£6.99
Published by Turner Maxwell Books
First published 2008.
Copyright © ARTHUR HOWE 2009.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in a retrieval system in any form or by any means without permission in writing by ARTHUR HOWE or Turner Maxwell Books.
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The purchase of this book is a private sale between the reader and the publisher; at no stage will indemnity be claimed against the publisher. The moral right of the author has been asserted.Warning: May contain explicit material, which is not intentionally offensive. Not suitable for children
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental and may be more the work of your own imagination. Why not write a book yourself? Turner Maxwell Books are an alternative co-operative of new writers, working towards publishing inspirational literature.
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom for Turner Maxwell Books.
VISIONS (IN MY MINDS EYE)
A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES
BY ARTHUR HOWE
CONTENTS
1. LIFTING SIPHO
2. TICKETS
3. THE SUCCESSOR
4. THE PICK UP
5. SURVIVOR
6. FREE EARTH DAY
7. VISIONS - IN MY MINDS EYE
8. THE FART
An extract from LIFTING SIPHO
You never can be too careful when it comes to hitchhiking. Paranoia could take control!
I wouldn’t normally stop to pick up a hitchhiker even though, as a teenager, this was just about my only mode of transport. My road to independence.
My Folks didn’t have a car, not that they couldn’t afford one, it was just that my Mom was too nervous to drive and my Dad had always preferred to take public transport or taxi’s to get around. I also think he was too proud to admit that he was also nervous. I’ve also become very nervous lately, particularly when you hear of all the car-jacking and murders that happen just about every day, here in South Africa. You never can be too careful, I say. I’d lost a friend to a car-jacking in Johannesburg and had heard numerous stories from friends of friends who’d had similar experiences.
Things had changed so much in this Country, I thought. As a kid, if I needed to get somewhere, I either cadged a lift from someone whose parents had wheels or I’d hit the road with my thumb wagging.
I’d taken hundreds of short hitches getting in and around the suburbs of Cape Town and on two occasions, even been adventurous enough to hitch hike from Cape Town to Johannesburg and Cape Town to Durban and back. In those days, it was fairly safe to hitchhike and we thought nothing of it.
Around Cape Town, I’d mostly hitchhike with my surfboard tucked under my arm, as I’d found that people tended to stop for surfers more than just some luggage-less stranger on the side of the road. It was as if people believed surfers didn’t have the time for psychotic thoughts, and that robbers, serial killers, and rapists didn’t spend their time chasing waves.
Maybe it was that image, somewhere deep in my subconscious mind. The image of me standing there, surfboard tucked under my arm, desperately waiting for a lift, that made me slow down and stop for the tall, well dressed man who’d shown me the thumb as I came around a bend in the N2 highway headed towards my mid-week retreat in Bot River.
As I drove past him, and before consciously deciding to give him a lift, I caught the flash of something tucked under his arm. A book maybe?, A Bible?, I thought as I sped past him. Maybe that’s his Surfboard, I thought, smiling to myself.
The object was about the size of a small shoebox, maybe six inches wide and twelve inches long, a little flatter than a shoebox but roughly the same shape. The noticeable thing about it was its colour which came from being wrapped in some matt black paper that showed small, parallel, shiny spots where the sticky tape held it together.
Whatever was in that black, shoebox sized parcel tucked under his arm, it triggered my curiosity, and I hit the brakes and turned onto the gravel shoulder, a cloud of red dust overtaking me as I stopped for my hitchhiker.
I looked back in the rear-view mirror and saw that he had started walking slowly towards the car, black package gripped tightly under his arm.
I almost put the car into gear and sped off again as a wave of fear hit me. What are you doing? I asked myself. Stopping for a complete stranger with some suspicious looking package under his arm? It could contain a gun or a knife, or the tools of his trade as an axe-murderer or body mutilator, I thought in another panic attack.
I was about to slip the handbrake and speed off when I glanced over my left shoulder and saw that he’d disappeared from view. Maybe he’d taken another ride or just slipped away quietly into the bushes?
A sharp rap on my driver’s window made me jump in my seat.
He stooped to the window level where I could see his almost toothless mouth miming off words without sounds. I dropped the window a few inches. He was well dressed, I must admit with his black suit and neatly folded handkerchief in his top pocket.
Almost like he’d come from a wedding I thought.
And big! I estimated that he must be at least six and a half foot as he had to almost bend double to look into the car. I must say that in my 53 years, I haven’t seen too many Black South Africans of that size.
“Good morning Sir,” he said smiling. A good start I thought. I always liked manners in men and his regal greeting allowed me to drop the window another few inches.
“May I ask how far you’re going Sir?” he continued, still smiling his patchy, broken-toothed smile. I could smell his breath coming in through the window and I half turned away from the musty, almost compost like smells that were wafting in to the car.
“I’m going as far as exit 92, the Bot River turn off,” I replied.
“ I don’t mind that at all Sir,” he said brightly and darted, most deliberately around the front of the car and before you could say “Mary Martha”, he was seated next to me in the passenger seat, the Black shoebox now perched proudly on his lap.
I think that if he’d gone round the back of the car, I might have slipped the hand brake and floored the accelerator and got out of there pretty damn quickly.
It was the “Yes-No’s” that were making me nervous. I hated indecision and people who pussyfooted around. I saw black and I saw white. I saw full or I saw empty. I hated anything in between. As someone once said to me, you either push or you pull, you never mess around in between.
And here I was, messing around in between.
Yes, I stopped.
No, he has a black box and might use whatever’s inside it to kill me, or worse.
Yes, he’s smartly dressed.
No, he’s coming towards the car.
Yes, he’s gone and run off into the bush.
No, He’s at the window.
Yes, he greeted me nicely.
No, his breath smelled like something had crawled in there and died.
Whatever happened now, it had to be positive...