As a child of unusually quiet demeanour, my first encounter with the surreal occurred around the age of four or five. A dove, an unexpected visitor, would grace my room at night, perching near my bed. Night after night, I found myself nervously tidying up, wary of this unexpected presence. What did a toddler know of dream demons or sleep paralysis? Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. Curiously, I kept silent about these nightly visits, a decision driven by an inexplicable instinct.
They called me a quiet child, and indeed, I often wondered what might have transpired, had I confided in my mother about the dove. Decades later, the memory still lingers, offering a message of peace.
The surreal encounters didn’t end there. Soon after, a tall, slender lady, with a mysterious woven basket, began to appear in my room. Her presence, marked by her plain dress and dark hair, brought with it a sense of foreboding. Night after night, she meticulously folded clothes at the foot of my bed, her face forever concealed from view. As a child, I was overwhelmed with fear, but with unapproachable parents, there was no solace to be found.
Then came the dream, vivid and haunting, in which I found myself guided through labyrinthine passages, with clay walls by a bald priest. Water rising ominously, threatening to engulf everything, I held dear. It was a journey that led me to Egypt, to the completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1970, when I was just four years old. Questions swirled in my mind, and while research provided some answers, the mystery of my connection to that distant land remained.
In my home in the Western Cape, echoes of my past abound, inspiring the flavour of my novel, set in Cape Town. Starting from the wheat fields of the Black Land, to the relentless gusts of the Black South Easter wind, the majestic presence of Lion’s Head Mountain and the landscape reflects the intricate tapestry of my memories and dreams.
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