RUBBISH

RUBBISH

The behavioural differences between living in a flat (apartment, to you Americans/Canadians) are significant. For one thing, what happens outside your unit is only remotely your problem. In a house, everything is your problem.

The rubbish (trash, to you Americans/Canadians), for one thing. We have to cart our bins out to the edge of the street on collection days, so that the rubbish guys can load it on to their huge, noisy, smelly trucks for removal. They only come once a week so you daren’t miss that collection.

Except in Camps Bay, where things worked a little differently – because the rubbish guys also offered a door-to-door dagga delivery service. You could buy Majat (a cheap local brand) fresh off the back of the truck – quick, cheap and never bothered by the cops. But that’s another story. Remember to remind me to tell you about Aunty Gertie.

So part of the Circadian rhythm of rubbish days in the ‘burbs is that you need to know when that truck is coming round. And of course it’s different for everyone. For us it used to be mid-morning but suddenly a few weeks ago the truck came early so we had to recalibrate and I thought I had it under control, alarm clock and all (who gets up at the ungodly hour of 7.30 a.m. without a pressing reason?)

But this morning I heard that big diesel engine roaring outside our gate before my alarm went off, and by the time I’d switched off the security alarms, unlocked the front door, unlocked the front door security gates, unlocked the gate halfway down the garden path, unlocked the three locks on the front gate and got the bloody bin onto the driveway – that machine was trundling along halfway down the next block. I yelled and waved and yoo-hoo’d for all I was worth but alas, neither the driver nor his bin-men heard me.

I decided to run.

And there goes Friedland, utterly unkempt, dressing gown billowing in the wind, winter pyjamas with fly agape and slippers flopping, running and yoo-hooing down Daniel Road with his wheelie-bin in tow, a la Spike Milligan in an Inspector Clouseau movie.

Alas, ‘twas all in vain.

Those bloody diabolical machines go faster than you might think. Eventually the truck got out of sight and I had to turn back, rubbish and all. Suddenly the adrenaline was gone and the bin was surprisingly heavy. And I’d run quite a distance. And my working neighbours were reversing out of their driveways and heading off to their workplaces. And because our pavements are grass verges, I was in the road. And people were giving me funny looks. And next we’ll be ready earlier.

“But” – you may very well ask – “why on earth don’t you just put the damn bin out the night before and save yourself the rush?”

“Because”- I will tell you –“because Africa.”

Meaning that in Africa there is no such thing as a thing which cannot or will not be stolen, vandalized, pissed on, or set alight.

I don’t actually mind if poor hungry people rummage in my garbage for food or anything else which may conceivably be useful to them. I just don’t want them to throw everything out and turn my sidewalk into a local branch of the city dump. And to be honest 90% of them won’t do that.

It's just that there are downsides to this strangely parasitical world: there are those who do leave a mess, and there are those who don’t - and there are those who would turn the bin over, tip everything out, and steal the bin: the bins are very strong and durable and can be (and are) used as carts or as waterproof sleeping places for vagrants. It’s a terrible thought, but there are people in Africa who are of less value than your empty rubbish bin. And they want that bin. So you put it out at the last minute and you haul it back in at the first opportunity.

It's all rubbish, man!

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© HARRY FRIEDLAND

June 2023

Hearts & Drums

WALKING TO OUSKIP

 

PART 1

 

I had a most curious dream about two weeks ago.

 

I dreamed that I was walking on the white beach-sand path from Sandy Bay to Ouskip, as I had done many years ago. After a while I noticed that there was a single trail of footsteps up ahead of me as far as I could see. The footsteps behind me I could understand: they were my own. But the footsteps ahead of me were identical to my own, and in fact, as I walked, I was putting my feet precisely into the impressions of those footsteps. I understood that I was predestined to walk this path, and that the walk was the fulfilment of my destiny.

 

Then the path took a turn behind a sand dune, and suddenly the footsteps ahead ended.

 

I understood that this was meant to be the point of my death. In fact, I had already experienced my death twice before: once in an operating theatre, and once more in another dream. So I knew that there is an Angel of Death, I have met him, and I can recognise him from quite a distance, and I have recounted those incidents and described him elsewhere. But the fact that I had been resuscitated had taught me that death is not final, and that death is never to be feared too much, although a certain amount of fear is understandable.

 

And now, a great dread overcame me. I stood before the last two footsteps and wondered. My heart was beating, my body was functioning without change, it was a spectacularly beautiful Cape day, my wife and friends would be on the beach when I returned, I had absolutely no worries or cares, I was blessed, I was living a charmed life, and I was mindful and grateful for it. So why here, and why now?

 

If I used up those last two footsteps, would I die – finally and permanently, not to return? Did I have the power to decide not to take those steps, and to turn around and go back, or was I doomed to take them? Were there other choices? And finally, what if I ignored all this nonsense and just walked on like a rational person? Would I be struck down? I gave it another minute. One more, agonising minute.

 

Then I tentatively put my left foot into the last left footprint. Nothing happened.

 

So, I tentatively put my right foot into the last right footprint. Again, nothing happened.

 

God, the sky, the mountain, and the sea – all – were frozen and unnaturally silent. 

 

Well. I thought, perhaps its not the last footstep – perhaps it’s the footstep AFTER the last footstep. It ain’t over till it’s over, I guess.

 

So I repeated the performance above. Now I was on virgin sand. Seagulls wheeled noisily overhead; waves crashed loudly on the rocks; in the distance I could hear a car accelerating up the hill on the passing road. Somewhere along the path I could hear a child’s laughter. Sound was back on the noisy Cape shoreline.

 

PART 2

 

Four figures were approaching. The sun was behind them so I couldn’t see much more than silhouettes but even in that form I got the impression that they were male and female adults and two children. One child ran towards me, laughing excitedly, the other was more reticent. “Wait!” Called the man, “Don’t run away! Wait for us!” (The unspoken message was of course, “There’s a stranger ahead! We don’t know anything about him! Stay away from him!” – A parent’s concern).

 

They had caught me at a bad moment. I was contemplating my mortality, trying to decipher signals from the Cosmos, not really in a playful mood at all. I’m sure my body language didn’t look good. The man was running now, pursuing his son, but therefore also running towards me.

 

The boy gave no indication of hesitancy or shyness. He came to a sudden stop in front of me, still laughing about something, and turned and pointed directly back at the other child figure. Something was a huge joke. He screamed gleefully, almost running on the spot in his excitement. Obviously, I was expected to respond but before I could do that, dad drew level with us.

 

I think we are all so immersed in these caveats and cautions about how to relate to women and children that an encounter like this is fraught with awareness of the worst possible outcomes: for God’s sake, don’t touch the child! Back off! Can I smile? How much can I smile? Can I engage in conversation with a strange child? How much conversation? Can I ask his name? Is that improper? Can I respond to his joke? And if I don’t, does that make me a miserable (possibly menacing) old curmudgeon?

 

Fortunately, dad’s arrival cut that short. He was laughing for the boy’s sake, but he was cross with him. And all the time he had one eye on me. Who was I? What were my intentions? He looked shocked or afraid. A second later the woman and the girl arrived, but they hung back as if they’d seen a tarantula.

 

Then suddenly it occurred to me that I was naked. They were dressed and I wasn’t. Did they know that this was a nudist beach? I’d never seen them here before. Now I understood the horror on the parents' faces. It’s that protective instinct for your children. Some kids have never even seen their parents naked, never mind anyone else. I realized that both kids were staring at me with eyes as big as five Rand pieces.

 

“There’s, a nudist beach up ahead” I thought I’d better get that out there right away, like “You ain’t seen nothing yet”

 

Clearly, they had not known that.

 

I was ashamed. What had felt perfectly normal 20 seconds ago, was now humiliating. I had no pants, no towel, not a shred of clothing – and these “normal” people, and me … we did not belong on the same planet!

 

The woman had positioned herself in front of her children but behind her husband. We were all equally surprised by each other. The parents were in too much disarray to arrive at any consensus regarding how to deal with any of this but here’s the dilemma: the quickest way for us to get away from each other would be for each of us to keep going in our respective original directions. But if they did that, and they believed me, then they would shortly encounter a whole beach full of naked people.

 

The best would have been for each of us to turn around and return whence we had come. But I was intent on going on, so if they turned back to where they had come from, I would end up walking with them – the least acceptable outcome.

 

PART 3

 

O mighty Facebook!
Thou art comprised of but words and pictures.
- Between the word and the action
Falls the shadow.

In the world of Facebook
I am comprised of but carbon
And electricity, and semi-conductors



Not action.
I am a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy
In a world of eight billion copies
What right do any of us have
To claim to be original?

 

In a world of copies
- Between a copy and a copy
Falls the shadow.

 

Even this is a copy,
Of a Colossus, which was a copy
With a shadow.

 

“lll Miglior Fabbro”, he said
And that was a copy too.

 

I have not reached Ouskip
I never will.
“It is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it.”

 

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© Harry Friedland, 03 JUNE 2023

HEARTS AND DRUMS