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Published: February 23rd 2007
Parvati
She is the wife of Lord Shiva and the divine mother of Lord Ganesh and Lord Karthikeya. No wonder the suburbs of Woodstock and Salt River are interesting when there are goddesses selling fruit. She walked and walked, and looked and looked but there was no
Fynbos Kingdom to be found and eventually she stopped at a quaint, old Indian woman selling dried roots and peculiar nuts at the roadside.
“Excuse me. Do you know where I can find the
Dream weaver or the Fynbos Floral Kingdom perhaps?” She asked.
“Oh, it’s not everyday someone comes by asking for that. Come inside, we should not weather such matter on this street of a thousand ears.”
Inside the store the shelves were full of claw like fruits, leaves, huge tubers, bulb scales, rhizome and more roots and dried fruit. The Fairy explained what had happened with the train and about her meeting with the observer. The old Indian woman -whose name was
Parvati - listened carefully while preparing two small cups of chai.
“I know the
Observer. I know him quite well, and if it’s one thing that man is, it’s scatterbrained; that, and accurate. To the point that he’s accurate about being scatterbrained and scatterbrained while being very accurate. Good for you that I also know a fair bit of astrology, and I do believe that our dear Observer friend has forgotten to
Doctor of hearts
It's now 40 years ago since Doctor Christian Barnard performed the worlds first successful heart transplantation. The patient, Louis Washkansky, was 55 and lived for another 18 days before he died in pneumonia. Still this was considered an enormous success in the field of life-extending surgery and sent Dr Barnard to surgery stardom. put the kaleidoscope filter onto his advanced telescope. I believe that with the kaleidoscope filter - the one pepper pot you saw should have been three instead, and the river should have been the pulsating vein of a heart. The three pepper pots are perched here in the city, on the slope of
Devil’s Peak, and the heart might be the
Christian Barnard hospital in the city. See, he performed the world’s first heart transplantation 40 years ago, so if what you saw was a heart, maybe it could symbolise his hospital. About the Dreamweaver, I happen to know him too; at times he comes to me for special fungi and rhizome that I’ve picked along the shores of the holy river
Ganga in my home country. Him, I believe you can find if you ask the one-eyed barber on
Long Street.”
“Thank you so much.” The fairy said to Parvati, put her magic bag over her shoulder and was about to leave as Parvati stopped her.
“Here, take this dried flower. It only blooms once a year and at some years it doesn’t bloom at all, but I know that if you find it, it can be very helpful
Come To Pass
A piece of contemporary art in the middle of the city. Found at the corner of St George's mall and Shortmarket st. but who would have thought that it contained a secret transporter? to you. I give you this dried specimen so that you can recognize it easier. Now just continue along the main road here and you’ll soon be in the city bowl, the melting pot of the mother city where I think you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
Refreshed from the chai and the quick rest inside the old woman’s shop the little fairy continued her quest for someone or something that could help her to mend her wings. She walked past the
Castle of Good Hope and the
Old Town House, the
Old Mutual and at the corner of
St Georges Mall and
Shortmarket Street - merely a stone throw before reaching
Greenmarket Square - she found an intriguing symbol on the ground and started reading it. To read it she stood in the middle of it and as she read she started spinning counter clockwise, faster and faster; “
Record,
Explorer,
Architect,
Legend,
Merchant,
Preacher,
Archive,
Settler,
Soldier.”
REALM PASS? Was the last thing she thought before everything suddenly turned bright and reality blurred.
As she opened up her eyes she found herself lying on a squeaking wooden floor. She was surrounded by a cacophony of
Inside the clocktower
Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tick-tock. rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring!Too bad no one except Mr. Jederzeit is allowed inside the Tower so there's no picture of the interior. This piece of paper was found on the floor of the clock-tower by the fairy. ticking, clicking and swishing sounds. Tick-tack-tick-tock-click-crackle-clank-clatter-flip-swoosh-ping-click-tic-toc. As she sat up inside what sounded like a mechanical orchestra, a huge pendulum swung past her head. She took a look at her right side where some sort of spur-toothed escape-wheel made of brass moved frenetically, causing a pallet to lift and drop a lever that gave movement to a huge roller via an impulse pin at her feet.
To her left, a large winding wheel was connected to a colourful spring that moved in a circular, hypnotic pace, not very far from her face. All the movement and the constant clicking and ticking made her very dizzy so she stood up - carefully avoiding the pendulum’s fateful strike - and peered out from behind a big clock face.
Outside there was a band playing, there were people laughing and chattering. There were tugs, harbour vessels of varying kind and colourful fishing boats.
“Hey! What are you doing up there?” A loud voice with a broad Afrikaans accent grumbled like an old sailor that had spent one night too many with the ship’s rum supply.
She turned and looked in all directions but the people she saw, all appeared to
Tick-Tack-Tock Tower
In the centre of Victoria & ALbert Waterfront stands the red clock tower. From the top the fairy had a good panoramic view over the restaurants and the ice-cream eating tourists. be busy taking pictures of each other and eating ice cream.
“Over here! Have you got eyes of buttonholes? Don’t look at those vacuous humans behind the times.”
She turned to the direction of the voice and found a seal. A big fat seal swam round and round, watching her from the water. He had pearls of water glittering in his whiskers and his fur was lustrous and thick, speckled with silver.
“About time you saw me. What are you doing up in the clock tower? Did you use old Mr
Jederzeit’s transporter? You should know better, that’s a personal transporter and not something you tourists can play around with from time to time. Maybe it’s time for me to treat you to a lesson. The seal said in a snooty tone, and time and again swam round in a circle.”
“I couldn’t help it!” The fairy answered to fend off the seal's accusing looks. “I was looking for the Fynbos Floral Kingdom and I got lost as I walked into the city with all its tall buildings. Why would someone build a transporter from a street corner into a clock tower anyway?” She said trying to
Night at the waterfront
In the nights the ice-cream munching hordes are replaced by pint-downing punters and the vibe at the water is a total different. Seen in the background are the many skyscrapers of the CBD, and further in the background, illuminated by five huge lanterns, Mount Doom!.. sorry The Table Mountain. sound unruffled.
“Ha! It was about time you asked me. Well, how do you think he would clean it otherwise?”
“I didn’t think about that. So where is he now then, that Mr Jederzeit you’re speaking about?” The fairy asked.
“Well it’s soon time for the gathering of the intergalactic timekeepers, you see. It’s high time for him to make preparations for the gap day on the second of September 2052.”
“But that’s not for another 45 years?”
“Yes, Obviously. But have you ever considered how many clocks and watches there are in this world? These things take time!”
“No. But does he have to set the time on all of them alone?”
“Of course not, there’s no time for that. He’s got a few hundred employees to help him, but he’s the chief supervisor of time on this planet and I’m sure he doesn’t want to have a sequel to what happened once upon a time in
England.”
“What happened then?”
“Everyone went to bed on the second of September 1752, but as the head of the British time committee’ overslept - everyone woke up on the 14:th of September 1752. Eleven days of world history went missing; you
Romeo and Juliette
Alnilam and Purpose busy in the famous balcony scene. Some eager French camera-flashing tourists trying to destroy the moment, but Alnilam didn't seem to care too much. can’t find them in any history book. A big time disaster, you see.
At the galactic time assembly all the other timekeepers laughed at him - for the following 100 years! That’s a long time”, the seal said with a sigh, feeling sorry on Mr Jederzeit’s behalf.
“Oh I’m very sorry to hear.” The fairy answered. “Could you perhaps help me to find the dream weaver or the Fynbos Kingdom?” She asked after a short moment of silence.
The nine seals that lived in the harbour gathered in a pod and started to chatter, flapped artistically with their flippers and splashed water on each other while discussing.
“
Purpose here.” The silver dappled seal that the others referred to as
Alnilam, pointed towards an even fatter red seal with long, curved eyelashes.
“She says the dream weaver can be found in no time, he’s apparently at the top of Long Street, close to the
Turkish bath.”
“Yes, and to find the Fynbos Floral Kingdom, you should stand at the apex of a triangle with the right angle at the base of the three pepper-pots. After some time you realise that the three pepper-pots resemble the belt of
Orion as
V & A Waterfront
Anti-unique picture of the Waterfront. he faces the heart of the lion in his last battle.” An undoubtedly more vigorous colleague of hers with a red, little nose exclaimed.
“This I already knew, in a way. But how can I get there then?” The fairy asked.
“Walk in the Masaai warrior’s footstep and time will tell. That’s all we can say for the time being.
- Listen. If you want to get down today without being detected by this horde of German tourists, wait until we start with our synchronised swim-show.” Alnilam pointed at all the ice-cream munching humans around the clock tower.
“You’ve got a show?” The fairy sounded surprised.
“Yes. Everyday, as the noon-gun echoes out from the
Lion’s Rump - or
Signal Hill as it now has been renamed by the humans - it’s time for our show.”
“But why?” The fairy couldn’t find reason for having a synchronised swim-show in the harbour.
“You know, we need to keep up with the times, modernisation and all that. Life as a seal is tough at times; I mean the water out at sea is not really Jacuzzi-hot you know. So we’ve got a mutual agreement with the city council. They heat the water
Religious Bo-Kaap
There are few places in the world where churches and mosques are placed next to each other without complications. There are even fewer places in the world where you can find huge commercial posters on the side of a mosque. On the other side of the Quawatul Islam Mosque (Est. 1892) on Loop Street hangs a commercial about sexy women lingerie. I guess if the money earned from the commercials goes to a higher cause, why worry! In sh’Allah. here in the harbour for us by ten degrees, as long as we keep the tourists coming back, time after time. Mutual benefits you know, it’s a win-win situation between
Helen Zille and us. Of course nothing you should talk about too loud, if you know what I mean.”
The Fairy gave them yet another puzzled look. “Cultural tourism” was all she had time to think before a loud BANG, boomed out over the city.
“The time is ripe! Start climbing as we reach our third number. We’ll start with the “Numb & Dumb Flamingo” followed by “Signal Hill’s on Fire”.” Alnilam cleared his throat and proudly announced: “Which I’ve actually directed myself.”
“Then we get a bit political - you know, some spoken word bashing the fish-industry - that’s when it’s time for you to climb down. And we finish off with an improvised
Romeo and Juliette - giving Ms Purpose here a bit of a hard time - followed by the standing ovations of the tourists. It works every time.”
As the seals started their unique (that’s the least you can say) show, the fairy quickly prepared her escape. After the first two shows she was ready.
Autumn in Suburbia
The sun’s about to set over Oranjezicht. With several beautiful buildings from the late nineteenth century and its central position on the side of the Table Mountains slope in the City Bowl, it’s one of the more expensive neighbourhoods in Cape Town and very segregated. “I have a dream!” Alnilam started their third act.
“That one day we seals shall rule the waters!”
To the surrounding tourists, it only sounded like a long series of guttural sounds; and as he some time later, finished with:
“And may all the fish in the oceans be ours!” Every single seal had lustre in his or her eyes and they applauded him intensely with their flippers. At the same time, the little fairy had, unnoticed, climbed down from the clock tower and was on her way back into the city bowl.
Many were the times she got lost - if one can say lost about someone that’s never been found.
She walked through the
Company’s Gardens and got some macadamia nuts and almonds from the friendly squirrels. She listened to the Muezzins’ call to prayer that ricocheted between the many mosques in
Schotsche Kloof and
Bo-Kaap, and she quenched her thirst at the huge reservoir in
Oranjezicht. When she finally found Long Street, she had already crossed it three times without knowing so.
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Adam Salmon
non-member comment
Enlightened traveling
with such sweet tongues you speak, Bobbin Nilestream, and a yearning for learning how the world is turning like no other i've encountered. peace be da journey and let us know when you are in Pretoria. yogadam@gmail.com