Zebra Horizon

YET ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE

  A novel about the hilarious, chaotic and creative every day life in a yacht club in South Africa.

  Sample Chapters

  THE STARS BENEATH MY FEET

  We all felt it that day on the farm

  Flint and I went for a walk. The first flowers dotted the veld with their bright colours – yellow orange purple – in between the bossies and the klippe. A winter wind was howling, blowing big grey clouds across the pale blue sky. The shadows of those clouds rode like phantoms over the glowing mountains, veiling the rusty umber of their ancient folds,

  and there it was – your presence – all around, gentle & overwhelming, abstract & very real, connecting the sky the mountains the veld & us.

  I drove home. I opened the door. Time stopped

  the plastic packet over your head, the empty pill containers, the bandage around your neck, your hands peacefully on the duvet – but cold…oh so cold

  your chest, concrete-like, no movement

  the plastic packet, rigid, tight

  doc came

  cops came

  the cat wanted to lie on your chest

  there were stars in the sky

  you weren’t in your body anymore

  I could feel you all around

  doc said, ‘here’s a pill if you want it. You mustn’t stay here tonight.’

  Vilma came and took me back to the farm

  I’m lying in a bed that is not your bed or my bed or our bed

  it’s cold except for 2 little wheat bags – warmed up in the micro wave

  one at my feet, one on my tummy, the bed is soft

  the wind hasn’t stopped howling, the windows are rattling, the door is creaking, it is pitch dark

  same dark if I close my eyes or open them

  there are images jumping from my mind and from my guts burning into that space just between my eyes

  The plastic packet, The plastic packet, The plastic packet

  your hands peacefully on the duvet, almost like in prayer, maybe that is what you were doing – talking to the universe