John Papadakous roared across
three lanes en-route to the city. The N1
was - as usual - constipated in the left and middle lanes, but he had timed it
right, and felt a rush of satisfaction as he opened the throttle into the space
before him. He was difficult not to
notice. The dusk-orange Lamborghini was
hard to miss, even though it was low enough to pass under most of the side-view
mirrors of the cars on the road that day, for the most part conventional
Japanese and European sedan models from the most recent to some relics from the
70s and 80s. He wasn’t quite sure if he
had a meeting that morning or whether he was just racing towards the city so he
could find out that he did. Last night’s
binge had obliterated all memory of plans he might have made and he was relying
on his personal assistant to point him in the right direction when he got
there. "There", was a strip
club, which he owned and ran, the name of which was emblazoned across his
number plate.
He was hard to miss on the
road. In person, however, if lost in a
crowd in a mall, he would still have stood out, but in a less conspicuous way. His thick Rolex would certainly have stood
out, if his arms weren’t so hairy that any watch seemed to bury itself deep
within his fur. It was his head-hair
that made him stand out most though. He
was almost compulsive about its shape, which he waxed carefully into existence
every morning from the thick hair that still remained on his head. Like his car, it kept an immaculate curve
from front to back, and seemed to flex, like an illusory hologram fitting its
various movements in perfect accompaniment.
It was a hairstyle for all occasions, and a car for all occasions that
distinguished this seasoned millionaire from the crowd in a mall.
He glanced up at the mountain
for a brief second. It was still
there. The sun shone a dim grey slate on
the mountain. It seemed to disappear
into the mist of clouds caught on its top.
He wished he could buy a vehicle that would allow him to drive all the
way to the top; something that surfed the air on anti-gravitons, like in the
movies. Wouldn’t that be something? He twisted his mind around the possibilities
as he entered the city. Almost on autopilot, oblivious of the stares his
Lamborghini inevitably drew, he snaked his way through traffic on the city
streets, passing by vendors with huge cartloads of goods, and street-kids up
early, looking for breakfast … all forming one big obstacle course for his
mindless meander through the streets in his outlandish vehicle. Even unconsciously, every movement of his car
gestured for the attention of everyone around, and for the most part, it
worked. Everyone paid attention.
The bouncer removed two orange
heavy plastic traffic cones from the parking spot immediately outside the entrance
to his club and he swung into it in one deft forward movement. No doubt, everyone was still paying
attention. As he was getting out of the
car, with his back turned towards the entrance, a group of street children
seemed to bounce by nearby him, playing a game of footie with an old orange
juice bottle. It was at this precise
moment, many would claim, that he slumped forwards back onto the door he had
just closed. His knees buckled
underneath him, and he felt a strange wetness running down his torso. His blood had covered the front of his pants
like a thick wet coat of paint, and he couldn’t tell where he was bleeding
from. He was aware of screams of
astonishment and heard instructions being shouted to get help, but the voices
seem muffled and remote, like they were voices in a dream. I’m dying, he thought, so this is the moment,
and faded into unconsciousness.
From where he had stood at the
corner of the parkade, Juju, had seen what he needed to, and it scared him into
a deep, long silence. He had seen the
killer, exactly as he had seen it before, in the darkroom. But what did this mean?
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