"Pedro lost his temper then, and the beating began. It did not stop until long after Jade had lost consciousness and Pedro had run out of breath..."
Alone in the world, Johnny Roberts has to face his worst fears, and overcome his greatest obstacles...
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People who saw it thought it was a shooting star. It streaked across the night sky in a brilliant white arc and disappeared from view beyond the horizon. It slowed down over the dark outskirts of the brightly lit city and emitted a blinding flash before shooting off into the distance. The few who noticed were either too drunk to care, or too far away to matter.
One man was neither...
He stopped his yellow van in the veldt near a kopje bordering on the township of Soweto. An acronym for South Western Townships, Soweto is the largest black township in the country, and crime and domestic violence here typically reaches its peak over the festive season.
He wore the blue safari suit of the South African Police Services, and patrolled the no-mans-land that bordered the infamous township, keeping his eyes peeled for any signs of wrongdoing, mischief, or vandalism. There was also a darker reason why the Police kept up a regular presence in this area: dead bodies.
It was common to find the victim of a late night mugging, or a drunken brawl, sprawled lifeless in the long, brown grass; and although he had seen his fair share, still he had hoped that tonight of all nights it would be different.
He stepped out of the van and looked around. Certain that this was the area he had seen the strange light, he took out his flash-light and played the beam over the veldt. Not certain what he was looking for, he cast about aimlessly for a few moments before a flash of colour caught his eye, and he aimed the beam in its direction. There was a bundle hidden in the grass, and he recognized it for what it was immediately; an abandoned baby.
This kind of thing was on the rise as more and more young mothers made the callous decision to abandon their new-born child in the wild when they had too many mouths to feed, or had a husband working on the mines who would ask awkward questions about the child's paternity.
Forgetting what had first brought him here, he stepped up for a closer look. The infants' wrappings puzzled him. Most young mothers could not spare an extra blanket for a baby they meant to abandon, and anyways, the whole point of leaving a child in the veldt was that it would die of exposure, and were usually naked and lifeless when they were found. He squatted in the grass and shone his torch at the pathetic heap, and then felt his chest tighten as he saw a small movement.
This one's alive! he thought. Putting his torch back in his pocket, he picked up the tiny bundle and carried it to the van. He couldn't see its face as it was entirely covered by the swaddling, but he knew what was in there, and he knew it still breathed. Soft whimpers emanated from within, and he placed it gently on the passenger seat beside him.
'Tango three-five-seven – reporting,' he spoke quickly into his radio.
'Go ahead Tango three-five-seven,' a voice distorted by static interference replied.
'I have an abandoned infant in sector three. It's still alive – over.'
'Okay Tango three-five-seven, standby – over.' He waited expectantly for a few moments before the radio crackled back to life.
