Onderstebo
Under Story deur Chloe Benjamin
Hoe dis jy 'n liefdesverhaal ongewoon en onvergeetlik op? Jy laat dit in twee universums afspeel. Die een is 'n spieëlbeeld van die ander, maar nie heeltemal nie. Die anti-universum weerspieël nie, dit rym. In 'n ander heelal bestaan jou dubbelganger, soort van. Jou lewe verloop vorentoe en hare agtertoe. Julle is nie heeltemal dieselfde nie.
Laurel en Eli Rosen was van skool af verlief. Hulle is later getroud en het 'n seun, Silas, gehad. Hulle is al twee wetenskaplikes. Laurel het paddastoele bestudeer en een keer in 'n woud langs die strand so meegevoer geraak dat sy die slapende Silas te lank alleen gelos het. Hy was gefassineer deur water en het die see in geloop. Sy bereik hom te laat. Hy was agt jaar oud.
In die vernietigende smart wat volg, dryf Eli en Laurel uitmekaar en skei.
In 'n poging om tot verhaal te kom, gaan werk Laurel in Antarktika as skoonmaker. Eli daag ook daar op, as wetenskaplike. Die een het nie geweet die ander sou gaan nie. Daar is nog heelwat onverwerkte dinge tussen hulle, en liefde.
Op die ys verskyn daar 'n soort koepel, 'n lugspieëling of iets wat dag en nag gloei. Eli doen navorsing oor die duoversum en 'n omgekeerde heelal. Laurel leer in 'n droom dat die water onder die koepel in 'n holte soos 'n groot bad lê en dat daar 'n poort is na die anti-universum. Hulle begin glo hulle kan Silas in die ander heelal gaan haal en huis toe bring.
Eli en Laurel duik een nag met skuba-toerusting die ysige water in en vind die poort. Hulle beland in die anti-heelal. Hier is hulle ander weergawes van hulself. Alles is omgekeer. Mense word as bejaardes gebore en word elke jaar jonger, tot hulle as babas sterf. In daardie heelal is Silas nog nie gebore nie. Hy daag later op, as agtjarige. 'n Half-life noem die inwoners daar so 'n kind: Almal weet hoe lank hulle het om te leef. Eli en Laurel het agt jaar om te probeer terugkeer na hulle wêreld met Silas, maar die jare spoed verby en die poort het toegevries.
As jy van wetenskapfiksie hou, of net van onsterflike liefdes, is dit die boek vir jou. Meer wil ek nie weggee nie. Soms het dit gevoel asof my kop bollemakiesie slaan soos ek my die alternatiewe werklikhede probeer verbeel, maar wat belangrik is, is die karakters en die dinamika tussen hulle. En die manier waarop so 'n gekantelde heelal jou anders laat kyk na die lewe, na oud word en groei.
Silas word al hoe jonger en kleiner en word weer in Laurel opgeneem. Sy en Eli raak ook al hoe jonger en is later tieners.
But Laurel is only human.
"I don't want to die," she says to Eli.
She would miss Wisconsin's wide-open fields, with their audiences of corn. Watching squirrels race to the base of a trunk and scramble up, up, up. She would miss trees: symphonies, ancients, whole universes each. She would miss music, and hot coffee, and streetlights on rainy pavement; or picking chard in the garden before dinner, the leaves as large as palm fronds and slick with the light spilling out of the kitchen. She would miss eating and sex, cold lakes and hot baths - the capacity for touch. She'd miss having conversations with everyone she loved. And what of the books she'd never read, the questions that she wouldn't answer? She would miss learning what was learnt about the world after she left it.
It is greedy, she knows. But after years of going backwards, Laurel wants to grow old.
Die outeur sê in die erkenning: Writing Under Story has been a six-year journey into a mind-bending rabbit hole.
Die leser se brein doen ook gimnastiek en duik by haasgate af. Dis vreemd, anders en lieflik bekend, die anti-universum. En Eli en Laurel se liefde wat deur al die werklikhede bly smeul.
Op haar skrywersfoto is Chloe Benjamin jonk en mooi. Sy het reeds twee ander romans geskryf, waarvan een, The Immortalists, 'n wêreldwye topverkoper was en in dertig tale vertaal is.
Under Story deur Chloe Benjamin is deur Tinder Press uitgegee en kos R465 by Takealot.
EKKE
I eke
out a meaning for my self.
Ek
Ek
Ek
Ek
Ek
Ek
Stottering
Stutter ringing
sharp peals of smiles at the attempt / contempt
the temptation to become myself is great.
We’re on such intimate terms, when he writes me, he says, hi K,
I did not give him leave to abbreviate
me
he takes the initiative
to do in the rest of my spelling.
My name is embedded in my pronoun.
K Afr
C Anglophone / mobile phone / peripatetic cp. very pathetic
One of the first things I learn is that Afrikaans doesn’t write with Cs
sees
sien
seen everything.
A mirror image is never static.
No still photograph reverses itself, modulates
or rearranges its face, unless it is another picture altogether.
The possibility exists that K reflects C in a way that has bent or curved
one letter into a resemblance of another.
One of the first things I learn is that English rarely uses K,
except in a CK combination
lock.
Rotate the numbers till chimera and metal gives off on fingertips
tieties in die wind
words kiss but never uncover any form of hidden meaning
unless that meaning is the meaning in that moment
momentum
memento mori.
It is the K in my name that saves me.
K in me ek
C is meek.
There are certain associations I harbour against Clara
too British
too Victorian heroine
sweet virtuous desirous / solely in a nuclear family way
complicit in characterization
eyes cast down
passive except for good deeds, dead perhaps.
Conceded there is clarity in Clara but claustrophobic
her beauty is in the innocence of hair lying like unraveling lace on her chest.
Her chastity is duty
her aesthetic ethics
knowledge is restricted to goodness.
The perfect equilibrium, when she
lowers her eyes it is modesty, when I
fail in eye
contact
it’s a skittishness a fault
an unsocialized character default blank slate.
Connect the dots of our eyes when we chat.
I shame my sister name because I get it
sense the same gentleness cum submission in me.
If you close the wide open legs of the K, she becomes a cross / kruis
reclining
a position of art
submission but with intention
what after all is the difference between gentleness and gentility
a certain crossness in the chirography.
Coincidentally, at the exact moment I consider writing my name
I read about another kind of Clara
modernized, which means still not quite contemporary.
An artist,
she demands respect in a way that implies erudition but with pride
self-consciousness negation no-nonsense drapery dresses.
Steeds nie
klinkklaar nie.
Die klankbaan konglomereer om die ore
n skrikbeeld van oorbelle
mond oorblyfsels teen die skedel
ancestry perverted as
vertes
Ekke is n nadruksvorm van ek.
n Dialek
I am an emphasis of myself.
I speak languages.
Lyftaal
Skryftaal
Statuary marble
to construct my mouth and bite words out in frieze.
In my handwriting more often looks like move.
Handskrif
Tydskrif
Move somehow in time
I want to spell hand with more pretension like a playwright.
My language
is a secret / secretion
curled up in a recess
uncurling its animal muscles when the break is done and
auditorium bells chime dier dierbaar baarmoeder mother tongue licks, licks cryptically
from the crypt inside me.
Afrikaans is an affection
hidden / geheim
I know for a fact that Heim is home in another language
the finger that sticks its tongue right in there to
break in my hymen.
Deciduous female figures
cast off selves
left and right
lies grow out of shoulder blades and lodge /
a nervous condition called the angelic
ekke
is an extension
attached to the back or to dial a direct call
ek ke
back-to-back
ek ek
k lyk soos vlerke.
Forget what I say most of the time
thing is, he listens, he thinks.
When lovers lie back-to-back there is dust on things they’ll never clean
their bodies inflecting wings.
Ekke
is not a mirror reflection
but it is a reflection.
Spelling
Spieël
Speel
Spel
The mirror is not a safe space.
When I look in the mirror I see / C
reflections of language.
It is prejudiced against me,
I do not belong in any one mirror my tongue licks away the definition
of language in the mist on the glass
the glass responds differently when I ask in different lingos
there is no lingua franca of the mind
my kind
jou taal is ontwortel
gegordel
n gegorrel
genade tog
I got to go.
Klara du Plessis