One early evening while waiting for a train
\nI walked into an old station bar,
\nto buy a cold cider to kill a thirst
\nin the sweltering
\nthirty degree Celsius summer heat<\/p>\n
and saw a very old cripple man
\nwho nursed a glass of white wine
\nand he was talking to himself
\nand sometimes stuttered over his words.<\/p>\n
When he looked up at me
\nthere was fire in his eyes
\nand it was almost as if
\nhe recognized me, from a dream
\nor a prophecy of something<\/p>\n
and suddenly his face was calm
\nwhile he called me over for a chat
\nand I ordered a bottle of brandy for him
\nand another Hunters Gold for me.<\/p>\n
He complained that the times were cruel
\nwith one hand motioning to his missing legs
\nthat he had lost in a train crash
\nand complained about Afrikaners
\nignoring each other
\nand only living for themselves
\nwhile the nation is being led astray<\/p>\n
and then suddenly said but my boy,
\nyou know this,
\nhave experienced it yourself
\nas a learned man without a job<\/p>\n
but let me tell you something
\nabout days long gone
\neven before the Boer war
\n(where the British killed
\nwomen and children in concentration camps) ,
\nmany Afrikaner farmers
\nwere executed at Slagtersnek
\nand it had been a terrible, terrible time<\/p>\n
and then that holy Englishman John Phillip
\nmeddled in our affairs
\nand now he haunts us again
\npeering in at the window panes<\/p>\n
and I shook my head, did not understanding
\nexactly what the old man said
\nand heard something about
\nEnglish people being in cahoots
\nwith the current government
\nand ladies ruling as bosses
\nwhile educated Afrikaner men are jobless<\/p>\n
and he swayed on his stool
\nand I rose to steady him
\nwhen he said to pour more brandy with ice
\nand complained that now nobody
\nis keeping the impis at bay
\nand pointed a finger at me<\/p>\n
and I thought that he said
\nbut you will do, or maybe
\nyou haven\u2019t got a clue
\nand leaning forward
\nstrangely his breath was clear<\/p>\n
and I heard him stuttering something
\nsounding like even uncle Paul
\nin church square knows
\nthat soon all Afrikaner men
\nwill be poor<\/p>\n
and I said to him:
\n\u201cMy man we already are
\nwith the new black regime,
\nbut most Afrikaners
\njust do not realise it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
He smiled at me then
\nand steadily held his glass, in a final salute
\nbrought it to his lips
\nand faded into the naught
\nde-materializing in front of me.<\/p>\n
Gert Strydom, 2010<\/a><\/p>\n Christopher Hope<\/a> (1972), David Kramer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One early evening while waiting for a train I walked into an old station bar, to buy a cold cider to kill a thirst in the sweltering thirty degree Celsius summer heat and saw a very old cripple man who nursed a glass of white wine and he was talking to himself and sometimes stuttered over his words. When he looked up at me there was fire in his eyes and it was almost as if he recognized me, from a dream or a prophecy of something and suddenly his face was calm while he called me over for a...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-soapbox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5563,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562\/revisions\/5563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}