Month: August 2020

In the depths of winter , the 10th May, to be precise, we were given the prompt ‘Pink’ for our Keep Writing Challenge, with 300 words to work with. Not being a pink girly girl at the best of times, I was bereft of imagination. Then I looked up from my blank computer screen and realised I had been looking at it all along. The picture by an old acquaintance, Renee Johannes called The Whore’s Pink & Orange Handbag hangs on the wall above my desk. Now the trees are full of pink blossoms and so I remembered this piece.

‘The Whore’s Pink and Orange Handbag’ hangs above my writing desk. It is a serigraph bearing only as passing a resemblance to the outline of a handbag and its contents as you could imagine. I have another piece by the same artist called ‘The Artist’s Underpants’. I like her predilection for the slightly outré.

The Whore’s Handbag looks like the images on the monitors as your luggage passes through security checks at the airport and is screened for prohibited items. I have stupidly lost a bottle of expensive perfume, my favourite pair of nail scissors and a stoneware jar of Dijon mustard through sheer carelessness. The security personnel are uber vigilant sitting for hours on end, eyes glazed, watching our private lives paraded before them, but still manage to catch us out.

Between bursts of typing and when I am bereft of ideas, I glance up and gaze at the picture. What would a whore keep in her handbag? I am free to allow for flights of fancy, since the print tells me nothing. The answer is probably the same as any other woman.  A lipstick, the keys to the place where she takes her clients. Her phone. A purse. I am reluctant to ascribe other tools of her trade to the indeterminate shapes which are more burnt amber than pink or even orange.

I make up journeys the bag is going on, via that airport conveyer belt, to be tucked under the aircraft seat or safely stowed in the overhead locker. Or perhaps it’s a Hermès Kelly or Birkin bag, timeless styles famous for adorning the arms of actresses and models since the 1960s.

I look closer at the detail. I can discern the handle but for the rest there is no shape or form. Inspiration is in short supply.   

This week marks the 8th anniversary of the so called Marikana Massacre. The stand off between striking platinum miners, private security and the police culminated on 16th August, 2012 in the death of 34 miners. A long and drawn out Commission of Inquiry yielded very little in the way of actionable findings and the entire episode remains a scar in the memories of many.

I had just started work as a radio content producer on a leading drive time show, and it was my first time experiencing such a huge event in a busy newsroom. I learnt a lot that week.

This short piece of just 120 words was written in response to the prompt ‘Platinum’

Photo Credit: Times Live

The miners were uncertain. Tensions were escalating, the unions urging them to stay out, the shift bosses calling them back underground, their wives anxious simply to keep the peace. The employer’s menacing demands to put an end to their unprotected strike resounded in their ears.

They knew the power lay with them for now, but their sense of unease said this would not end well and their conviction began to waver.

The young man, wrapped in his trademark green blanket, emerged as one of their leaders. They took their cue from him and their belief in the cause was reignited. By the end of the next day, green would be streaked red, the blanket’s owner dead, along with 33 others.

I walked through my Jozi suburb with a heavy heart last week, seeing the many shop fronts – mostly bars and restaurants – that have fallen victim to the stringent lockdown measures imposed on them by the South African government. Like all businesses, they were closed during the initial stages, but even as they were allowed to open again, they were not permitted to serve alcohol, and our evening curfew, recently extended from 21h00 to 22h00 means service has to be over over quickly and early. We hope that our favourites will return after all this madness is over, but too many are faced with insurmountable financial obstacles and may never open again. This piece of flash fiction responded to the prompt ‘Canopy’ in 200 words, but it speaks to the sadness of any businesses closing down.

She inserted the metal crank into the slot and began winding in the canopy. The fading late afternoon sun washed out the pinks and yellows, the bold black scrolling font a shadow of its former self. It used to stand out along the row of neighbourhood shops, now mostly shuttered and closed.

Carol’s Cakes and Confectionary, the sign read. She loved the uncontrived alliteration, after all, Carol was her given name. She regularly treated friends and family when she was perfecting her art, happily fulfilling any requests at no charge. When the shop premises became available, she took a leap of faith and opened her business, which was rewarded handsomely with the support of the local people.

In the past thirty or so years, she had hand crafted and decorated a cake for just about every family in the community. Her order book was like a social history of the town, every birth, christening, engagement and wedding recorded, names meticulously spelled out in her neat handwriting in the margin next to where the customers had penned their chosen greetings.

Now the high street is dead and she is going through her daily ritual of closing up for the final time.