The Promise

by Damon Galgut

You come back after long vanishment and the surface closes as if you were never gone. Family quicksand.

Apartheid has fallen, see, we die right next to each other now, in intimate proximity. It’s just the living part we still have to work out.

But refusal only works on other people, on fate it has no effect. You may have noticed it yourself, protesting at destiny is a waste of breath, what happens will happen regardless of your No. In