Devil In The Detail

Little Susan talks to Greta; the maid, she asks odd questions about why her skin is not as dark as hers. Greta smiles and answers not since Susan's father watches them creepingly from his dining room couch. Greta changes topic and asks little Susan, "Do you miss Pa?" (Grandfather). Little Susan giggles, and replies, "let's go sleep at Pa's", as she pulls Greta to stand, she talks as if they are to visit a candy shop. Greta giggles and tells Susan, "Pa is dead", Greta was taught to always be direct with Susan. Susan responds, "I will die too, then I will spend nights and more nights with Pa", she says this as she folds her small little arms and walks away.

A few years and mental illnesses later...

After a warm summer rain, Susan decides to die in that cold basement; a clean death. The family comes and goes, condolences and false surburban school melancholy forms. Unknown family loses another calf to the herd. Suicidal death here is the new norm. Another good old day, the black maid is sent back home, to the township for a fortnight or so. Back in the township Greta walks through puddles of potholes whilst inhaling that warm burnt tire smoke. "They protest again", she clicks her sore tongue as she sways away from a burnt school shoe in her sight. Gets to that shack of hers with a rusty bronze brown patch on the left right corner. She pushes the zinc door loudly open as it screeches and shaves the old dry polish from the floor. It's been a while. "It smells like home", she silently says, then she thinks of Susan's clean death and giggles, "at least she won't see this country crumble".

Susan's mother is in limbo, sitting on the kitchen chair, head rested on the clean dusty table; she counts the cockroaches passing by. Susan's death is a mere blurry truth in her mind that she has digested and then regurgitated. Her husband is in the dining room, barely showing care, covered in rosaries and a stench of thick oil and sweat. There's a golden flusk to his left, balanced on the ridge of the couch, he uses it as a holy oil vessel. He continues to read that old newspaper about African rebels galavanting. His fingertips stain the newspaper, his palms seem to have been drowned in the oil: a normal unhygienic holy gesture from this devout believer; amnesic vilomah.

He shakes his head and utters 'schwarze teufel' as he expresses dread towards what he reads. He then grips the couch trying to stand up, a sound of plastic air suction is composed by the couch as he pulls out. The oil on his palms causes him to slip. He is accidentally catapulted towards the table in front of him, he grips the couch harder and he's able to turn himself to the right side of the couch. He laughs hysterically, yet his wife doesn't even flinch or react in any way. Cockroaches seem much more pleasant and interesting than he is at the moment. As he stands he tilts his body to the right, reaches for his flusk from the other side of the couch. His belly fat pulls him into the bowel of the couch. He accidentally manages to push the flusk with his index finger; it falls as it flips and lands on the floor, upright. But with no lid. As it lands, his body slides from the couch, oily everywhere, he's looking into the well of the flusk. He follows slowly, trying to speak or wail, yet his voice goes quiet, it's a daymare.

His left eye bowel goes straight to the sharp opening of the flusk, then his falling weight forcefully causes the flusk to deeply shave his flesh. The flusk goes deep and scoops the left eye as it keeps digging into the left side of his forehead, a sound of an object falling into a body of liquid is heard. Its his eyeball into the oil. He's already unconscious, the air pressure is now pushing into the oil-filled flusk. With the conclusion of the fall the flusk expands, then a hole forms at the back of his head; then it's a Mentos in Coca-Cola explosion.

In the township Greta receives a call from the surburb police station, it's her boss. She is asked to come through quickly. Greta quickly fetches her head wrap from the hanging nail. Its still wet from the recent wash, she ties it recklessly. After two public taxis later, Greta arrives to see her 'boss lady' covered in blood and what seems to be oil, and she's in cuffs. Susan's mother helplessly utters, "accompany me to the grave, I need them". Greta looks confused... Officers ask her, "do you know this woman?" Greta looks at Susan's mother and confidently says, yes I do! She's my mentally ill domestic worker from the white squatters. Officers flinch in surprise; (a black woman with a house in the surburbs with a white maid), however, there had already been successful people of her colour in Rwanda already. Officers ask Susan's mother to confirm. Susan's mother froze in silence while having those cold hard handcuffs clutching her wrists. She looks into Greta's eyes with pity, sadness, bliss and hopelessness. Susan's mother with tears running down her face surprisingly confirms, yes this is Madam, and I'm the one who killed that man, that was Madam's husband.

There's a tense silence, Susan's mother breaks the silence again; "Madam, take the keys from the desk." As Greta fetches the keys Susan's mother whispers, take Susan to Pa. Then officers drag her away, Greta is left feeling goosebumps, not because of what Susan's mother said, but because of the inheritance through false pretense that she now has. Greta... Greta... Greta... Someone calls her, she sits in the laundry room, it's little Susan asking her if she's ready to go see Pa. It was a daydream, Greta was fantasizing the demise of the family she works for. She is asked to fetch the candles for the graveyard picnic that the family will have overnight at the gravesite next to Pa's grave.