Mango Hedgehogs

As part of the oh-how-quickly series — 27.3

It is 27 March and today is the day I will resume my former endeavours of writing a story a day for the next 21 days — if health, sanity, and supply of spirits remain in order.

It is also the first day of lockdown.

Nearly every single morning in summer I awoke to the sounds of chatter, cars drifting by and the relevant effects of the Taekwondo class which begins promptly at 6:30am down below — but this morning things are so quiet I’m sure I can hear the world spinning on its axis.

Highly unlikely, but poetic indeed.

It’s become something of a terrible headache to try to start writing again, especially short, personal and intimate stories. The particulars of kissing or not kissing a French boy on a Friday evening seem almost cruel and irrelevant now.

With all the time in the world and a fresh sheet of virtual paper, one would expect the words to come — but by 4pm I’m still standing in the kitchen carving my second mango hedgehog for the day, having failed to produce so much as a syllable. Perhaps this is on account of the world being turned upside down and my every waking thought being consumed by it — but who’s to say?

To think that just two weeks ago I was sitting underneath a bougainvillea tree at a bar called Royale in Jo’Burg, eating complimentary potato chips and enjoying a whiskey neat with the boy I kissed over New Years.

I arrived late, and he was waiting in chinos and a striped T-shirt. He hugged me, and is tall as he always is, and I smell like mango lip balm and we try to flirt with each other. I am wearing a dress with flowers and boots, and we have two whiskeys each. He shows me his new place afterwards which he shares with a girl and two boys, I think. He makes us tea, which we drink on his bed, and he takes the mug out of my hand and puts it on the bedside table. Then he moves towards me and kisses me, and shifts my body completely under the weight of his.

Tonight I will drink one glass of wine and walk around the parking lot of our building. Oh how quickly things have changed.