The melting man

Seven Chairs

I am wicked and everything but fair, I will so you to the path you seek. You will see and you will feel, because in the end I am the one with all the answers and it will all be revealed as it must.

Welcome, please now that you both are here, Ayesha and Mihle, let me invite you have a sat in the seven chair. Each chair consists of an essay by Karin Abrahams and the fifth one ended up in Afrikaans. The first chair, it was titled "The Only Thing Worse Than A Boy Who Hates You Is A Boy Who Loves You".

I have collected theses chairs throughout my travels and I have found it all in the most thoughtless places. Have a sat, get nice and cosy, and let me show you the small pieces of the grey and white that matter, the messy fuzz of Karin Abrahams' mind, victim of Archie Smith, The Melting Man.

The first chair - March exam

The first chair, was wooden and the words were carved into it. In this story the words will be proven.

She did not know how long it had been since she had last seen the sun, since she had breathed the air straight from the sky. She knows that it glows neon green in this darkness and she knows that she does not breath this air alone. She always wears a brown dress and the temperature neither increases or decreases and the sound of nothing litters the place that she shares among other brown dress.

The controllers in grey pants and black ties would walk them with hate in their souls. Hate that grew from the cage with their chest like a torn bush. Grey pants' and ties would walk with fire in their arms and it would vaporize the limbs that drowned within the brown dresses. They walked in they darkness of neon light.

The grey pants and black ties were gain confidence, the confidence that they stole by the brown dresses in the neon darkness. They grew so confident that they took the brown dresses out for a walk in the broad daylight. The sun slow danced on the skin of the brown dresses and the air sang in their lungs, the sky was coloured pastel blue, the sun like a yellow stain in it. They walk with starving eyes and limbs through the deserted shopping centre. The came the sound, the sound of hope the shuffling of shoes. The line of starving brown dresses walked on through the centre confidence-less.

All lacked confidence in escape, they were trapped inside their skull of neon darkness but the sound of hope traveled on. It travels from one ears and out the other of each brown dress. Until it reached on brown dress it traveled from one ear and it traveled farther deep into the the heart of a believer. She broke the single file of brown dresses and ran in the direction of the sound. It found it reached the shuffling shoes and mingled between them. Her lungs filled with a familiar smell. Her starving limbs slowly followed the smell.

She met with a black Salah top and glassy  grey eyes and a word came next "Karima"  it said. Karima stood unmoving until it reached the heart once more. Tears flowed from her face and then came the choked out word "Daddy". Black Salah top and brown dress embraced and their were now two pairs of glassy eyes. Grey pants and black ties pulled at brown dress and kicked dirt in the eyes of black Salah top. She was returned to green neon darkness.

It was proven, the only thing worse then a boy who hates you is a boy who loves you.  

The second chair – June exam

The second chair was plastic, it was white and it was titled his promise to not tell anyone obviously excluded his best friend.

It started like all friendships, it started on the streets and it ended in away that most relationships do, it was out grown.

Rose met Archie when they were kids she had just moved to Mitchell's Plain at the age of seven. Archie was all older than her by four months. Kids would escape their boring parents for a game of street soccer. They'll all meet after watching Dragon Ballz on SABC 2 at half past five. It was a warm day in early January, few days to the start of the new year. Rose being the new girl in the group she was shown to the goalie.