Page 26 of The Circle

“It should be me,” I repeat.

There is a lengthy moment of silence in which everyone looks at me and then at one another. After another beat, I glance at my watch.

“Twenty-five minutes,” I say.

A collective sigh circles the group like a wave encircling the stadium at a Springboks match. Russell reaches into his pocket and withdraws the keys to the van, hands them out to me.

“Seriously?” Eliza asks.

“He ain’t wrong, Lize,” says Russell. “Mostly about if anyone winds up duppy, it should definitely be him. Who’s gon’ argue with that?”

I take the keys from his hand. Eliza steps into me. Quite close indeed.

“Either come back with my child or do not come back,” she hisses.

“That is the plan. That is the plan.”

She takes a moment before saying, “I don’t understand you. At all.”

I look at her and then over at Christine and Danny once more. They’re looking at me with equal amounts of befuddlement. Then I look back at Eliza.

“Eliza,” I say, slowly, letting her name slip from my lungs on a sigh, “I’m not sure I understand myself.”

I nod at her, she steps back, and I walk over to the driver’s side door of the van.

I open it, step in, sit, pull the door closed, place the key in the ignition and think for a moment about how much easier things would be if the car just exploded right now. If someone had rigged it in some way and I was just blown to smithereens in this moment. How much better off would the world be if that happened?

And then the voice in my head returns.

No. That would be too easy. Better to have it happen the hard way. That’s how it happened for Lars. It’s how it should happen for you.

It is quite frustrating, the voice. Not because it’s wrong, but because I did not invite it and I do not appreciate it intruding and taking the place of my more common thoughts. Everyday thoughts like how does this shirt look on? Or may we fuck now please? Or do you have any last words? These are the thoughts I’m comfortable having. This self-reflection business is… well, it’s just unpleasant.

I truly hope that this isn’t what I’ve heard referred to as a “conscience.” I think that would annoy me to absolutely no fokken end.

I don’t look back over at any of the group—but especially not Christine or Danny—as I turn the key, listen to the engine turn over (no explosion follows), place the van into drive, and pull away.

Alec?

“What?” I actually shout aloud in response to my brain.

Be confident.

“I’m always confident, you fokken doos! Confident about what?”

Confident that no matter what happens next…

“Yes?”

… you will have earned it.

Well, that’s just a fokken lekker thing for the voice in your head to say, isn’t it?