Vale

Sunlight drizzled the bushwillows. Strolling in the dappled light beneath, Dian cast a hand over the lawn that meandered beneath birdbaths skimmed by starling wings. 

“Welcome to our Vale,” she introduced with a swell of warmth, breathing in the baked earth scent of Johannesburg. The folks on a nearby bench raised a hand in acknowledgement of their matron. With a wave back, she kept her eyes on their newest intake for his reaction to it all. Dressed in a safari vest, slacks and a broad-brim hat, he seemed the epitome of a bird watcher, his eyes skimming the sky and fence line as if scanning for the flutter of feathers already. 

He stayed quiet. 

“This is your apartment just here. Let me show you around,” she offered, trying to coax more out of him, but received only a nod in response. He may have been an old man, but there was a wiry strength about him. She hadn’t missed the dumbbells her security had carried in with his boxes. 

After she’d explained every appliance and light switch she could find, she’d still gained little more than mumbles in return. Despite her best welcoming efforts with sweets and flowers, it was sometimes difficult for residents in his condition to ease into village life. With a sigh, she left him perched in an arm chair, a mug of coffee nestled in his hands, and closed the door behind her. 

*

As soon as the latch clicked shut, I leapt to my feet and hurled the coffee down the sink. God knew what they had put in there to sedate me. I saw past the land-of-milk-and-honey charade. This was no “care estate”—it was the looney bin in which they chucked all the shrivelling prunes to rot. 

Peering out the blinds, my eyes flapped between the electrified barbed strangling the stone fence, the armed guards who stalking the perimeter, and the cold eyes of security cameras glaring from every corner. There was one even in this room; I was sure of it. I flipped over the armchair, sent the cushions flying, ripped open the cabinet doors, pushed the mattress off the bed, unscrewed the shower head, flung the curtains aside—

Where was it? Where?!

I could almost hear Dian chuckling from her desk, gazing at the footage and me, the goldfish within. I might never find it—it could be concealed in the walls themselves. 

With my curtains open, I caught sight of movement. Through the neighbour’s open door came flashes of waving limbs, mouths opening and closing as they spat bitter words, eyebrows drawn together in frustration. Finally, an elderly woman stomped out, slamming the door behind her. The man, who must have been her husband, didn’t follow, but watched her go through the kitchen window. 

Grabbing my bird-watching equipment, I zoomed in, capturing every detail of his expression: the corners of his mouth turned down, chin tucked like a predator on the hunt, eyes glinting, fist tightening around a fork— 

A chill swept over me. Dropping my camera, I flung open the door, my feet already stumbling after the woman. 

“Watch out!” 

The woman ceased her strides and turned, startled. 

“He’s going to kill you!” I warned, gesturing frantically towards her husband. “He’s going to kill you!” Had I said that already?

She frowned at me. “What are you talking about? Who are you?”

Why wasn’t she listening to me? I shook her by the shoulders. “He’s got a knife!” It had been a knife, hadn’t it? For a moment my memory flickered with something else, but no… surely it was a trick of the light. Yes, certainly. A knife.

“Hey, leave her alone!” the man hollered, bursting through the door. I threw the woman aside to protect her, bringing a fist sailing into our attacker’s jaw. I ignored the bark of pain in my arthritic knuckles as they made contact with the warm, wrinkled skin that sagged off the brittle jaw beneath. The old man crumpled.

“Sir, please calm down—” hands grabbed at my shoulders. Dian. How had she gotten here so quickly? She was always watching.

“You shut up, you robot woman! Get your cameras off me! He was goi’na kih hew! And youreh twying teh—” my tongue was folding over itself, blurring my words. I hadn’t drunk that coffee, had I?

“I don’t—” Dian began to defend herself, but I didn’t want to hear a word of it. She had imprisoned me, drugged me and now she was restraining me from saving a woman’s life. Enough.

With a growl, I bowled her over, waiting for her to fall apart into cogs and wires. She simply collapsed in a fleshy heap. It was a sham! A plot! A—

More hands clamped down on my forearms like vices, wrenching my wrists behind my back.

“Let go of me!” I bellowed but I couldn’t stop the security guards from dragging me away. A cold realisation pooled in my lungs. 

This was the start of my death. And its name couldn’t be any more fitting.

Vale.

Vale myself.