(Inspired by Seymour Trantraal)
During my time with authors Nathan Ttrantraal and Ronelda Kampfer in Makhanda, the former often mentioned how I influenced the more visceral imagery of his daughter Seymour’s writing. When I last saw the family, Seymour and I joked our way through what she called boring wedding scenes in novels, much to the shaking of heads by her parents. Well, Seymour, below is my version — lets see you better that.
The newlywed Jacksons ran down the gothic stairs out of St George’s Cathedral into puffs of confetti that befogged the cacophony of well-wishers who clogged their path to the bridal hearse. The fog of joy parted as a lone man slunk forward and planted himself in front of the couple. He shouted something, but the froth at his mouth foamed it into angry garble.
Schlick-shlack — shotgun cocked — boom! The groom’s chest blossomed into a lotus of blood and bone. The bride crumpled into a heap next to the groom and looked up at the ogre with the smoking shotgun: “Why, dad, why?”
“Yes why?” echoed the crowd, theatrically. “Is this a shotgun wedding?”
“Nobody” the ogre grumped, “marries my child without my say-so.”
The bride looked up at the ogre: “But dad, I am not pregnant.”
The ogre stamped his feet and cast the shotgun aside. The crowd scattered. He knelt down and embraced the bride: “I know my son, I know. But you know how I hate people who mix metaphors.”
From the archives: Pictured here on the cover of her mother’s award winning novel Kompoun, is Seymour who takes on the big guns in South African literature. She is the youngest writer to have spent time in the Jakes Gerwel Foundation / PEN Afrikaans uninterrupted time to write residency at Paulet House. The 2019 residency housemates are all award winners from Vearey, Trantraal and Kamfer to Lynthia Julies, Kirby van der Merwe and Ryan Pedro.
Jeremy Vearey het grootgeword in Elsiesrivier. Hy was ’n lid van MK en ’n lyfwag vir oud-president Nelson Mandela. Hy is ’n vorige majoor-generaal in die SAPD en was tot onlangs adjunk-provinsiale-kommisaris in die Wes-Kaap SAPD. Vearey se biografie Jeremy vannie Elsies het in 2018 by Tafelberg verskyn. Sy book Into Dark Water: A Police Memoir (Tafelberg 2021) is benoem op die 2022 Sunday Times Literary Awards langlys.
