ROOM FOR ONE MORE It was one of those intense dreams where she actually knew she was dreaming, but the dream still seemed to be real. She was in this big house. Very big. It was one of those type of houses that you read about in the old tales. It was more a castle than a house. Long candles were burning everywhere, throwing eerily, dancing shadows on the damp looking walls. She was alone in this room. In the dream she was a visitor to the house. This was now after the big dinner and she was in her room ready to go to bed. Before she could get into bed, she heard the clacking of horse hooves on the paving of the court yard just outside her room. She look out of her window and down onto the shadowy courtyard. A big black coach had just arrived. One minute she was up in her room, the next she was standing next to the coach – like it usually is in dreams. The coach was big, but not big enough for all the people in it. There were so many people squeezed into the coach that their body parts were sticking out the windows of coach. From the other side she could see even more people scrambling to get in. They were squeezed in tighter than sardines in a small tin, but everyone was still trying to get in. Although she knew she was dreaming, a cold fear washed over her whole body filling her with an icy dread and making her hair stand on end. And then the coachman looked down at her. She had never seen anybody with such big, intense eyes as this coachman. He had the thickest lips she had ever seen on a man. His skin was black, but pale at the same time. A type of juxtaposition that she just couldn’t describe or comprehend. As he looked at her his voice came from all sides of the dream without his mouth moving once. His intense eyes were looking straight at her as she heard his voice say: “THERE IS ROOM FOR ONE MORE…” Her instincts told her what to do. She just walked away into the pale shadows of the dream. When she woke up the next morning she could only remember the part where the coachman told her there’s room for one more. The rest of the dream was sitting on the outer edges of her memory and she couldn’t remember the details. So she got up and prepared herself for work. Outside on the rainy street it was a typical Mitchells Plain winter’s morning with people rushing through the lamp lit streets to bus stops, taxi pick up points and train stations. In the township every part of life is dangerous and one continuous struggle just to survive. In the iciness of a Cape winter life is even more unforgiving. At the town centre she waited in the cold and wet amongst the other, indifferent people, and then her taxi arrived. With this taxi she will ride into town to her place of employment where she worked in a jewellery store in Quay Road. This is a routine she follows every morning for the last eight years now. The taxi quickly filled with people and when she had to get in she saw there was one seat open. And then she saw him. The same man from her dreams. Intense eyes with dark rings around it that looked as if he didn’t sleep for years. The thickest lips she had ever seen on a man…and that pale black skin. This is what sin must look like if in human form she thought to herself. And then the words rolled over his thick lips: “THERE IS ROOM FOR ONE MORE.” The terror from the dream streamed over her whole body like ice cold water. It was an intense dread that just wanted to make her run as fast as she could. It was as if she was being pulled under a stream of cold, dark water and not being able to escape. She quickly walked away from the man and his taxi and the town-centre. Something told her to just go home and forget about the day. That evening as she sits in front of the television to watch the soap operas she sees it on the news. Several taxis tried to cross a flooded road near the golf course, but got swept away when a wall broke and a rush of water came out. Everyone in all the taxis where drowned. As the camera sweeps over the bodies she sees the pale skin black man staring at the camera with his intense eyes wide open, even in dead. Wherever sin is there is always room for one more… |
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