The watch and the clipboard

The man with the silver watch was inside that storeroom in Parow.

I did not say it out loud on the neighbourhood walk. I said it to myself, once, on the quiet street past the garage with the broken gate: the man with the silver watch was inside that storeroom in Parow. And my forearm stung under the tape and I kept walking and I did not say it again because saying it makes it a thing that happened and a thing that happened is a thing I have to carry.

The Polaroid is still on the counter at Werner's. I know this. I left it there and I am not going back and those two facts are sitting beside each other in my chest like a math I refuse to do. He brought it to a collection pickup. He brought a photograph of me — not at a callout, not at a venom handoff, but at Werner's house — and he set it on the counter beside R4,000 in cash and he waited. That is not a message. That is a map. He is showing me that he already knows where I go and what I do and that he can reach me there, and also that he chose to let me know. Which means he wants something from me that is not the cobra.

Wikus and the clipboard I could read. A competitor blocking a job is a thing I understand. But the watch, the Polaroid, the photographer leaning on a forklift — that is a different language and I do not speak it and I am afraid I am going to have to learn.