While doing my weekly shopping on a warm tranquil Monday morning recently my day was turned upside down by a force of emotional freight pulsing through my mind and body, that even even thinking about it now leaves me out of breath!
Walking home using my four-wheel walker, two young men walked towards me, all the while loudly talking to each other in the unique AfriKaaps.
As they reached me one of them stopped me with an outstretched hand and, looking me in the eye, said: “I feel like killing an old white person today.” The other chuckled, saying, “It is time.”
How does one respond in such a moment? The thought flashed through my mind not to engage them and just keep on walking, listening for signs that they were following me.
Amid all the trials and tribulations currently gripping South Africa hatred and disillusionment are a feature of daily life.
But did it ever occur to us, living on the outskirts of a metro, that we are busy changing from a sense of relative safety to the profoundly unsettling thought that we are now living in a bubble of fake safety?
Emmy Holliday,
Somerset West
