Johannesburg dawn
Posted: 17 July 2010
Word Count: 145
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It is July, and a hoar frost coats the kikuyu grass in the gardens, whilst ungainly ibis, their feathers shining blue-green like a splash of petrol on the road, strut over the hardened earth, pecking for food.
The pale sun rises over the jagged city skyline and in the upmarket Sandton suburbs the private security guards yawn, scratch and handover the care of the smart houses and cluster complexes to the day shift.
Soon they will be thumbing down their taxis, battered white vehicles of uncertain ages, which will take them back to the townships, to Alexandra, Soweto or Tambisa, where the drifting veils of woodsmoke lie like horizontal ropes across the dawn sky and dogs howl and scavenge throughout the day.
A quiet night….a burglary at Lonehill, a couple of hijackings in Randberg, a rape in Morningside. Pay day tomorrow. Not a bad life.
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 Elbowsnitch at 21:51 on 17 July 2010
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Hi Sandra - this is great, but I was a bit confused by the ending - for a moment I thought the private security guards might have been responsible for the crimes. Since this presumably isn't so, how do they know about everything that's taken place overnight? Because the phrasing of the story assumes (and leads the reader to think) they *do* know?
Wonderful opening para - the "ungainly ibis, their feathers shining blue-green like a splash of petrol on the road".
In the second para, 'hand over' should be 2 words?
All the place names really add conviction! Well done, a fine flash.
Frances
<Added>
I like the hoar frost on the kikuyu grass too!
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 Desormais at 22:55 on 17 July 2010
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Actually Frances, the fact is they probably do know! One of the uncertainties of life in Jo'burg was that you never could be sure that the goodies were not, in fact, the baddies. Or if not the baddies themselves, they were quite often the tip-off merchants! Maybe I didn't quite get that uncertainty across.
Quite right about handover.... a careless edit there when I changed the sentence transforming a noun into a verb.
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 V`yonne at 23:57 on 17 July 2010
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There's a suggestion here of quiet complicity that is typical of divided communities and I think you bring out well that division which becomes devisive in itself and feeds a kind of blind eye apathy - So what as long as we get paid...
Nicely drawn. I liked the descriptions too. This one:
| ibis, their feathers shining blue-green like a splash of petrol on the road, strut over the hardened earth, pecking for food. |
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is particularly good. The ibis seem like the guards - a bit tainted.
Nice tight writing.
Oonah
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 crowspark at 05:25 on 18 July 2010
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Hi Sandra - lovely writing with wonderful images
| drifting veils of woodsmoke lie like horizontal ropes across the dawn sky and dogs howl and scavenge |
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You still have 5 words to play with and I wondered if you could either clarify the implication of the last paragraph or trail its significance a little more in the previous one? (It's already there in part I agree)
A fine flash.
Nice to read some more S. Africa stories which we haven't had since Lieslj left us.
Bill
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tusker at 07:23 on 18 July 2010
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I enjoyed this, Sandra.
A great sense of place and divide between those two areas.
I loved your description of the ibis.
For me that last line revealed that even though money pays for protection, that protection might not be given.
Jennifer
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 Bunbry at 10:37 on 18 July 2010
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I loved this, although was confused by the last line as up til that point I thought you were using an omnipitant POV. But then you mentioned getting paid which confused me as I'm no longer sure who the narrator is.
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Desormais at 12:33 on 18 July 2010
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To be honest Bunbry, I never even thought about adopting a POV, omnipotent or otherwise. And to be even more honest, I'd never heard of such a thing as omnipotent POV until this week when I started ploughing through the content of this site.  So bear with me, until I get the hang of all this.
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Bunbry at 14:53 on 18 July 2010
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Sandra, POV is a total mine field! I find writing in the first person easiest, but force myself to use other POV's from time to time, just so I don't forget how to use them. I think the main trick is to not change mid-story which is easier said than done!
Nick
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Cholero at 23:38 on 18 July 2010
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Hi Sandra
Really really nice writing. The ibis especially - so beautiful and yet pecking at hard ground and tainted with that petrol image - a truly gorgeous piece of symbolic writing.
Love 'cluster complexes'.
Great feel of the ghettoes in so few words.
I wondered if you needed 'throughout the day' - seems to dilute and de-focus an otherwise well designed sentence.
Didn't like the repeated adj+noun pattern in 2nd para, made it a sound a bit da-dada. Maybe just lose one adj to break the flow??
Wondered if you needed 'horizontal'??
Crits above just one pair of ears remember so ignore at will.
The POV change is fine except that you end the story as soon as you make it - it's a cue for us to meet a character, but we don't.
I think Nick means omniscient narrator, not omnipotent, but same idea.
Very much looking forward to reading your next flash if it's as rich and nuanced as this.
Pete
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