Who said it wasn’t worth it…

Who said it wasn’t worth it,

when in bereavement of ruined love

and the fear of no more free sex,

he tied one end of a stolen mooring line

to a rusted blown out rooftop air-conditioning unit

and the other end around his waist,

in an attempt to slowly rappel himself down

the northern side of his ex-girlfriend’s twelve floored apartment building,

to break and enter her eight floor apartment

from her flowering and overgrown balcony side.

She even had a full sized butternut plant growing there,

which he planned on throwing off the balcony

in an act of sheer revenge,

growing in a large black plastic pot,

large leaves spreading over ferns

and other exotic shrubberies,

green strands decorated with large yellow flowers,

snaking along the bottom ends

of the balcony railing,

but half way on his slow rappel down the side of the building,

he got gut shot

at the tenth floor level,

through an oily and grime plastered bedroom window,

by a bald, naked and tattooed skinhead-Neo-Nazi,

with a torn pantyhose fetish,

high on cheap Crack,

who, by a sheer fluke of bad luck

saw something shapeless and dark coming down from the sky

and in his warped brain thought

that what ever it was

that was coming down,

was out to get him.

He left the unrecognisable shape to dangle outside,

ten floors above the Earth,

twitching and quivering in pain,

hoping it might die slowly,

coldly turned and stood in front of his filthy bedroom mirror,

savouring his own naked and tattooed mirrored reflection,

swinging his nine millimeter pistol

above his sweaty tattooed scalp

and yelling and head banging

in a violent Neanderthal dance

to the long forgotten iron lyrics

of a red decaying industrial metal song

.

Outside, the bereaved lover was hanging upside down,

high above the garbage strewn sidewalk,

pigeons making attempts to sit on his chest

and white summer moths

walking with tiny flapping wings

over his sweaty head.

The thick mooring line ate into his waist.

His injured body mumbled things about hope and faith.

Hands stretching out to the butternut plant

flowering another two stories further down,

but all he got to see

was the edges of the leaves

and a few green tips of ferns

reaching out towards the sun.

A half an hour later

firemen figured out

they couldn’t lower him down

to the garbage strewn sidewalk.

The stolen mooring line was too short,

so they hauled him back up again

to the rooftop.

His blood

dripping all the way down

into the trash and litter far below

and all the while,

he was moaning and groaning,

cursing the butternut plant for lost retaliation,

blaming his ex-girlfriend for his dirty gut shot,

calling out her name,

bellowing out to her

to witness his pain.

The firemen patched him up

right there on the rooftop.

Stuck a drip into his thickest vein.

Wrapped a cotton brace around his neck.

Folded him neatly into a silver space blanked,

carried him down the main stairwell

on a neon orange plastic stretcher,

drove him to the hospital,

rolled him into an operating theatre,

where a surgical team yanked the bullet out of his guts,

propped him into the ICU

and put him on a two week long

clear liquid diet.

 

A nine man super tactical cop squad

kicked down the Neo-Nazi’s front door,

threw a flash grenade into the lounge,

burned the guy’s grimy liquor stained sofa

to a crisp,

stormed in

and while he was still yelling and head banging

in front of his bedroom mirror

tased him in the chest.

He went down

like a bag of par bioled rice

and concerned that he might suffer from a heart attack

they stuck a drip into his thickest vein,

wrapped a cotton brace around his neck,

folded him neatly

into a silver space blanked,

carried him down the main stairwell

on a neon orange plastic stretcher

had an ambulance drive him off

to the hospital

where an emergency team 

kept him on a three hour observation schedule,

then called the cops to drive him off to the holding cells

where he was charged and awaited trial

for attempted murder,

the illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition,

possession and distribution of illegal narcotics and other banned substances,

discharging a firearm in a private and/or public and/or built up area

and got sued by his landlord

for three months

outstanding rent

and all the while

the ex-girlfriend

wasn’t even there.

She was down in Cape Town,

jumping up and down

in a two day long riot,

throwing bricks at squad cars

and chucking horse shit at statues,

making fires in sidewalk garbage bins

moaning and groaning about

police brutality

and everything else in the world,

but whatever it was

and whatever happened here

and whatever it did

everybody reckoned,

it was all worth it

in the end….

Conrad K van den Bergh (2022)