August 9th, 2026
The rear wheel bearing let go on the N7 between Citrusdal and Clanwilliam and the new housing Karel had sold her as secondhand-but-good went from whine to grind in the space of a single overtake, and she had to pull onto the verge in second gear and sit in the cab for two minutes before she got out.
What happened
The rear wheel bearing let go on the N7 between Citrusdal and Clanwilliam and the new housing Karel had sold her as secondhand-but-good went from whine to grind in the space of a single overtake, and she had to pull onto the verge in second gear and sit in the cab for two minutes before she got out. The bracket she had welded the previous week had sheared. She cut a new one from a rusted tow-bar, the angle grinder throwing sparks up her forearm, and burned a four-centimetre line across the inside of her right wrist in the exact spot she had once burned herself on her father's braai when she was eleven. She bled it clean with her teeth and welded the bracket on at the side of the road with the sun starting to drop. Tertius Joubert's rig passed her at speed, the puff adder logo reflected in her mirror, and she did not raise a hand — she made Clanwilliam at dusk with the relief of being under a streetlight enough to stop the bakkie and sit on the tar with her back against the wheel for nineteen minutes.