The Polaroid won't stop

I keep seeing it. Not the snake on the concrete — the photo sliding off his sill like something he was done with. And I know what Tannie Mia's gate looks like. I have not stood in front of it in six years but I could draw every rusted bar. She kept that gate the same. That is not a comfort. That is proof that nothing moves in that house unless someone holds it still.

Pieter Viviers. Third complaint. Same cousin who pulled into Varsitydrive and told me I'd be fine, first day, like it was already decided. I sat in his car with my orientation pack on my lap and believed him. Three complaints. Which means there were two women before who said it out loud and nobody believed them enough to stop it the first time.

My arm is weeping through the bandage again. I changed it twice tonight and the gauze is pink every time. I should care more than I do. I think I am using the wound the way I use the desert — something real and sharp so I don't have to look at the other thing.

The plan to the Tankwa is already running in the back of my head like a route I planned years ago and never took. Four in the morning. Nobody. No signal. Eight empty slots in the holding room where the neonates will go if I come back with stock. If.

That word keeps sitting there. If I come back.