Luke Beling

When my dad turned twelve, he watched his father drown in a whirlpool in the Orange River. Decades later, I watched my own father disappear into late nights at the Majestic Hotel. I can still hear the muffled horn of his VW Kombi calling me to sit on his lap and steer the long van up our steep driveway.

I once befriended a street child named Johnson who sniffed glue to forget his hunger. A man plucked out his right eye with scissors over scraps of food. On Saturdays I played soccer with Johnson and other street kids. He played barefoot and did somersaults on an empty stomach and prayed without asking God for anything.