Pieter se meisiekind

Someone filmed me. That is the part that will not leave. Not the word — I have heard worse on the farm roads at midnight from men who meant it — but the phone held up steady. Not laughing. Just filming. Like I was already content.

I drove out without fuel. Sat on the shoulder of the R363 with the tank light on and the burner phone dead in the cradle and my hand doing something strange — the skin across the knuckles going pale then darkening like the scorpions do when I UV them, that same chalky ghost-colour before they strike. I thought: this is my hand. I thought: he is still in my pocket. The notebook with Pieter Viviers circled twice. His keys in my bag. His name on the Caltex cashier's tongue. His girl. I am carrying so much of that man and I do not know if I took it or if he left it here and I cannot tell the difference anymore.

Tomorrow I will not be at Klawer. Tankwa instead. Let the patient man stand at the pumps with his notebook and wait. I want to know if he is surprised. I want to know if men like that can be surprised. Yesterday I wrote that what frightened me was not the violence but the certainty — tonight I am not frightened. Tonight I am trying to figure out if I want to be him or if I want him to be the one who finds me first.

The burned hand does not hurt as much as it should.