{"id":99167,"date":"2022-06-05T22:51:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-05T22:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/?page_id=99167"},"modified":"2022-07-29T04:44:29","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T04:44:29","slug":"sa-writers-college-2022-short-story-competition-winner","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/sa-writers-college-2022-short-story-competition-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"SA Writers College 2022 Short Story Competition Winner"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u2018People Like Us\u2019 <\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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by Matshediso Radebe<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFirst Place\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t2022 SHORT STORY WRITING COMPETITION\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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July. Whenever I see a truck in the rear-view mirror, I fantasise about opening the car door. I know it would crush me and I\u2019d become nothing but a memory in an instant. I also know that the road is wet and slippery and that can make driving tricky; that\u2019s how I almost got us killed last year when I was driving back from Eric\u2019s parents\u2019 thirtieth anniversary party while he was passed out on the passenger seat, drooling, with bottles of Hansa rattling at his feet.<\/p>

With the rain burbling on the car roof like cooking oil and competing with the Billy Joel song, I trace two droplets down the window, watching one get bigger and faster while the other falls behind. Eric\u2019s jacket almost swallows and disfigures me, making me look limbless; it\u2019s warm and smells like him, like English Blazer and cannabis.<\/p>

While drumbeating the steering wheel to the radio, in between drags of his cigarette, Eric tells me how proud he is, as if checking into a treatment centre is such a fucking achievement. You sit in the backseat, spitting the occasional, mindless \u2018yeah, true, totally\u2019 like you\u2019re adlibbing a trap song, probably swiping away on Tinder. Ever since Ma\u2019s funeral last month you\u2019ve kept a revolving door of guys and I\u2019m worried about you. When I recommended therapy, you paused and then said, \u2018Sorry, but you lose a say in your sister\u2019s life when you have meltdowns over the calories in PB & J sandwiches.\u2019 You apologised the next day, but still \u2026 .<\/p>

At the reception, I\u2019m signed in by a blondie with skin as smooth as crinkled white paper. Though she smells like cheap spirits and has dead curls where her bangs should be, with that jawline and those collar bones I\u2019d still put her on my Pinterest vision board. She flashes a yellowish smile before giving me papers to fill out. Before you guys leave, Eric kisses my forehead and reminds me that he\u2019s proud again while you stand by the door, tapping your wrist because you\u2019re late for something.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

December. In varsity, Eric and I used to skip parties to stay in and watch pirated K-dramas and eat instant noodles on the peeling leather couch his father gave him. He\u2019d stockpile 24-pack sugar-free Red Bulls for me, study the scattered tattoos on my arms like they were one of his cartography assignments, ask about their backstories while tracing the underlying scar tissue with the scratchy tip of his finger.<\/p>

\u2018I got them to cover up my mother\u2019s cigarette burns,\u2019 I said once.<\/p>

He said they reminded him of cute bumper stickers of pins, ducklings, stars, hearts. When we slept, his body would shadow me and make me feel small in the same way the lemon tree in our backyard did, the tree you used to say looked like an emaciated girl with yellow pins in her afro, the one we used to retreat to on cruel summer days. Remember?<\/p>

After graduation Eric and I both scored decent-paying internships. Me at a nice accounting firm and Eric at his uncle\u2019s mining firm, collecting samples and making coffee. Neither of us wanted to move back home so we invested in an apartment cinched into western Cape Town. The toilet got blocked every second week, the ceiling leaked when it rained, and the walls were an ugly teal colour we promised to repaint but never got around to. Regularly, we\u2019d get stoned on the balcony and he\u2019d read my short stories and call me brilliant.<\/p>

\u2018I\u2019d buy your anthology if you ever had the balls to publish one,\u2019 he\u2019d say.<\/p>

The geyser only keeps water hot for about an hour, so we shower together often. Some Saturdays we play dominoes and watch K-dramas. The house has two bedrooms, but most times we fall asleep on his bed and wake up holding hands like otters, breaths synced into a single cadence. I only sleep in my bed when he brings girls over. The walls are paper thin, the girls are always loud, and Eric always forgets to buy me earplugs.<\/p>

You think Eric and I are in love but afraid to admit it, which is expected because all your lovers started out friends and you think \u2018queerplatonic\u2019 is a friendship between two gays. I introduced you two three weeks after we moved in, a week after my 22nd<\/sup> birthday. You called our place cute; \u2018it\u2019s giving \u2026 minimalist chic\u2019, you said.<\/p>

You were in town for a photography gig and thought it would be good to stop by and meet the topic of our tri-yearly conversations. You wore maroon lipstick and a black miniskirt. I wore a yellow crop top and blue jeans. Eric said we looked like sororal twins, like alternative versions of the same person from different dimensions in a sci-fi about time travel.<\/p>

We settled into his couch, talking and laughing while rotating bottles of Smirnoff until the light outside died and we were too sloshed to walk. We played a stupid game where we tried to tell each other apart by feeling each other\u2019s faces in the dark. Eric felt nesh with the occasional prickliness of a beard in its infancy. His lips felt supple and pink, like a tulip. You felt like Ma – canine jaw, bumpered skin, semi-chapped lips. Eric brought up how crazy it was how just yesterday we could all fall asleep and trust that there\u2019d be an adult to carry us from the couch to the bed, but now we were the adults.<\/p>

\u2018Did Ma ever carry us to bed?\u2019 I asked.<\/p>

\u2018Of course,\u2019 you said. \u2018How else would she have known we needed to go on all those diets?\u2019 We laughed.<\/p>

But that feels like a millennia ago. Now we\u2019re at a wedding reception, watching you walk down the aisle in Ma\u2019s white beaded dress – the one you\u2019ve altered into a more plunged v-neckline and cinched waist. That daisy wreath makes you look angelic. The slit revealing the red dragon tattoo veiling the scar courtesy of Ma\u2019s flatiron makes you feel avant-garde. I never got the full story on why that happened. All I know is you screamed and begged Pa to take you to the hospital because you thought you were going to die, but he said something about social workers and forgiveness. Ma gave me your tunics and skirts and you spent your remaining high school weeks in baggy, grey slacks. Pa nursed you, apologised whenever he changed the dressing and you winced, put honey on the wound and assured us it would all be funny one day. He let you trace the soft, aged knife scar underlying the yin and yang tattoo under his ribcage.<\/p>

\u2018This isn\u2019t the first time your Ma has gone a bit overboard,\u2019 he chuckled as if trying to turn it into a light-hearted joke. \u2018When you turn 18, I\u2019ll take you to Tbose myself. Best tattoo artist I know\u2019.<\/p>

You guys don\u2019t talk anymore, but he asks about you all the time. When I told him about the wedding, he said he understood why you wouldn\u2019t want him there, considering the fact that you didn\u2019t even go to Ma\u2019s funeral. He asked me to visit him on Christmas.<\/p>

\u2018We don\u2019t even have to eat, dear,\u2019 he\u2019d said in a voice as lived-in as a sweater.<\/p>

You barely visited me while I was at the treatment centre, and Eric came with an excuse each time, each more unbelievable than the last. \u2018She\u2019s sick\u2019, \u2018She\u2019s helping a charity\u2019, and my personal favourite – \u2018She\u2019s at church\u2019. I got to thinking about Pa and how he must feel knowing his two daughters just cut him off. Now I call him every day. Call it guilt; call it filial duty.<\/p>

You\u2019re marrying a guy named Jon. Jon has a round belly, skinny limbs, a yacht, and \u2018good intentions\u2019, as you put it when I tried to talk you out of this a week ago after I was discharged. You met Jon at a bar and really hit it off debating Margaret Atwood\u2019s male gaze theory. Somewhere between coffee dates and late-night video calls it struck you that he acts like he was \u2018written by a woman\u2019 and you knew he was the one. He changes accents depending on who he\u2019s talking to and calls himself \u2018a man of culture\u2019 because he knows three Amapiano songs and can speak semi-fluent Setswana. Eric hates him.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

November. Eric and Sylvia are out on a date. They\u2019ve been dating for three months and she doesn\u2019t live here but she still keeps some of her clothes and toiletries here for sleepovers. I like Sylvia because she\u2019s a quiet lover and doesn\u2019t act weird about us bumping into each other in the kitchen the next morning. Once, I told her I was asexual and she said \u2018Oh, cool\u2019 and proceeded to write the grocery list.<\/p>

\u2018Regular or diet coke?\u2019 she\u2019d asked, biting the butt of the pen. Playing with the loose thread of my turquoise sweater under the table, I realised that this was the first time someone had asked me if I even wanted regular coke in a long time.<\/p>

\u2018Yeah, regular\u2019s good,\u2019 I\u2019d said casually, hoping she couldn\u2019t tell how much that meant to me. Loved ones hear \u2018anorexic \u2026 restrictive\u2019 and suddenly you don\u2019t have a say in your food consumption.<\/p>

You rest your arms against the cool steel rail outlooking the traffic below our balcony. You\u2019re in a yellow bodycon dress that highlights your svelte figure, the kind of figure that attracts model scouts in malls. Your skin is polished mahogany; light catches your shoulders, forehead and cheekbones. You\u2019re beautiful. I tell you about maybe visiting Pa sometime soon, how great Eric and Sylvia are, and how I know it won\u2019t last because Sylvia has a whole Pinterest mood board with wedding dresses and Eric hates the idea of marriage.<\/p>

You laugh and mention that Jon has an opening in a friend\u2019s accounting firm.<\/p>

\u2018Send me your CV,\u2019 you say. I got fired at my last firm, the one I interned for after graduation. I was passing out in print rooms and missing important deadlines, and the bags under my eyes looked sickly and unnatural. I looked like I was battling a life-long heroin addiction. It wasn\u2019t long until the big white man with a round belly and expensive cologne called me into his office and offered an ultimatum: drug rehab centre or getting fired. Somehow, leaving as a \u2018heroin addict\u2019 felt less humiliating than explaining that I was currently living on apples and sugar-free Red Bulls. When I got home and told Eric he wasn\u2019t so much surprised as he was just pissed and sad. He promised to move out if I didn\u2019t get help and booked me into a treatment centre the following week.<\/p>

\u2018Why isn\u2019t it out here?\u2019 you nod at the Opuntia on the windowsill. The house-warming gift. It\u2019s the ugliest thing I own. Whenever I look at it, I imagine you walking past budding lilies and orchids, seeing a hostile, parched, defensive ball of needles huddled in a corner and thinking \u2018Yes … perfect for her\u2019. It\u2019s the subtext that bothers me.<\/p>

\u2018That window\u2019s fine,\u2019 I say. \u2018Plus, I read an article saying not to move them around too much.\u2019<\/p>

\u2018An<\/em> article? You read one article?\u2019 You cough an obscure giggle, settling into the white chair across from mine. \u2018A little knowledge is a dangerous thing when it comes to you. Just a thumbnail\u2019s worth of info and you can concoct an entire human out of it.\u2019<\/p>

What a stupid analogy.<\/p>

I offer you carrot cake while we watch the sun tuck itself behind the horizon, but you reject it. Cigarette gritted between your teeth, you grab the matchbox on the glass table between us and strike so hard, there\u2019s a fierce sizzle.<\/p>

\u2018Do you think Ma would be proud of us?\u2019 I take a sip of my green tea.<\/p>

Crushing your half-finished cigarette, you work your way through a new one like Ma always said \u2026 something about finishing a whole packet being unladylike.<\/p>

\u2018Unfortunately, yes.\u2019<\/p>

An orchestra of road-raged honks and blaring sirens soundtracks our brief pause. We laugh.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Author Bio<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Matshediso Radebe is a 21-year-old second-year Communications student who has loved storytelling for as long as she can remember. She has her primary school English teachers to thank for the bits of confidence that have carried her writing for the past decade or so. Troubled characters with relatable relationships and compelling dynamics drive her storytelling.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/i>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBACK<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018People Like Us\u2019 by Matshediso Radebe First Place 2022 SHORT STORY WRITING COMPETITION July. Whenever I see a truck in the rear-view mirror, I fantasise about opening the car door. I know it would crush me and I\u2019d become nothing but a memory in an instant. I also know that the road is wet and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"wf_page_folders":[626],"class_list":["post-99167","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/99167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/99167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=99167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}