The Caper

Come see our paradise please?

thecaper — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:39:57 +0000

Every day Barak, my terrier, takes me for long walks. He insists, the way a man insists on taking care of a bill or in full terrier regalia, the snarling and playful little beast.

What pleases me most about his acumen as a hiker is his ability to recall three months down the track a route we took in the summer. Then it was sunny, now it rains. Still, Barak takes the desired way. He hardly ever lets me down; beware the sight of a mole, bird in flight, cycles, joggers, squirrels, my feet, a tennis ball.

He makes space for love in my life. A year ago, I walked along the Promenade in Sea Point, and decided at once to get a dog to further my own sanity. I have to say that Barak and hikes, discipline and love, makes life all down upon the sudden beat of expectation, life of the poetic, worth living.

I have waited nearly 42 years for my poker-face to dissipate and a week ago it finally started. God, I find smiles and laughs where before there were few unless hidden. So please believe me that the life of Barak – who low and high has made a friend of my old wise man, before not in any sense a lover of dogs, and has now charmed my mother too – is significant.

In truth, I am sure God and his team sent Barak our way.

Big Thursday

thecaper — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:57:24 +0000

This day is one that I would not change if I could, I have to say. Everything ran smoothly latterly. Early doors, a few specks, as there always will be in the hen coop that’s life. One dare not elaborate, except to tell the following scandalous tale: “Old Merlin came to Cape Town, right, and walked down the Strand Street. Seeing two women brown in skin, he extoned, in typical Flatse voice – taal, really-, when the cars blocked his way: “Jou ma se ….”, with such relish, and when he turned around, the look and the women’s faces made his earnest and hearty attempt at salacious innocence redeem his damned language. One may say, that Merlin in that momentary lapse of good reason aligned with a fall, yet moments later all laughed and smiled. He realised at that moment that he came to tell that true alchemy is the perfect marriage of man and woman. A strange occurrence in Cape Town. A Merlinian Caper. Can you feel the love tonight? Made old Merlin remember a particular night with the dame of his search many a moon ago in Wales, when Merlin was still called Merlin and the Emerald Island shone bright on a scattershot Welsh nation which would later trumpet rugby to South Africa and the World. At large…”

Of course, Merlin said hart …

Merlin

thecaper — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:35:11 +0000

Merlin was here. Made the words that follow magically disappear.