!

On my hands and knees!

DO NOT WRITE ME PEOTRY

[SQJ]

The colour of me

I am Black
I don't know, I'm Black
I don't know why, I'm Black
How am I supposed to know that? I am Black.
I am saying it wrong, I'm Black.
We don't say that.
How do I know that?

Well..

I Am Black

I, Should Know

Am I the colour of my skin or simply defined by it?

It's not what makes me unique
After all there's a billion of us.
But with so many of us.
Does it define us?

With just so many of us.

Does it define me?

I'm allowed to not know that eighty five percent of the atmosphere is nitrogen because I'm black?
M C squared equals an answer I'm just Black enough to not know?

Can it define me?
How can one billion people nestled within one flat answer not be a sign of weakness or insult?
When did being black become an excuse?
Becoming black become a reason to lack?
And most of all
When did those who fall under it, those who hear it become okay with it let alone use it ourselves?

I am Black
I am the tip of a billion icebergs
I am proud
Even though that is not all of who I am it is what God chose you to be allowed to see.

First...

The thing you see before I can smile, scowl or cry.
The colour that remains when I die.
That is seen before my swagger
That is what colours your comments, and makes you sense danger
That you see before you, is what makes you cross the street
lock your doors
And hold on a little tighter to your purse.
The constant reminder that holds and tells me to be free.

The cover for which I am judged by
But I am no book, And I cannot be defined by a single grouping of pages.
I am the entire library set upon and held high by black onyx and granite pillars.

I
AM!
I am...

Everything I say I will be.
And nothing you say I am

I consist...

I consist of layer, rings, parts, and phases.
every bit of me, built up for lessons after school specials, movies, books, memes, fads and crazes.
I see...
And seem to be seen either seemingly seen to be seamless, or seemingly seems to be tearing at the seams.

It is the simple sum of my complexes, crucibles, peeves pet peeves and all that vexes.
Deep in its density it forms it's own gravity
pulling others in
BECAUSE I MATTER
It is not a matter of colour that settles my existence.
I can not be defined by being seen in this the land of the blind.
I do not see
I feel, therefore I am
I am not a nerve, raw and tender needing protection.
No, I think
I think therefore I must be!
I am the sum of all that does not transcend colour
I therefore I must be
i must be what i am

and I am Black
I am me
therefore i must be free
free to make my choices, free to love, share
free to run as far as the eye can see
free to be me

I am brave, i am fearful
A fool, a freaky and fantastic.
A genius, the fool, fate and fortune
And black as night as black of skin and soul as God let me b.
Ever changing but always black of skin, always me.
And the funny thing.
It’s not only me.
I'm not unique
After all there's a billion of us.
Suit wearers, ball grabbers, thugs and nerds.

Just one tip
One tip of a billion icebergs.
So before you consider using my skin, your skin, our flesh as an excuse for ignorance.

Reason to yourself
Consider yourself
Quiet yourself
one of us knows
one of us can
one of us has
Find us if you are not the one who does
teach and learn from us who do and don't
Those who teach and reach.
And like those others who can only wear it do...

Prove that Black Always makes a more beautiful you.