Angelo C Louw
My short story “Above and Beyond the Water’s Edge” was recently published in the POWER: Short Stories anthology, which features stories of the power dynamics in South Africa society. It weaves together our experience with climate change as a community – past, present and future.
I wanted to imagine what the world would be like 200 years from now once all of the wealthy white people abandon Cape Town after it floods due to rising sea levels. It jumps between Khadijah’s journey (a biologist trying to help her community survive the impending disaster) and a future where !Orolõas’s community has adapted to this post-climate crisis and post-colonial world.
I hope you enjoy this short excerpt from the book:
Gamaǀaeb 20, 2208
The Great Kelp Forest of Atlantis, //Hu !Gais
!Orolõas pauses as the beams of light burst through the thick kelp blades. She marvels at the Sun’s mighty rays flickering about like fairies of another land; they remind her that worlds exist beyond the one she knows. This world is submerged in water — a force powerful enough to refract the relentless light. Forces collide and set the stage for the dance of life. !Orolõas sways her arms back and forth, and as she does, pockets of air float upward like stars ascending to the heavens. The magic of the Earth only reveals itself to those who care to look. !Orolõas is an initiate of an age-old understanding in which the worlds she stands guard over entrust her with these secrets.
//Kabbo darts past her like an arrow through the lanky stipe of the kelp, which opens and shuts like trap doors. The great kelp forest of Atlantis is a labyrinth not many dared to impale, but !Orolõas and her cousin //Kabbo know this world nestled against the tip of Africa like the back for their shrivelled up hands. This world takes care of her people the way they take care of it. They, who descended from the stars, have a mandate to uphold the fine balance above and beyond the water’s edge.
Soon, the pair reach the deeply hidden field of perlemoen. The iridescent shells form underwater rainbows, welcoming their faithful return. Their bounty is enough to feed the tribe for two nights, a generous offering in this treaty between the Gorachouqua and their worlds for a century and a half, firm as the kelp’s holdfast to the rocky ocean floor. They collect enough to celebrate as Gamaǀaeb, the Month of The Dying Cattle, draws to an end. As they prepare to commemorate the hardship past generations have endured, !Orolõas smiles knowing this bounty was a sign of good faith, and that all was well.
5 June 2023
Atlantis, Cape Town
Khadijah dipped her henna-stained toes into her daughter’s grey bath water. It was lukewarm — not cold enough to make her shiver immediately, but not warm enough to last a full ten minutes on a rainy winter’s night. She filled an orange plastic jug with piping hot water and added it to the bathtub. It was a gift from her mother, who bought with it her first pay cheque lifetimes ago. Her mother last used it when Khadijah was still a child, and her own curly hair was still thick and jet-black, but couldn’t bear to let go of the first thing she purchased with her very first pay cheque. They don’t make them like this anymore, she’d reason with herself. I’m sure ’Dijah will find good use for it at her new place, she had convinced herself when she was at last ready to depart with it. Khadijah found the jug useful. Every morning, she used it to water eleven potted plants with which she and her daughter shared their home. She had practiced her parenting on these plants before Fatima’s glorious arrival into this world. She watched them thrive and bloom, year in and year out; excited about the ways ’Tima would grow and blossom into herself someday. Like she would to her own child, she whispered stories to her adopted babies about how her mother had bought that orange plastic jug with her first pay cheque a hundred times over, and they never grew tired of hearing it. They loved the sound of her voice the way that ’Tima did at bedtime when Khadijah read to her magic old stories out of the university archives, about where their ancestors were from: the stars. Khadijah saw constellations flicker in her daughter’s eyes every time she spoke of their fantastic past. ’Tima especially loved hearing how the Milky Way was created by a little girl like her, of the ancient race.
‘She scooped up a handful of ashes from the fire and flung it into the night sky.’ Khadijah would fling her arm into the air for emphasis.
’Tima would gasp in amazement, sometimes letting out a ‘Wow.’
‘That’s why the sky is always bright no matter how dark it is outside. There isn’t any reason to be scared of the darkness, okay?’
Khadijah treasured these bedtime stories just as much as her daughter. It was the only time they had together. Early mornings and late nights had become her working hours. Each day took more and gave very little in return, and the end was far from sight.
Atlantis, Cape Town, was a pit of despair long before its taps ran dry. Tucked behind the mountain, Khadijah’s world, the only one she knew, was one that most people only ever saw on a map, a lost city. Once vibrant, but always short of something. The colourfully painted houses, which demonstrated her people’s joy despite their hardship, had long begun to peel. No longer did neighbours have an extra onion to lend to the lady from across the street. No longer did the pastor hand out loaves of bread on a Sunday after Mass. There wasn’t enough to share or go around. The taps were running dry, taking everything else with it: food, congregations, dignity. With so little left to scramble over, handshakes became bloody fists, and with broken noses and chipped teeth people became as ugly as the hunger inside. This ugliness was everywhere: peeling walls, tattered clothes, ruthless words. Khadijah did not want to taint her daughter with the rot lingering on the other side of her twice-bolted front door. She wished to instil courage in her daughter. She would fight for her people. For her sake… her daughter’s sake. She knew that the survival of her people was ordained, and that the future of her daughters-to-come rested on her duty to that promise.
Bathing in the same water as ’Tima was nothing new to her — her people were never wasteful. As she slid her body flat to rinse off her back, Khadijah shut her eyes and sighed, knowing that the fate of the world she knew sat firmly on her shoulders. No one tasked her with saving it, but Khadijah felt a deep sense of responsibility that she was unable to shake.
If you would like to read the rest of this story, Above and Beyond the Water’s Edge by Angelo C Louw, and 21 other amazing stories by local authors, POWER: Short Stories is available at Exclusive Books and online from Lovebooks.
ALSO READ: Filmmaking Duo Wins Silicon Valley African Film Festival Award
About Author Angelo C Louw
The story of Khadijah and her journey across space and time is important to invoke awareness of a future where the hardships of the recent water crisis that hit Cape Town is figuratively amd literally just a drop in the ocean.
Award-winning climate activist and documentarian, Angelo C Louw, is an author, photographer, filmmaker and storyteller known for his intersectional activism whom we highly value as a Bruinou.com content contributor.
For well over a decade, since the previous iteration of this site Angelo has brought us stories of great importance and he has even at times been the subject of articles on our website.
This feat of having his short story ‘Above and Beyond the Water’s Edge’ published in the book POWER: Short Stories is one of Angelo’s many achievement that make us immensely proud to be associated with him. – Ryan Swano, Bruinou.com Editor.
