Changing Seasons - CANCELLED

Marblehead Johnson

As Bill Hicks once said, "I have a bathtub and an imagination. I'm staying indoors this summer. That way I can listen to music I like."

Which is how I ended up in the tub, waterproof speakers still blaring Pearl Jam's "Even Flow" with the curtain rail sparking across the N1 highway... and poor old me holding on for dear life. Rubber ducky flies into the grill of an X5. The cute brunette stares wide eyed at me. I wave. She swerves into the other lane.

In the distance is the wail of sirens. Below it, the quiet chant of a Finders incantation.

The beast pulling me is a Chevrolet Utility van. It's black of course and the golden emblem gleams. The rear-view mirror shows an orange-hued reflection of half-rimmed sunglasses. You know the kind cyclists wear, with enough UV protection to turn a red-head brunette? Yeah those. And I don't need to read the numberplate to know who the crazy bastard is,

"Marblehead Johnson."

The Chev swerves left with a roar of its engine and my tub, bolted into what used to be my caravan, careens up the offramp. I almost fall over. Almost because the handrails I finally fastened a week ago keep me steady; at fifty-six, getting in and out of a tub ain't easy.

Also, I notice that an after-image of the Chev with a pruney, naked me in an almost empty tub, continues down the N1. A golden aura trails it.

*

" 'ow was the ride?" Marble asks. We've parked haphazardly at the entrance of Garrawarra Cemetery. The Chev is covered by a cloaking tarp. His head does an indiscernible tilt up and down as his UV-Ray-Deterrent glasses rove over my nudity for an embarrassing second. He chucks a towel at me.

"You couldn't call ahead? I ask. The towel is those mini overpriced-hotel ones that may as well be a facecloth. "And the hell is this?"

"It's all I had on short notice."

"Short notice my ass." I wrap as much as I can and hold it closed. Thankfully it's a sunny African day so I'll warm up quick. Unfortunately, it's a sunny African day so my pale ass is going to get sunburnt.

"Finders let you escape?" I say. His smile twitches.

Mazibuko "Marblehead" Johnson is a witchdoctor. Was a witchdoctor. Whatever. Anyway, when his wife died of the dreaded cough, A.K.A tuber-fucking-culosis, he chanted his way into Garrawarra Cemetery in traditional Zulu-Shaman attire. Apparently, his wife's soul wasn't at rest. When they kicked him out, he came back for her marble headstone. Only he'd taken the wrong one and he'd taken perhaps a dozen more "marbles" before he found the right one. Hence the name "Marblehead". Yeah... he can't read well.

"What are we doing here?"

His smile broadens wide enough to reveal both sets of teeth. He pulls a shovel from his back pocket.

"I lost me marbles. Finder's brought em here and you gon' find em for me. Seer."