Next of kin I didn't ask for

The cousin's name is on that form. I read it three times before I could say it in my own head without my mouth going dry. He put my name down. He sat at a typewriter and typed my full name into a complaint about a gravid female I released after she bit me, properly, with the right paper, and he knows nothing about what that night cost me. He does not want to know. He lives in a house my father paid for. I used to walk to school on that road.

Wikus came this morning at 06:30 with the same question — where is he now — except this time he didn't ask. He handed me the thermos and walked off. The lid is what cut my thumb open at the old August gash. I drank the coffee anyway, blood in the lid or not. That is the second time this month a man has handed me something and walked away without asking for anything back. I do not know what to do with that. I am built to owe people. I am built to leave before the owing starts. Wikus keeps confusing the system.

The Pieter news is in the printout. His outfit bidding on the same Bo-Kaap contract I already sealed clean. I want to spit. I want to drive to his yard and park across his gate. I will do neither. I will sit on my couch and eat a tomato and look at the printout folded next to my plate like a placemat. That is what I am doing with my Saturday night.

Fourteen days. I keep counting. The wall is going up faster than I can lay bricks. The man from Citrusdal sent a photo of his dogs. I left it on seen. That felt correct.