The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga

Author:Masande Ntshanga
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio

I get a delayed text message from my case manager, Sis’ Thobeka. The three of us are back at Cissie’s place, again, and Ruan’s high on khat, playing an erratic set of drums on his kneecaps. We met a dealer in Rosebank who sold us twenty stems. He agreed to drop the price by a third.

At Cissie’s place, we listen to Ruan as he drums. Pausing for a moment, he says we should just use the money and then kill ourselves.

That could be a life, he says.

Cissie and I agree. We share another stem and tell Ruan that this isn’t a bad idea.

It’s like that book, he says. There was a guy. He wrote a book and won a prize for it.

I open the text message and Sis’ Thobeka says to me, Lindanathi, your CD4 count.

She writes: Lindanathi, you didn’t fax us your CD4 sheet, I thought I told you yesterday to—

I delete her message.

Then Ruan says, I can’t remember the guy who wrote that book. He tells us he’s googling it and Cissie and I get up to watch. We lean over him, and, for the rest of the night, we keep stems between our teeth and chew until we can’t feel our faces any more. Then we prod our fingers into each other’s sides and laugh like well-fed children.

The following morning finds the three of us still awake. The sun rolls over Table Mountain just after six a.m. on Monday morning, and under it we lie sprawled across Cissie’s leather sectional couch. It rained last night, and Cissie tells us there’s a leak in the roof that’s wet her cushion. She keeps extending a palm to pat the damp spot. Ruan and I lie still, watching her.

Guess what today is, she says.

What?

It’s a holiday, Cissie sighs, but guess which one?

We can’t, and when we don’t answer her, she tells us it’s Women’s Day. I don’t have to go in to work today and my aunt is still dead, she says. What now?

Ruan and I remain silent. Then Cissie falls back on the sectional couch and lies there, motionless.

Half an hour later, we shower and share what’s left of the khat. Then we take the lift down to the ground floor and catch a taxi to the bottle store in Claremont, where we stock up on champagne and liqueurs and everything else we never drink. We walk out of the bottle store with a loaded shopping bag in each hand, skipping across the main road like the world might end tomorrow. Then I guess this is how we spend the rest of our Monday. We talk and sometimes the three of us shout, and then our vision grows sharp around four a.m. and we feel ourselves floating up to the ceiling, speaking many praises to each other’s existence.

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