Storylines
Time has marked me. Furrows line my brow. I contemplate them, stroking them gently, each one telling a tale. I am their canvas. They are my storylines. I wonder, sometimes, if I could iron them away. Smooth my face back to some earlier version of myself. But perhaps that would be erasing the evidence. The evidence of sixty years. Today, I feel every one of them. I feel the cold to my bones. Not the usual Cape Town cold I grew up with in the Southern Suburbs, but an iciness that takes me back to Tewkesbury, more than a decade ago. The kind of cold that settles into the walls and refuses to leave. The kind that requires down jackets and knee-high fake-fur boots. The kind that leaves sleet on windscreens and soup pots full. Central heating! Pah. Our Cape Town homes are ill-equipped for this kind of torture. I hug my hot-water bottle to me like a long-lost lover. It is squishy and pot-bellied and jiggles when I squeeze it. A poor substitute for a warm body. I raise my white mug to my lip...
