Overheard Dialogue
During a recent call with a dear friend; I got to hear all about her aunt’s trip to the west coast fishing village in the holy land. Her aunt, being extra as she is, could not bother with a regular ticket for the cable car to get to the top of the mountain. Instead she opted for the premium ticket at double the regular price, because she really couldn’t bother to have to queue with the rest of the hoi polloi. Of course, Aunt’s son-in-law did not join them in the cable car either. Being a good west coast fishing village boytjie, he had no option but to trail-run to the top. Preferably bare-chested; especially since there was a light rain.
We shared a solid belly laugh at the extra of people, close family notwithstanding. In fact, it’s often that the closest family tales yield the best belly laughs. These are our own people after all. Maybe the line between sublime and ridiculous slaps harder when we share genetic code with the extras in the story? Listening to my good buddy regale me with her Aunt’s epic tales of a few days was not just funny but instructive. What I learnt is that brown tannies who’ve ‘made it’ have no interest in mixing with the great masses of the unwashed. They’ve earned their privilege (by whatever means necessary) and they’re keen to enjoy it and then let the rest of the family know just how privileged they are. Humans circa 2024 AD are something else it seems. But then there will be that guy who will always chime in at this point and remind everyone how ‘it’s always been like this.’
I never know what to do with these killer tropes. It’s always been like this. People have always gone to war. They have always gone over and killed, stolen and looted. People are not naturally good. Poor people will always be with us. It’s even in the Bible (or insert any other religious text). When you talk about corporate complicity and rabid capitalism in driving war and theft of natural resources; you get the ‘what’s the alternative?’ If anything, the killer tropes demonstrate the limits of what we can imagine. Conversation, to use an ill-fitting word, feels more like a standard script. A (far too) simple exchange of dialogue according to well-worn precepts. He says, she says. There’s barely room to breathe in between exchanges. And the dialogue exchanged is as dull as a highveld morning before a snowfall.
A recent overheard standard script went a bit like this. Forgive me if it’s not word perfect; after all I could barely keep pace with the swiftness of the exchanges. Crazy that dialogue about things so very intrinsic to what being human is can happen at such speed. Maybe humans have become super smart? Or is that super stupid? Can you even tell the difference?.
She says; Israel the zionist state is busy with erasing all of Palestine and her people.
He says; Listen — they raped women and murdered babies on 7 October and they took hostages. They don’t belong in our land, they have not developed anything in all the time they have been in Israel. We have built a country, we turned the desert into the Garden of Eden and anyway, where are Jewish people supposed to be safe? We are the victims here just fighting for our right to exist. Also we were promised this land in the Bible.
Eventually, She and He quiet down when it becomes obvious that I’m eavesdropping. They finish up lunch and settle the bill. He ‘has to run’ (to a Tropaholics Anonymous group no doubt) but She lingers peering at her mobile. After a bit she looks up and smiles. ‘Sorry, we might have been a bit loud.’
You say; I reply.
In short order she accepts my offer to join in a post lunch coffee and settles herself down at the little cafe table. We chit-chat and take in the almost balmy highveld day. I discover He is a first cousin on the maternal side.
I couldn’t help overhearing the early bit of your conversation; I say.
She laughs.
Tell me about your view that the zionists won’t stop until they have murdered every last Palestinian. I never heard your response to your cousin’s. What do you think of what he said?
She replies; an ineffable pile-of-poo if there ever was one.
Overheard Dialogue is literally that. Some day, we’ll evolve as far as conversation. I hope.
© Jesh Baker for Oppi Stoep 2024, All Rights Reserved
