Then he kind of retracted, pulled away and said "I don't know why I even say these
things to you. I don't know you. But I have a strong intuition about people. I usually
know straight off whether I could get to know someone."
With my old friends, my friends from Johannesburg - Northern Suburbs and long
Joburg high school afternoons - we can always be quiet around other people and
know well, feel, like we speak our own language. The language of our time in
Joburg, afternoons at high school, watching a packet blow down on the rugby field
below us. It rolls down low on the grass, like it's trying to cling to something, wraps
itself around a goal post, hangs there then takes to air. We watch it and carry on
talking. When we talk, rain pouring on tin roofs, we can go somewhere else.
Like writing: a flower, four actually. Three yellow, one red and two cups of tea,
newspapers, cigarettes. I look up, see tables and imagine a long walk from here
(passing through the window, resting for a moment on the girl with the dark hair
pulled back into a pony tail resting on her hand on her chin and lower cheek.
Beyond that, the window, the wet street, rain and I walking down it. Out the door,
up from this table, left, down the long street walking on my own
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