Rolex
The sweat bead has made significant progress and is now around my cheekbone. It is faced with a fresh unanticipated challenge though. It is leaving a trail of wetness in its wake. This is expected behaviour from a descending sweat bead. The reason this has turned into a challenge is there is lack of emerging colonies of sweat beads to conquer and absorb as it makes its journey down my face. This lack of perspiration seems to be one of the effects of the smileys grip on me. The sweat bead can’t stop the journey so it proceeds on what has become a journey of faith.
My neighbours, all 5 of them present the night of Nama’s death, insist to this day that my overzealous imagination conjured up this version of events in a dream the night she died. But none of them as managed to give me a convincing explanation for the lack of a body. The official version of events is she must have fallen in the pit latrine, but I know this is a lie because she had taken to soiling her clothes in her final days.
The smiley is now sucking what I think is my soul out of my body into the computer screen. Somehow, I find my voice and find myself screaming, “Please, don’t take my soul evil face smiley. I have so much to live for, don’t take my soul please. There is a wife material girl waiting for me at home…PLLLEEEAAASEEE!!!!” But no, the smiley is not interested in my commendable love life. All it wants is my soul. My thoughts are now filled with smileys of various sizes floating around my currently cooked brain!
The blue screen smiley seems tired of all the hullabaloo, and completely zaps my soul out of my body and into the computer screen. The smiley starts rotating in circles on the screen like a squirrel running in a rotating wheel. I can’t comprehend much at this moment, but whatever is left of my brain catches on that fact that there is no thunder to be heard from outside. A few seconds pass and I decide to conclude that I have survived a fate similar to Nama’s. I sigh with relief and look up at the crowd of workmates that has gathered around. Thomas has drawn back and everyone else is staring at me like I am an Alien. I decide to give them time to recover and decide to check on my laptop. The screen is now blank and I can see my reflection in it. I fail to recognise the person looking back at me because I seem to have gone through a transformation that’s making me look frighteningly similar to Nama at the time of her death. What stands out is the seemingly permanent miserable look on my face akin to the one of the miserable blue screen smiley! Zombified is the word that comes to mind as I closely examine the transformation that has just occurred.
The sweat drop finally accepts defeat and dries up on my arid skin just as it is about to reach the neck area.
