27 April 1994

Carefree, hurriedly Reuben gathers clothing and toiletries, haphazardly filling a colourful, striped sling-bag. Being born into the new South Africa, he's on his way to who knows where. From the blaring television, the news reader proclaims that a massive bomb has exploded at Johannesburg's Jan Smuts International Airport.

‘It's ter-r-r-able,’ a young blonde eye-witness announces, accent heavy and unmistakable. ‘The top storey fell down and everyone's running around, confused!’ she continues, hesitantly and breathless, as the interviewer badgers her relentlessly for more information.

‘Has the right wing claimed responsibility? Has anyone claimed responsibility? How many people are dead? Is the police force at the scene?’ he shamelessly pursues his young eyewitness.

‘I dunno, man. There must be lots dead,’ she blurts. ‘People are lying everywhere – there's lots of blood.’

The telephone connection disconnects – unable to reach out, to sustain its traumatised connectivity on air.

And so election-day and a new era dawns!

Before Reuben locks the door, hitting the road, he pauses for a moment, checking the contents of his new flag-bag. There are no stripes of blue, white and orange; it is coloured red, green, and yellow, blue, black and white. The cat fed, plants watered, his identity book firmly tucked into his jacket pocket, Reuben's on his way.

On his way from the poverty of the Cape Flats; the drug lords, gangs, flower vendors, horse carts and coal deliveries. Away from his late parents who had no real ID, the nameless unknowns who only voted for the farcical, apartheid tricameral parliament, eking out a living, painting other people's houses, fixing gutters in the suburbs, while living in backyards, not belonging, yet descended from the first people who traversed these shores, somehow successfully removed over the millennia. If it were not for the charity of a wealthier uncle, Reuben would never have been educated beyond the world of paint and gutters.

He closes the door with a bang, resounding against the solid, yellowwood frame, a relic from the past, it stands firm and resolute. Reuben's now finally able to inhabit this space, a space belonging to all. He's out of here - hitting the road in the hope of exploring his soul and finding a quiet polling station. He still has to pick up his friend, Xolilizwe (meaning ‘peace unto the world’), and it's getting late. Freedom's been a long time coming.