The melting man

"Is she the one?"

I do not know where the voice had come from or if I had imagined it. It all started when I stared to long at that stupid painting. I could barely help myself, and my bubbling under "besighied", why did I have to be so nosey? I must be going crazy. The only reason I went on this school excursion is because my best friend Ayesha told me about rumours of it being an original Van Wyk piece. Had I known that it was the original Van Wyk piece I would have not stared that long.

"Is she the one?"

I have told Ayesha everyone of these strange dreams I have been having, since the one with the melting man. I am just waiting for her to come to school so I can tell her about the voice I keep hearing wherever I sleep or fall in a daydream. I do not know why she always have to be late damn I hate waiting to tell her something because then it feels like it takes her extra long to get her lazy ass to school. Ok, maybe I am being too hash on her. I am just always abnormally early for school. She has never been late for school in her life but she's always came to school later then when I arrive.

"Karin", two taps on my shoulder and I turn around to see Ayesha standing there smiling like she is advertising Colgate toothpaste. I wonder if she will ever become an ambassador for the brand, with her pearly whites. Now she is taking out my books to copy whatever homework we had today. While I do the same, I copy her English, Afrikaans and Economics. While she copies my Mathematics, Accounting and Life Science.

Once we got our flow going, I start...

"You will never believe the dream I had last night."

"My favourite words, like music to my ears."

"Ok, Shut up, let me tell you"

"..."

"..."

"Bismillah".

"Ok, just let me get my thoughts in order"

"Ok, in my dream I was by this river. I knew it was a dream because the river had like water in it. Like our rivers has been empty since day zero, you know, that why we have to take twenty minute showers and stuff. I also knew it was a dream because I never go out." ...

... " I was by this river with water in looking all confused and scared because it is never safe in my dreams anymore and because I do not know how deep rivers are suppose to be. I cannot swim where my feet do not reach the ground so I just kept staring at the river like if you so much as touch me I will Jet Lee your ass. The river moved and I screamed because I did not know rivers move, but that was not the scary part. The scary part was when the river said, "Is she the one?" ..."

"Allahabad, then what happened? Did you die?"

"Shhs, Ayesha let me tell you what happened after wards. Then I turned around because I was going to runway, because I do not know much about rivers, I repeat, I do not know much about rivers, but I do know that rivers are not suppose to talk. My Jet Lee skills out the window now, but I was feeling more like Wade Van Niekerk in that moment. So when I was just about to start running I tripped over someone but I was caught, but me not te fuck trusting dream land"...

..."I Jet Lee-ed whatever caught me, I came eye to eye with the man of my dreams, my worse nightmare, the melting man. He came close to me, his dark fiery eyes looking at me, how could it be possible to be so cold and warm at the same. I know his eyes so well you."...

I turned the English textbook to the back and opened it, to see him and look him in the eyes again, his fiery smokey dark eyes printed on the inside of the cover as always, how is it so empty and so suffocating...

"Karin stop daydreaming about the painting and tell me what happened you always do that you get to the good part and then you stop when it gets to the good part, you always terrorise me like that. I swear you are why there are Karin meme's"

"Ok, ok where was I?"

"You were Jet Lee-ing the melting man."...

"Oh, okay, so I was face to face with the melting man. We both pause for I brief second, and then he started melting before my eyes how the colours of a grey storm and a purple sunset in dripple's"...

..."But just as a small puddle of purple and grey was starting to form. I ripped his heart out, Elijah Michaelson style, his heart in my hands, I stared him in the eye's his lips met my ears and he asked in a tiny voice, 'Is she the one?', his mumbling shocked me because he never spoke one word to me never mind three. I was so scared I dropped his heart and he watched it as his heart rolled into the river before it reaches the river I turned around to the melted man's puddle of purples and Grey's"...

"Wow, Karin, your dreams are always wack, but I love them your dreams are the best."

"Ayesha, you might think it is cool and all but my dreams scare the shit out of me, and do you wanna hear the rest of the my dream because I can stop speaking now I will not mind."

"Wait, you mean there's more, how are your dreams so long? Where do you find the time to fit it in there?"

"Time is relevant, you it moves differently in dreamland, everyone knows that."

"Aye, Karin you know that I know that you are dying to tell the rest."

"So his heart melted into the river and it come alive and shouted 'She is the one' then it grabbed me by the head and I drowned."

"Damn, I really thought that you'd be alive at the end of that one"

"Me too, Ayesha me too."

The man of my dreams is everything to this rainbow nation. The pride of this country, the most loved man in the mother city, is the man who's heart melted in my hands and I throw it into a river like I was disposing a dead body. I am disgraceful.

And yet, he/she/they seem to believe I am the one. Whatever pronoun you think it is best for a talking river fused with a melted purple and grey heart should be called. Life is as confusing as my dreams. One thing I know for a fact is that I am scared of my dreams that feel more real then life. Why? Why? Why? Why is it so real.

"Because ideas are real too", said Mihle.

"Did I say that out loud?"

"No, I am a sangoma and we can read minds"

"Really?"

"No, I do have the sangoma gift but I think that the reading the mind thing is just a myth but I am still in training so it is far too early for me to know if it is true or not"

"How did you then know what I was thinking?"

"I told you before, but you refused to believe me"

"Because why would I be a sangoma?"

"I never said you are a sangoma, you need to accept and pray to your ancestors for that. I just said you have the gift to see, and that is why we share a connection."

"Milhe, jy's dom".

He rolled his eye's at me. "You know it is not that kind of connection."

"Mihle, people have been shipping you and Karin forever, so you cannot be saying such things, they are bound to abuse this so called connection", Ayesha is so tired the messes Mihle and I have made over the past four years, because she always feels the need to clear everything up. Ayesha sighs out of habit. My best friend and the guy I share a weird connection with would never be friends or even know how pronounce each other's names if I was not a common thread in this picture.

We are beautiful together. Mihle, Ayesha and I, and me and my connection to the unknown or as I presently called it dreamland. On one cloudless day, in the both naturally boring and exciting class of Life Orientation it happened in away I would have never in my wildest dreams imagine. In this free period of a class. Mihle with his eye's closed shaking uncontrollably on the cold not so clean and spacious floor mumbling in a tiny voice, if it was not for our connection I would have missed it.

"Is she the one?"