The Springbok: Part 2

Gesluit Vir Goed (Closed for Good)

The signs were subtle at first. The corner café where Ben used to get peppermint crisps closed one Monday without warning. A hand-scrawled note on the door read, “Closed until further notice,” but everyone knew what it meant. They’d been robbed, again. Probably at gunpoint. Again.

At church, the attendance shrank. People stopped coming, families disappeared. One week they’d be sitting three pews ahead, the next they were gone. No farewell, no explanation. Just an empty seat and murmured speculations: “They’ve gone to Australia.” Or, “They packed up in the night and headed to the UK.”

Willem began coming home earlier. Not because he wanted to, but because no one came to the garage anymore. Business had dried up. People weren’t fixing microwaves or stoves. They were buying padlocks and pepper spray. They were calling emigration agents and looking over their shoulders.

One morning, Ben overheard his parents whispering in the kitchen.

“I saw Johan yesterday. He says the next farm over was hit last weekend.”

Elsa’s voice: “Another one?”

Willem: “Ja. Tied up the old couple. Took everything. Set the place alight. The cops were useless.”

They fell into silence. Then his mother added, “We can’t live like this. This isn’t normal.”

Willem didn’t reply.

Ben knew he wasn’t supposed to hear things like that. But he did. He always did.

One Friday, the school held a lockdown drill. They practiced hiding under desks, turning off lights, staying quiet. It reminded Ben of a game he used to play with his cousins called “shadows.” Except now it wasn’t fun.

On the walk home that day, he and Tshepo passed a house with a for-sale sign hammered into the lawn. Another one. The week before, a family down the street had been hijacked in their driveway. Their ten-year-old daughter had seen it all happen from the backseat. She didn’t speak for days afterward.

Elsa started double-locking the doors. She got up at night to check the windows twice. She unplugged the television when it wasn’t in use. “Load shedding’s getting worse,” she’d mutter, checking the candle drawer.

Then came the blackout. Three days without power. The fridge stank. The food spoiled. Neighbours passed around cold boiled eggs and stale bread. One man started a fire in his driveway to cook on. That night, the flames glowed like a signal flare.

Ben stood at the window, staring at the dark horizon. It felt like the city was vanishing, street by street, light by light.

He asked his dad, “Why don’t we just go? Why don’t we leave?”

Willem’s eyes were tired. “Because this is where we were born. Because this is still home.”

Ben didn’t understand. But part of him wanted to.

So he drew a picture the next day: a map of Johannesburg, but with pieces missing. Whole suburbs gone, others faded into pencil smudges. In the centre, a boy stood alone, holding a flickering candle.

He called it: Still Here.

Ben's Drawing of Johannesburg

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