Don’t mention that your grandparents escaped gas ovens, think of something

nice to say, anyway it was long ago and you’re still here almost! Don’t

mention the men in balaclavas who beat you and your husband in front of

your three-year-old child before locking you in the boot of your car. Crime

brings down property values so don’t mention it, don’t mention Marikana

and who gets what, and don’t try to come up with a theory or make some

claim about the relationship of crime to poverty, you’ve never been poor so

make do with your lot and don’t mention the robbers that crossed the double

stand adventure garden and forced themselves into the French windows of

your three-bedroomed farmhouse and dragged you out of your dream under

the duck-down duvet. You pinched your lips together stifled sounds as they

manhandled you around the house demanding money and kicked away the

teacher’s salary in your wallet because it was not enough. Don’t mention that

you looted your child’s money box for the one hundred dollars that her aunt

in the US sent to her in increments of ten dollars per birthday and Christmas

for the past five years, don’t mention them (especially to the child! She’ll be

FURIOUS). Don’t mention that they tied you up and threatened to shoot you

(Ag, there was no sign of a gun and they were young and sounded foreign)

and don’t mention that after they left you dragged yourself (and the chair

you were tied to) to the panic button and pressed it with your chin and the

security company took forty minutes to come and so you had ample time to

think and mostly you thought

​

Wonderful! I am alive!