Sebokeng

He reads whenever he can.

Later, he moves back north to live with his mother, Elizabeth, in Sebokeng, a township in the industrial Vaal Triangle.

Here, the air hums with the steelworks, and the Vaal River slides wide and brown past the towns.

And at dusk, the smoke of a thousand cooking fires drifts across the streets.

The world outside has kept moving without him.

There are new songs on the radio, new faces on the street corners, new friends of friends to meet.

He goes home to Sebokeng.

He eats his mother's cooking.

In South Africa now, the state mortuaries are in the locations.

That's in any case where I had to go to in Sebokeng.

I had to drive 10 kilometers into that location where it's definitely not safe if you're white.

It's not a place where you want to be.