Red Dust - Stephen Symons by Stephen Symons

RED DUST STEPHEN SYMONS

RED DUST - Stephen Symons

RED DUST STEPHEN SYMONS

RED DUST - Stephen Symons

BIOGRAPHY Stephen Symons is a lecturer, graphic designer and poet. His poetry and writing has been published in journals, magazines and various anthologies, including New Coin, New Contrast, Prufrock, Carapace, Wavescape and Umhlanga. He was listed as a semi-finalist for the Hudson Prize for Poetry (US) in 2015. He holds a masters in Creative Writing from UCT and is currently working on a PhD in African Studies that focuses on the experiences of ex-SADF conscripts. Of Red Dust he says, ‘It is the accumulation of a love of the South African landscape, specifically the West Coast, and the ambiguities of its people, both inextricably bound to a precarious future. Despite the speculative nature of Red Dust, it is a narrative of hope that draws inspiration from the indomitable spirit of all South Africans.’ View Stephen’s poetry and writing at tiny.cc/dfabzx.

RED DUST - Stephen Symons

The president collapsed like a pile of books, wordless and without a breath, muffling the clutter of a microphone stand with his fine Italian suit. A puddle of black grew from his crumpled form and found a splayed hand on the granite steps. He was gone, shot through mid-speech at his inaugural address on the 16th of June 2025. The crowd offered a collective sigh, flags lost their breath and a lone voice wailed murder as the president was swamped by sunglasses and more fine Italian suits. Chaos followed, and by Christmas civil mayhem had consumed the country. A South African National Defence Force mutiny and a failed coup resulted in a flailing free-fall of the nation’s currency. This time the economy had no parachute. Ships skipped the country’s harbours and international flights failed to return. To say the root cause of the disaster was an ongoing struggle between the New African National Congress (NANC) and the People’s Liberal Democratic Party was to over simplify a cancerous problem. Some say it began when the NANC ceded more than half of the Northern Cape to the Smiling Dragon Mining Consortium in 2020, the Year of the Rat. As expected, promises were broken and battle lines drawn. Slowly, the dams and fuel dumps ran dry and the citizens grew thirsty and very angry. Here in the squinted light hammered into heat the leaves applaud scrubbing the silence stirring the dam from treacle stillness Pigments fused to sandstone crags shift with the sun washing the corrugations of jeep tracks with crushed pink and orange mixed from a palette of valley and scree

RED DUST - Stephen Symons

And dust reigns a floured film of skin breathed over rock water fynbos till it becomes time – iron red ancient coating flesh with the dynasties of stars beneath a sky that has been split wide open. ************* Towards the end Hester packed the kids in the bakkie and drove to town on a quarter tank. Johan gave her the last of their cash, spare batteries, the .38 and a box of cartridges. The thought of her alone with the kids on the R27 clung to him like the bulging heat. With luck, she would be able to join one of the convoys bound for Cape Town. Johan squinted into the morning. His gaze carried far beyond the scraps of sea mist still burning away, revealing the cracked land and the road that Hester had taken. He shifted his attention to the buckled windpomp. Livingstone was tinkering with one of the outlet valves, long since shut tight by neglect. The sound of his spanner carried past the morning insects suspended over the garden. Weeds flowered where Hester’s roses once bloomed. Only Livingstone was left. His cataracts and a childhood accident had left him with no choice. Livingstone made his way along the fence, whistling into the stillness of the spring morning. He dropped a handful of spanners on the stoep and said, ‘Koffie, meneer Johan?’ Johan noticed that Livingstone’s cataracts had worsened, but it was a 7

RED DUST - Stephen Symons

runaway tractor decades earlier that had ensured a lifetime of wincing with every awkward step. Johan had told him it would be safer to go, but Livingstone said it was his farm too, just as the farmworkers had chorused before they left. ‘Ja thanks, Livingstone. Go easy on the water though. The tank is almost empty.’ Livingstone limped into the cool wooded darkness of the voorkamer, past the stern sepia poses of the De Wet forbears, all dressed in black, frozen under a vertical sun in front of a much smaller version of the farm house. Minutes later he returned with two mugs of sweet black coffee. The two men sat on the stoep, as they had done since childhood, and spoke of the old days. They spoke of the bumper crop in 2019, the same year the Springboks had won the World Cup for fourth time. That was a good year. Afterwards, they continued boarding up the house, hammering thick strips of pine into the yellowwood window frames. Johan felt he was committing a sin; the house didn’t deserve their hammers and nails. He kept reminding himself that Hester had insisted he stay behind to barricade up the farmhouse. He remembered her shouting from the kitchen, ‘Johan, you must board up the house like the Van Stadens. They couldn’t pull a nail from a plank if they tried.’ A week later a drunken gang bulldozed the Van Staden’s farmhouse to top off a Saturday night of partying. By midday a stiff southeaster was already sawing away at the blue gums. The branches tapped at the corrugated iron roof and at his worry. Their hammers echoed through the chilled starkness and began to loosen a century’s worth of memories. Births by candlelight, the bright yellow harvests, white linen nagmaal lunches under the blue gums, and those nights of love in the North West storms. The memories settled as a flour-fine film on Johan’s clothes and wet skin. They were Livingstone’s memories too, the breath of the Atlantic he smelt but never saw, and then there was Marie’s smile through the steamed kitchen window and her handing him a steaming cup of Rooibos through an open window. It was almost a month since Livingstone 8

RED DUST - Stephen Symons

saw her smile. Johan stopped hammering and went outside, and they were there as expected. A visceral spike of fear stabbed at his gut as he picked up the binoculars and brought the dust cloud into focus. There were perhaps fifteen or twenty figures, clearly visible below a hedge of tools and waving arms. So they had been forced back, probably by hunger. ‘Hulle kom, Livingstone!’ Livingstone dropped his hammer and shuffled off to the Hilux. Johan sprinted to his bedroom, unlocked the gun safe and removed his R1, one of many that the army had loaned to farmers decades earlier. It felt heavier than he remembered, oiled and cold, indifferent as the future. He had two full twenty-round magazines and a shoebox of loose cartridges. The dust cloud was closer now. Johan ran to the Hilux, fell into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. The engine gave a dry cough. He tried again, but this time there was no more than a staccato of clicks. Johan thumped the steering wheel with his fist. ‘Fok it, the battery’s dead.’ Livingstone gave a despondent cough and shook his head. ‘Meneer?’ ‘I hooked it up to the TV so the kids could watch some DVDs and forgot to charge the damn thing. Johan punched the steering wheel. ‘Go Livingstone. Take my bike and follow the back road towards the Du Plessis’s farm. I think Carel’s still there and perhaps Marie too…’ Johan took the R1 and headed back towards the house. He could hear them clearly now, chanting in Afrikaans; something about taking back the land from the foreigners. He cocked the rifle; the metal clack echoed through the voorkamer. He could now taste the fear that had been sitting in his throat for months. His hands trembled under the weight of the rifle. The room smelt 9

RED DUST - Stephen Symons

of sweat and linseed oil. He wanted to vomit. He opened the shoebox of cartridges and then fingered for the reassuring shape of the pistol he had stuffed under his belt. He would save the last bullet for himself. Then a faint knock came from the door and a voice said, ‘Dis ek, meneer. Livingstone.’ Johan fumbled with the dead-bolt. The silhouette of Livingstone stood there, flat and featureless against the afternoon sun. ‘What the bladdy hell are you doing here? I told you to head for Môreson man, Carel’s still there.’ He looked into Livingstone’s cumulus eyes and then they both understood. Johan drew a deep breath, propped the R1 against the shuttered window and stepped into the light. He thought of Hester and the kids, and then turned his attention to the faces pressed against the fence. They were all there, those lives and faces he knew so well, covered in the fine red dust. Livingstone stifled yet another cough and placed a hand on Johan’s forearm, ‘We don’t need to shoot, Meneer, it’s our people. They know us.’ ************* The poles ticked by. Long arcs of telephone line dipped into the fynbos. She passed a group of kids tugging at an uprooted pole still tethered to its lines. They scattered like birds. Hester could make out scratches of smoke in the clear blue of the morning. To the left, a farm house swam in a mix of sea mist and smoke, a smouldering skeleton of what was. Hester thought of Johan boarding up the farmhouse. It was a bad idea, insisting he stay behind, but there was no turning back. Eighty kilometres off, Table Mountain rose from the morning smog. The fuel light had been glowing red for almost twenty minutes. She looked in the rearview mirror. Her view was jammed with suitcases, their provisions and the kids straining at their safety belts. Yolandi and Dawid sat in silence, their 10

RED DUST - Stephen Symons

cheeks pressed against the misted glass. ‘Hey, you two, sit back. Remember what mommy said about those men who throw stones!’ Dawid grunted and Yolandi offered a murmur of protest. It was already too late when she saw the tyres scattered across the R27. Hester braked hard; a blue and white sign that read Yzerfontein slurred by. The Nissan bucked and shuddered over the first tyre. Momentum flung a bag of apples forward. Yolandi screamed. They came to a crunching halt in the gravel at the turn-off to a farm. Hester killed the engine to conserve the last drops of fuel. She noticed a red smear of blood where her head had connected with the steering wheel. Three backlit figures emerged from behind a lopsided farm sign that read Sonstraal. The leader had a scoped hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. He hobbled over in an undersized Billabong T-shirt and started clapping. Hester hid the .38 between her legs, and tried to smile. He tapped on the window and shouted, ‘Open your window, lady.’ The car filled with cicada song and the smell of the Atlantic. For a moment everything drifted to what used to be – work, children, routine, even love. ‘So, where are you going so fast this morning?’ ‘I’m driving to Cape Town. My boy is sick,’ she lied. Dawid pulled the hood of his tracksuit top over his head and drew his legs up onto the car seat as he shifted towards Yolandi. Billabong rubbed away the dust from the rear window to get a better look at Dawid and said, ‘I think your boy is fine.’ He frowned and called over one of his comrades. A broken man held together with a frayed tangle of nylon cord edged closer. His cheek was divided by a deep slash of scar that ran from the corner of his mouth 11

RED DUST - Stephen Symons

towards the remains of an eye. A panga dangled from an arm of tattoos. The two men chatted, while the third began circling the car, like a shark, dragging a pickaxe handle in the gravel, summing up his intended prey. Billabong strummed his lips with a finger, looked towards Cape Town and said, ‘Start your car.’ Hester started the Nissan. He pushed his head through the window and looked at the dashboard. He smelt of wood fires and cheap coffee. ‘Okay, turn it off. You’re on empty. You’ll never make iKapa. Many people have to walk. We’ve stopped three farmers this morning, and they were all on empty. Look, see, their cars have been left in the parking lot of that burnt-out garage.’ He looked directly at Hester but seemed elsewhere and then turned and walked in the direction of the farm sign. A buckled camping table and a plastic milk crate were positioned in the shade behind the farm sign. Trevor Mabuza unshouldered the rifle that had no ammunition, brushed an insect from the table’s gritted surface, pulled at his under-sized Billabong T-shirt and sat down. Despite its ballast of bricks, the milk crate wobbled under his weight. Trevor hated this ragged stretch of coast. Its bland salted terrain and that relentless afternoon wind that blew everything in the direction of the sea made the lush greenery of home seem like a dreamscape. He pulled a well-worn envelope from his pocket and placed it on the table. He sighed heavily and extracted the letter. He skimmed its contents, as he had done so many times, over and over, as if rereading its words could rewrite the past. My Son, I hope you are well. I heard that you are working for the relocation committee at the Cape Town City Hall. Your mother has not travelled to Zimbabwe. She decided to head towards Namibia where she hopes to meet up with her uncle in Windhoek. She phoned me at the border before they shut down the cellphone networks. I believe she completed her journey and is safe. We must have faith in the Lord’s way. He will 12

RED DUST - Stephen Symons

guide us on this journey wherever it might lead us as a family. I am as well as can be. I am running a checkpoint into Cape Town on the R2, at the Yzerfontein turn-off. I am telling you this as I would like you to meet me here so we can travel together to meet up with your mother. I have managed to siphon more than enough fuel to get us to the border. I will wait here for you. Do not forget to bring your ID document or passport. You can miss the turn-off easily, so look out for the Smiling Dragon Mining billboard on the left hand side of the road about a kilometre before the checkpoint. Bring food and water. Only American dollars or jewellery have value. Rands are useless. Dress warmly, it gets very cold at night. I have not heard from your sister since we left Durban. I think she managed to board a flight to London where she was hoping to meet Robert. The soldiers shut down my school not long after you left. All the schools and universities are now closed. They are everywhere now. Is it true they emptied the city library into the street to make room for the soldiers’ beds? You must leave Cape Town as soon as possible. I have heard things. Your Father He had wanted to write another letter, perhaps telling his son how much he loved him and how he had forgiven him for dropping out of medical school to start his own business, but he had lost his ballpoint pen. The present and the heat returned like a hammer blow, and with it the stench of his unwashed body. He hated himself. He had become a cliché. Hester’s heart thumped. When Billabong returned, he waved to the shark and shouted an instruction. Something about Billabong’s physical composure seemed incongruous to the persona he projected. Hester scratched anxiously at her scalp. The shark jogged back to the farm sign. Billabong blocked her view, dropped an arm into the car and yanked the petrol flap lever. Then he placed his hands over her cheeks and said, ‘Look at me. Forget about the kids. Just look at me and tell me what you see.’ Hester’s stare turned his rheumy eyes to a blur. Tears welled up in her eyes. 13

RED DUST - Stephen Symons

‘I have no petrol, I must get Cape Town. Take my car. I’ll walk there with my children, like the others. Please, you win.’ Billabong didn’t say a word. He turned and waved at the shark. A minute ached by. Hester closed her eyes and shifted her hand over the cold shape of the .38 between her legs – but then Billabong said, ‘Okay, start your car.’ She looked at him ‘What? Where to?’ He looked at Hester, tilted his head skywards and mumbled to himself, words she recognised as isiZulu. Then his face changed, as if to reprimand himself. He slapped the roof of the car and pointed towards Cape Town, ‘Does the madam not know where iKapa is?’ ‘You mean I can go?’ He leaned into the cab. ‘Vodacom and MTN is down. Drop this letter off at the Cape Town City Hall. It’s for my son. Make sure you place it in his hands. I am trusting you, and yes, perhaps this time we both win.’ Billabong smiled as he drew an arc through the red dust on the roof of the Nissan. He fingered his front pocket, opened a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses and turned away. As Hester pulled away, she caught a glimpse of the shark in her sideview mirror as he kicked an empty jerry can back to the farm sign. The fuel light glowed green. The journey to Cape Town wasn’t very different from the countless others they had made before the president was assassinated, except for the abandoned cars and ragged streams of people, most on foot, pushing prams, trolleys and wheelbarrows of belongings. They passed what looked like a Sunday-morning ride of mountain bikers, yet most were armed with an assortment of rifles and handguns. One even carried a spear gun. She caught the malevolent glint of a blade peeking from a lycra-clad leg. Here and there abandoned pets rummaged through the detritus that desperation and a will 14

RED DUST - Stephen Symons

to survive had left in its wake. Every kilometre closer to Cape Town became more hazardous; traffic lights were potential choke points and Hester felt a growing sense of uneasiness as they reached the concrete outskirts of Cape Town. She thought of Johan and whether they would ever see each other again, and of their future in this broken country. She looked in the rearview mirror at her children and wondered what awaited them. The traffic thickened as they neared the Foreshore. She watched a driver swerve to their side of the road, abandon his car, one of many vehicles that now lined the freeway, and scramble across the railway lines running into Cape Town station. Hester eased on the brakes as they approached the first checkpoint. She could make out uniformed figures in the distance. She had seen those mottled camouflaged uniforms before. Was it on the NANC newscasts or those Smiling Dragon Mining Company advertisements? She could make out a soldier with a loudspeaker. He brought the loudspeaker to his mouth and barked an order in Chinese. This country is a deep ravine cut into a mountain by the slow steady flow of water A country where the plants and birds have forgotten their names and the trees grow into an impenetrable dusk.

In 2025 the South African president was assassinated. Slowly, the dams and fuel dumps ran dry and the citizens grew thirsty and very angry... RED DUST appears in Incredible Journey, an anthology of contemporary South African short stories published by Mercury books in July 2015.

STEPHEN SYMONS RED DUST