Sunrise on my Beach

We will always remember the day we gazed with Gogo Rosemary, as shadowy darkness floated away and day returned, streaking the heavens in a shade of a soft pink palm and slowly warming to beautiful burnt orange. It was splendor beyond compare.

The old woman wheezed heavily as she clutched onto her thin, tatty sheet. Coughing from the far end of the room had woken her; even though the hall was large, it was filled to its capacity with sick and dying elderly. Gogo rolled onto her side, smoothen her plastic straw mat on the cement floor and tried to sleep. Whenever she awoke at night she found it difficult to return to sleep, she hated being woken up at night. Not because she was mean and selfish, she understood that Old Baba Khumalo had T.B and could not control his coughing fits, she wasn't upset that Francis had taken most of her space on the floor either. These trivial things had no place in her life anymore, what frighten her were her thoughts and her horrid memories all 86 long years of them. Gogo Rosemary Thukela's life at the old age center for those through whose bodies we swam, people who just like her were dying from us.

Nobody was allowed out of the dormitory after curfew. Pulling her shawl tighter across her bosom Gogo felt her strength dwindling and she knew deep inside her time was near. Slowly struggling to stand she moved across the mass of bodies. Gogo made it in to the hallway and started down toward the bathroom, the clock on the mantle struck 4:00a.m. Gogo froze she remembered her youth and suddenly all she could think of was one thing, burnt into her memory. She now had an urge- an unstoppable urge. Hurriedly she made her way to the kitchen, painfully dropping to her aching knees she found the loose floorboard where she hid her money twenty two rands and thirty seven cents and a golden watch passed down by her grandfather. She hated that watch; it reminded her of why her grandfather gave it to her, pushing aside unpleasant recollections, she made her way to the back door. Opening the door and praying it wouldn't creak, Gogo made her way into the backyard.

The taxi rank was down the hill and the hill was steep. Gogo began her journey, wheezing and puffing gradually putting one foot in front of the other, barely stopping to breathe. Finally she made it, looking at the watch which now read 5:00a.m she had almost an hour and a half left. Walking up to the taxi driver she asked him

"Can you take me to the beach front?"

"That will be R50 Missus."

"I only have R23, 37 please help me."

"I'm sorry Madam, but that is the fair."

Then he looked at the watch in her hand and exclaimed

"I will take you if you give me your watch."

"Take it, it has brought me nothing but bad luck." Said Gogo Rosemary

The taxi driver started his engine and drove the journey was long and Gogo felt herself falling in and out of sleep, she could not contain her happiness.

There was a tap on the window and which woke Gogo, 'They had reached' the taxi driver said and as he looked at her, he noticed she seemed much paler than before. He helped her out of the car and onto a bench. With half an hour to spare Gogo told him of her life and he told her of his dreams. Until 6:18a.m, 'It is beginning." she said. Together they sat side by side and watched as a golden line appeared, thin and bright it began to grow the sun had began to rise, warming the ocean and teething with life. It cast a glow of life over everything. They watched as the waves crashed high to meet it in greeting and birds sang to its silent song.

As they watched so did we, but we did not stop we went on destroying Gogo from the inside. Yes, us. The dreaded HIV/AIDS virus we swim through most of the bodies in the center. Destroying immune cells and wreaking havoc within their fragile bodies. You must understand though we don't mean to do it, we're just programmed to. Today, just for a moment we too shared Gogo Rosemary's happiness as we felt the silent tears of a young man splash on to the skin of a dead woman.