In the church of divine boredom
Tymon Smith puts it to you that it was a relief when the Oscar case took a back seat to Nkandla
AND on the eleventh day the congregation arrived at the church of justice ready to continue the excommunication of the once favoured son of the nation, murmuring softly in recognition at each other’s familiar, tired, OMG-are-we-still-here faces and waiting to hear what the Reverend Barry Roux would put to the day’s hapless witnesses.
Cardinal Gerrie Nel, the short prosecutor bouncing on his heels and looking like an illustration out of a Dickens novel, called out the name of a rat-faced man named Sean Patrick Rens and he was sworn in and it was on. Not only was the fallen hero a man with bad taste in friends, a love of ditzy blondes, fast cars and penchant for vomiting at the sight of the destruction that he had wrought, he was also, according to this witness, a man with a “great enthusiasm and love of guns”.
And it came to pass that the fallen hero had asked Rens about the purchasing of a very big revolver and two assault rifles, three shotguns and a smaller gun that goes by the name of the .38 Special. The congregation typed furiously and Google was accessed and pictures of the weapons were hastily circulated in the Twittersphere. What had he been expecting? The end of the world? Did he have a bunker full of candles and tinned food ready for the day when his people would be chased into the sea?
The short man asked the ratfaced man about the answers the fallen hero had given in his firearm competency exam to questions about when you are allowed to use lethal force. The scenario in the question used the example of men with guns coming into your house, and the fallen hero had scrawled correctly in the three lines provided for the answer that unless his life was in danger, he would not be permitted to shoot with the intent to kill nameless, shadowy figures.
If only he had given his girlfriend the same consideration.
Her mother stared at her daughter’s killer with steely determination, looking for answers she might never get. Rens also recalled that the fallen hero had once heard a noise in his house and gone into combat mode, what he called “code red”, but the source of the scary noises had only been a tumble dryer, which the accused, because he was a polite young man, did not shoot.
Although the congregation
As the world prepared to listen to Lady Madonsela’s report, Cardinal Nel dropped his bombshell
recognised that this was not a game, not a movie, not a performance for their entertainment, the next witness would test their patience and challenge their ability to stay awake. His name was Barend van Staden and he was a crime photographer and he was led through a slideshow of the photos he had taken at the scene of the crime and his answers were short and full of numbers, listing the times he had taken the photos. It took him a long, long time to finish his testimony, and the congregation began to scratch their eyes out and the tweeting and blogging was greatly reduced and many ugly words were muttered under yawning breaths.
And when the Reverend Roux stood up to begin his sermon, it seemed that perhaps, under the influence of his own celebrity and his parody Twitter account and all the pictures that had been published of him over the weekend, he had begun to believe that anything he said would be latched upon with the fervour reserved for great statesmen. But even he could not make the man with the camera say anything that meant anything to anyone and the congregation quickly tired of his circular questions and cursed him on their keyboards. The fallen hero had little to get upset about and his head was mostly up and the sounds of his retching were not to be heard and the smell of his vomit did not waft over the courtroom, as it had in the previous week.
By the thirteenth day it looked as though, contrary to popular mutterings, Cardinal Nel had not received a call from Pope Jacob Zuma telling him to pull a rabbit out of the hat and call his most explosive witness in order to distract the world from the release of the No 1 Lady’s Detective Agency’s report into a certain piece of prime KwaZuluNatal real estate, but then a people’s champion stood up and gave the Reverend Roux no quarter and the audience was suddenly sitting bolt upright, the hard benches and sore posteriors quickly forgotten.
His name was Captain Christian Mangena and he was an expert in ballistics who steadfastly stuck by his belief that the victim had been standing when she was shot and that it was the final bullet that hit her in the head and sent her crashing lifelessly to the floor, her head landing in the toilet. The Reverend Roux would have the congregation believe that it was the first bullet that hit her in the head, but Mangena doggedly refused to accept such a version and his constant refrain of “I don’t agree” became a new mantra, quickly typed on keyboards, iPads and Blackberrys and sent out into the world as a sign that the tide was turning.
When the Cardinal, with a knowing wink and a smirk, brought out the results of the police’s investigation into the browsing history of the fallen hero’s iPad, there was a rush to the screens and photos were taken because there was porn. As the world prepared to listen to Lady Thuli Madonsela’s report, Cardinal Nel dropped his bombshell, but not one that would distract attention from the pope. Rather, he asked for a postponement and informed the congregation that his case was coming to a close. It was whispered that by early next week we could be looking at the appearance in the dock of the fallen hero himself. M’Lady Thokozile Masipa granted the Cardinal his request and so, earlier than expected, on the thirteenth day we rested and went our separate ways, talking of Nkandla and dreaming of a world where fallen heroes and fallen presidents share cells in dark dungeons and we can all get on with our lives in peace.
Amen.
Pictures of the weapons were hastily circulated in the Twittersphere. What had he been expecting? The end of the world?