Story: ‘Through Brittle Grass’
“They are ignoring him out of pride, but he can sense their fear; of him and his pale fur, and his spots. Above all is the pervading, infectious fear that they will develop spots.”
When studying for my BA I took a one-term elective in South African politics. Aged 19 or 20, I’d heard of apartheid but knew little about it. I was lucky to have been raised in a household of respect and tolerance for people different to me, so segregation and bigotry seemed like something from an outdated parable, something that might have happened in ancient history but not today. At that time, as ever, I had a lot of learning to do.
I came to understand a lot of horrible truths on that course, but I was especially disgusted by one particular detail. The white thugs running South Africa at the time were more than bullies. Knowing they had contracted HIV, they raped women of the black communities they oppressed in order to deliberately infect them with the virus. I’d heard of germ warfare, but this was something else: not one monstrous tyrant ordering the launch of a missile, but a great many human beings each, almost independently, choosing to do it. If this article is to be believed, it was also recently confirmed to be part of the SA intelligence community’s formal plan of race oppression and elimination.
The original version of this short story, ‘Through Brittle Grass’, was written around the time of my studies. During the last 15 years I’ve come back to tweak it, wondering if it was still relevant, if it was a story I should tell at all. Is its fantastical and weird premise an insult to the topic? Would people understand it? A lot of editors didn’t, but I’m happy to say that the story has been accepted by the excellent Stand magazine for publication. It seems fitting that Stand is run out of Leeds University, where I undertook my BA in English and Writing in 2003-6.
You can read ‘Through Brittle Grass’ online, along with the other poetry and stories featured in issue 233, by subscribing via the website. I’d love to know what you think about this odd tale, so please leave a comment.
—-db
