Antigone and the Dassie

It was your claw that I saw first – otherwise you were a lump of mud – first your claws, then your matted spiky hair, and the arc of your plump body tapering to a nose: a dassie, dead on a damp path between low bushes. I wondered that the dogs hadn’t sniffed you out; but with the air so clean after the rain, with so many puddles to splash through, with the last rays of sun cold under the clouds, their thoughts were not on earth, or death. The suburbans, in thick jackets and galoshes, had no concern for this hidden tragedy; no newspaper would broadcast it to them: Drama on Rondebosch Common – body of dassie found dead after heavy storms – no suspects. There are too many dead bodies to ignore already. One more merits no report. I hesitated. I didn’t dare to stoop and dig a grave to hold you, or even roll your dirty wet form into the scrub. A kick would be disrespectful to the dead (or perhaps I feared your rotting corpse would implode if I flicked at it; my shoe might be tainted) so I walked on. Thebes has come to Africa once more. Polynices lies unburied yet again.

 

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