Turning Points
ONE A little girl, four years old, pigtails swinging, rides her training bicycle onto the road outside her home. A large SUV, all blunt nose and shiny grill, bludgeons her small body into the bitumen, her bicycle unrecognisable under a rear tyre. Two seconds. That's all. Before: a grandmother of twenty. After: Oblivion. Two seconds. Two realities. Two universes. Dark Sunset: an end and a beginning [Photo: Ernie Rijs] TWO The boy stumbles back two, three steps and falls. His elbow feels like splinters as at makes contact with the concrete. Pain echoes throuhg his arm and into his neck. The man stands above him, arm still extended. 'Why didn't you give him one back?' he asks his son. The driveway is a blister of reflected sunlight. The man has to squint. The boy levers himself up, rubs his elbow. The pain increases. He doesn't move. He finds he can't because the anger has him. The man, the father, takes note of his son's size. For the first time. He feels th...
