His phone rings, but he mutes the tune.
‘Not much else to tell. Suicide is contagious now, didn’t you know? Bitch went schizo and offed herself. All in a day’s grind in this crazy-ass city. Believe me, I’ve seen worse. A lot worse. In fact, I remember thinking, how considerate of her to take a clean way out.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you know, she could have jumped out of the window, slit her wrists, put a shotgun to her head. Can you imagine having to clean that shit up?’
The pictures of her wax doll parents come back to her. Dark red holes, weeping.
‘Never thought of it that way.’
‘Yeah, well, they’re mostly selfish bastards, Suiciders. We used to call them suicide victims but, ha! Hardly. Men are the worst, always the messiest. Pigs. They seem to like the drama of leaving blood and bits behind. Leave their mark, like a dog pissing on a tree. Women are more considerate. Usually do it with more grace: pills, asphyxiation, walking into rivers.’
‘But she was a victim,’ says Kirsten. ‘I mean, she was ill… she couldn’t help it.’
He purses his lips to show that he doesn’t agree. His phone rings again.
‘Anything else I can help you with? I have a 6pm deadline and I don’t have any of my facts checked yet.’
She gets up to leave, binning her coffee cup. Caffeine dulls her synaesthesia so it feels like she is moving in monochrome. She still couldn’t believe that normal people saw the world this way. Flat.
‘Was there anything weird about it? Anything that you thought was strange?’
He uses the back of a pencil to scratch his scalp. Shakes his head, but then stops, narrows his eyes.
‘There was one thing… I wanted to put it into the article but Ed said it was unnecessary. He didn’t want it to sound like we were making fun of the lady.’
‘What was it?’
‘It was something the shrink said to the cops. I didn’t interview her personally but she said that the woman had out-of-control paranoid delusions. She heard voices talking to her and telling her to do shit. But she also had this idea that she had been microchipped, I don’t know, by aliens or Illuminati or something. She had a lump on the back of her neck – had it for as long as she could remember – and she started to believe that it was a tracking chip. Thought someone was monitoring her. Maybe she watched too many 90s movies. But it’s cool, you know, in a way, that’s why I wanted to put it in the article. I mean they say they want more readers but I had to pull the most interesting part. Ed can be a bastard.’
‘So what you’re saying is that she really was crackers, and she really did kill herself.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Oh, and one other thing…’
Cheeky shit, calling her ‘ma’am’ as if she were twice his age. ‘Yes?’
‘There were dog bowls – and dog hair – but no dog food, and, well… no dog.’
She stares at him. His outfit is now desaturated of colour. She snaps a pic of him with her locket.
‘You look like you stepped out of a 50s DRUM magazine cover. I like your style. Thanks for your help.’
‘You’re Kirsten Lovell, aren’t you?’
She is surprised, and nods.
‘I’ve just recognised you. I loved your photo essay on Somali pirates. It was really cool. Bang tidy work. Epic stuff.’
That was years ago, how could he have known it was her? The essay was from a time when she had been young and irresponsible, doing dangerous work to try to fill The Black Hole. It hadn’t worked, but she had won some awards. It had advanced her career; made her semi-famous in the journo circuit.
‘You a freelancer now?’ he asks.
She nods. ‘Now I have the flexibility to panic about my job insecurity at any time.’
It was an old joke. He smiles, holds up the coffee cup in thanks and farewell. He waits until he sees the escalator swallow her, then dials a number.
‘She came.’
He didn’t know why the cop wanted to know this, but that was the deal, in exchange for a copy of the police report. Mouton is a cop, after all, Mpumi reasoned, trying to assuage his guilt. It’s not like he’s a psychopath.
Seth is reading the news on his Tile while he waits for The Weasel to go to lunch. A headline about a woman committing suicide catches his eye. So young, so alone. He feels a jab. He knows better than to think it’s compassion; he knows that it’s just his own mortality raising its head to give him a nudge. That could be you, it says, dying alone in your apartment. Not suicide, never suicide, but people die all the time, and you could be next. Freak accidents, dehydration, murder. And who would miss you?
The Weasel leaves his desk at 1pm every day, on the dot, and goes downstairs to the American-styled health diner. He has a cheese fauxburger, which is less delicious than it sounds, and certainly not anything vaguely sexual, which is what Seth had first thought when he overheard Wesley’s order and almost choked to death on his whole-wheat carob-chip doughnut. Choking, falling, earthquake. No one would miss him.
The Fauxburger is a shamwich: the diner’s healthy take on the old classic, with a full-grain rye roll, cottage cheese, masses of micro-greens and sprouts, a black bean and wild mushroom schmeat patty, topped with a black tomato-chilli salsa, and sweet potato wedges on the side. Since meat and fish had become so expensive, a lot of sheeple had switched to meat alternatives. Not before, not so save massacring animals, or to spare thousands of cows/pigs/chickens their sorry battery lives, but when steaks started to cost a week’s wage. Enter the age of carnaphobia. Then all of a sudden soya lost its bland taste; vegetarianism became mainstream and schmeat steaks and Portobello burgers became the food of choice to bring to Saturday braais. Hairy men snapping their tongs and discussing the merits of citrus versus balsamic marinades over their fire-warmed tins of lager.
Seth still ate steak. Ostrich, duck, venison, or any GMO version thereof. His favourite was still real beef steak, AKA cow-meat; bovine oblivion. Medium rare: he liked it a little bloody. It’s not that he didn’t have empathy for the animals. He just believed that humans were top of the food chain. You don’t see a leopard crying over its prey.
After The Weasel eats his sad burger, wipes his too-full lips with the old-school red- and white-checked linen napkin, he goes to the bathroom, presumably to wash his hands. Then he opens the communal drinks fridge and gets himself a CinnaCola, which sits on his desk for the rest of the afternoon. Seth has never actually seen Weasel drink the stuff – after all, he would know what’s in it – but there it is, every day, sweating on his desk at 1:30 sharp. Seth no longer takes lunch breaks because it’s the only time he can escape his manager’s beady eyes. He uses this time very carefully.
Journal entry
1988
Westville
In the news: 6 African National Congress guerrillas are injured in a car bomb explosion in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
What I’m listening to: Johnny Cash is Coming to Town
What I’m reading: Dr Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care
What I’m watching: Good Morning Vietnam
P loves the babies so much. He is good at comforting them. He sings in a really deep voice – these silly made-up songs – and makes these funny faces and then they stop fussing and laugh. Sometimes they laugh at the same time and that’s the funniest thing, then we all laugh together.