Carnivorous Cow

Cows are not sheep. Sheep are pack animals, with herd mentality. Cows, on the other hand, are rather more independent, and can be entirely solitary. They're also not partial to crowding.

Carnivorous Cow was smsing Gramsci to exchange polite silly season greetings, like millions of other South Africans intent on enriching the hellphone networks. After exchanging pleasantries and regrets that Father Christmas seemed to have omitted World Peace from both of their Christmas Stockings, the talk turned to more substantial matters.

"How's the hangover?" asked Gramsci, sympathetically. Like millions of other South Africans, Christmas dinner for the Cow was traditionally a braai. And, like millions of Capetonians, these plans had been scuppered by a persistent gale-force south-easter. Somehow, standing around an oven with an emptying glass lacked the ambience of standing around a fire.

"Aaaaaaaaarrgh!" moaned the Cow softly. It wasn't the Wallace and Gromit reruns that left a sandbox in her mouth. "Still, today was better. Danger Beach wasn't *that* packed, and the Ice Cafe had plenty of Belgian Chocolate ice cream left..."

Still, the crowds on the beach weren't what stressed the Cow. Even the long queues of standstill traffic along the Main Road. Rather, it was crowding of a different sort.

The intrusive smses. Followed up by phone calls when these were not answered immediately. "How *are* you?" demanded the caller. "What's wrong?" "Fine!" snapped the Cow, through clenched teeth. "Just busy. Bye." Followed by sympathetic smses. And more intrusive ones, probing what was *really* wrong.

"What is it," the Cow asked Gramsci, desperately, "that leads people to see stalking as the inevitable next step after attraction? Why is it that the minute you turn down someone's advances, you become the centre of their universe, the sole purpose of their existence, and the top of their To Do list? Why do they think that, because you turned down their civil, polite offer of carnal cavorting or romantic recreation or whatever it was they were selling, you'd somehow become interested if they were in your face all the time?"

Gramsci reflected a moment. "I think it's an Eros and Thanatos thing," he ventured. "When they say, 'I can't live without you,' they're giving you permission to kill them should you reject them. And, since most people's morality prevents them from indulging their murderous longings, these people feel the need to drive you to it, to overcome your own taboos about killing."

"Sort of, justifiable homicide, then?" asked the Cow. "Exactly!" confirmed Gramsci. "Courts have always been softer on crimes of passion, because even judges know how trying all this can be!"

It being Monday, the Cow forgave him the pun, and pondered on what he'd said. It was just possible, she thought, that she could lure the perpetrator to Sunrise Beach on New Year, where they'd be sure to be trampled in the stampede. Or, at the very least, develop an appreciation for solitude and space.

"Newlands is the English of Sport!" declared Mr Timberland, thumping the table so that three mochas and an americano entered orbit. General puzzlement descended. "Well, you know," he continued, "the same way there was all that debate about National Languages, which resulted in our getting 11 - which gave us English as the de facto official language." The puzzlement hadn't lifted.

"Right now," he elucidated, oblivious to the mopping of spilt coffee, "there is considerable debate about whether it should be Athlone or Khayelitsha whose stadium is chosen for the Soccer World Cup venue in 2010. At the end of the day it will just quietly settle on Newlands!"

Public transport to Khayelitsha consisted of a broken train line and a swarm of decrepit taxis. Public transport to Athlone was rather better, though the stadium was a walk across a deadly intersection from the closest train station. Public transport to Newlands was, well... not that big an issue, really. Most of the patrons of Newlands used their cars. Parking was far much more of a problem, and a source of income for local schools hiring out their sportsfields. The rugby and cricket stadia straddled the railway line, right at the station, for anyone foolhardy enough to believe that trains actually ran on that line when they needed them, and the Mowbray-Claremont-WYNberg! taxis trundled up and down the Main Road mere metres away.

There were plenty of pubs for warming up before and celebrating after. Plenty of trees for when the queues at the ablution facilities were too long. Quiet streets with high walls to amplify the drunken singing. A river, for some quick nookie. All in all, it seemed like a pretty sensible idea.

Except...

It was *Newlands*. Newlands is not merely a class-in-itself, it is a class-for-itself. And, as such, it is completely hostile to the class interests of the soccer-viewing classes. (Newlands may occasionally tune in on satellite to watch the English Premiership, because that is about business interests rather than sport. Soccer represents, to them, a less evolved form of what became rugby, much like a chimpanzee that evolved from a common ancestor with humankind. Rugby they'll allow into their consciousness, but the real sport that Newlands watches, is cricket.)

And so, the private security companies that patrol the leafy streets will quietly swop their bicycles for casspirs, their side-arms for RPG7s, their rottweilers for urukhai. People seeking to cross the invisible borders will need to show their invisible passports - accent and school affiliation. Infiltration will be impossible.

But Carnivorous Cow's concerns were rather more specific. Cape Town gridlocked routinely on the first day of school; however would anyone *get* anywhere? And, for those who lived on the other side of Newlands to Campus... would they have to camp in their offices for the duration? Telecommute?

"I suppose," she sighed fatalistically, "it's one way to reduce cars on Campus. Do you suppose those Planning people might have a finger in this...?"

Carnivorous Cow and the Object of Men's Desires sat drinking caffeine in the Leslie. They were discussing whatever it was that had frightened off the Nostril Photographer - sorry, the "Freakin' Artiste, OK?" - in the Cow's office, and wasn't there a nice woman somewhere with a suitable pair of hips to interest him. Which moved on to the more general topic of Talent on Campus, when along bounded Babygro.

Babygro stopped to chat briefly, then muscled his way into the queue for the only food on Campus, leaving the females to include him in their assessment. "Such a sweet guy," said the Cow, as he moved out of earshot. The OMD made a positive assessment of the way his body fitted his clothing, and then both started laughing. The nipple owner leapt unbidden to mind, and conversation turned to male insecurities.

As talent went on Campus, there wasn't an awful lot about, and so it was rather difficult to understand what there was to be insecure about. Of course, there were also sufficient policies in place to regulate against the appearance of hormones, so even where talent was to be found, appreciation was not likely to be expressed. Which was probably just as well, the Cow thought, remembering all the trouble into which hormones had gotten her!

Still, it being the season of goodwill and all, the Cow thought perhaps she ought to put the message out to the Universe that, rattling around on Campus, feeling very sad and lonely, was a Nostril Photographer (sorry, "Freakin' Artiste, OK?") in search of a suitable pair of hips.

"What's with all this maudlin obsession with one's place in the Universe?" grumbled Gramsci. The Cow's blog had taken a gloomy tone of late, and he worried that the Suicide Season was taking its toll.

The Cow sighed dramatically. Did The Universe really want to hear that Mr Timberland had taken to wearing Jeep (but not driving one), or that colour had finally arrived in the Film and Media tea room, albeit in muted form?

Gramsci fixed her with his beady eyes. "Why don't you blog about The Poet?" he suggested. Carnivorous Cow looked bemused. "Which Poet?" she enquired.

"Well..." began Gramsci, settling in. "One day, a Poet arrived on Campus, and headed for the offices of one of our own poets, where she was politely received. After some obligatory small talk, she announced that she'd come, at the behest of Someone Very Senior, to take over the programme. Our own poet was somewhat surprised. No one had said anything to any of the staff who taught on the programme. To all intents and purposes, they were doing just fine.

"Our own poet spoke to another of our own poets, and they decided to disabuse The Poet of this illusion of hers, and sent her packing. Poetically, of course. Poets are not prosaic people.

"But somehow perplexed by the whole incident, they decided to investigate, and it turned out that a conversation had indeed taken place between The Poet and Someone Very Senior. At a party, or some such function. Over drinks. And Someone Very Senior had said something genial intimating that our fine institution could be finer yet through the acquisition of someone fine like The Poet. Which was interpreted by The Poet as a firm job offer, entailing heading up the programme. Hence her arrival on Campus to do so."

Carnivorous Cow shook her head, sadly. This was, after all, the stuff of short stories, not of poems. "Is there any truth in this," she asked Gramsci, "or is this merely one of those apocryphal anecdotes that earn one drinks down at the Club?"

"Pick a poet," he smiled, "I'm sure they'll be willing to engage. But it might well cost you a drink or two at the Club..."

Carnivorous Cow and the lawyer were having fun. Like millions of others, they were discussing The Zuma Allegations, speculating wildly and getting completely carried away on the alcoholic tide that bouyed them. Their companions had fallen silent, reduced to spectating the increasingly animated conversation playing out before them.

B had started it - suggesting that JZ had the worst of all possible timing; getting fingered for corruption during a Moral Regeneration drive, and now, getting charged with rape during the 16 days of activism against Violence Against Women. The lawyer and the Cow had pounced on the bait with relish.

"It's his own doing!" argued the lawyer. "If he was completely above suspicion, the Shaik trial outcome would have exonerated him, and the media would have been less frenzied in their reporting of the rape allegations!"

"It has little to do with luck," agreed the Cow. "Remember, this man was a patron of loveLife. He was on record supporting the loveLife campaigns and messages, yet when questioned about his views on oral sex - advocated by loveLife as a safer alternative to vanilla sex - he decried it as 'unnatural'. That's not luck, that's stupidity. Like Shane Warne agreeing to be the face of young smokeless Australia, and then getting snapped lighting up. If you're going to advocate something, at least in public don't let your behaviour contradict that. It doesn't do your credibility much good!"

"Do you think he's guilty?" asked the lawyer. "Do you think the courts will find him guilty?"

"Hard to tell," offered the Cow,"it depends on how important he's seen to The National Project. The two not being the same - guilt, and being found guilty - in the public eye anyway. Ask anyone about Michael Jackson. Or OJ Simpson. Or Makhaya Ntini!"

"What do they all have in common?" asked the lawyer, wryly. His demographics matched theirs. "Money! Good lawyers! A well-oiled spin machine. Where is the place for truth in all of that?"

Carnivorous Cow considered - albeit briefly - pouncing on this violation of post-modernism, simply for the fun of tormenting the lawyer with his own political correctness, but it seemed inappropriate to the setting. "Shoo!" and "Hey bru" seemed far more relevant things to say than "Rashomon" or "relativism", so she let it pass. "Makhaya Ntini," she reminded B, who was looking perplexed, "was found not guilty, on appeal." "Because," roared the lawyer triumphantly, "the SA cricket team needed black talent! It was important to The National Project that black men be seen as role models, talented performers, not just thugs and reprobates. They needed black male heroes, especially in an historically white arena like cricket! Had he been a soccer player, his appeal may not have succeeded."

"Who decides," the Cow mused aloud, "which should take precedence, in The National Project - race, or gender, issues? Clearly, if gender had been top of the agenda, different considerations would have arisen, and the outcome may have been different."

B attempted an interjection. "Shouldn't justice be objective, though? You're suggesting that justice is a fallacy!"

The lawyer snorted into his beer. Carnivorous Cow shrugged. "Justice always reflects the mores of the day. It must. And, while the system should be designed in such a way to maximise some *sense* of objectivity, with some recourse built in to higher levels should the parties feel that Justice has not been served, it is, in the end, operationalised by human beings, who are subjective vessels of their own prejudices and proclivities. Yes, they fall back on precedent and case law, but in choosing *which* to consider, they're exercising subjective judgment. In choosing which evidence, which argument, which voice, to privilege over others, they're exercising subjective judgment. It's inevitable."

"So," the lawyer added, "just as some hold the view that the complainant was sacrified in the Ntini trial for The Greater Good, JZ may be 'sacrificed' now for the Greater Good of being seen to take gender seriously - or HIV, or whatever other issues are embodied in this complainant, this set of circumstances - as well as Good Governance and a Firm Stance on Corruption."

Carnivorous Cow stared into her glass and mused a while. When national politics seemed as murky and riven with the Spy-vs-Spy scenarios of Campus, it was cause for worry.

Carnivorous Cow sat opposite the Nostril Photographer and the Object of Men's Desires, and looked out at the passing traffic. Grad week always provided lots to look at - colleagues who generally dragged themselves in dressed in grimy jeans and sweaters with last weeks' supper festooned on them, appeared in immaculate charcoal suits and gleaming linen shirts, rendering them unrecognisable to the graduating students they'd taught devotedly for the preceeding years.

The students whose dress code usually involved visible underwear and little else, appeared in designer outfits and Sex-and-the-City heels, or elaborate traditional dress if their home country had such. Family and friends outshone the ramps of Milano or Paris, and the air hung thick with designer fragrances. And then, although still daylight, the Batcave emptied, and the flock of academic gowns rushed forth.

The Nostril Photographer was feeling depressed. Beyond just normal end-of-year depression. The Object of Men's Desires was also feeling depressed. And burned out. Year end seemed a distant dream.

Carnivorous Cow, on the other hand, had done depression two days ago. Having a short attention span, it bored her pretty quickly, so she went to the local drug emporium and stocked up on things that looked as if they should be smoked instead of swallowed, and started swallowing them. She glowed in the dark from vitamin overdose, but the silly smile that had been etched on her delicate bovine features since November began had returned. She didn't stare wistfully at ever passing pelvic girdle of sufficient size, as the Nostril Photographer did, but rather tried to reconstruct exactly how many alcoholic beverages she'd consumed the night before, and why she didn't have a hangover. it was one of Life's Great Mysteries, she was forced to conclude.

Carnivorous Cow eyed the chocolate muffins salaciously. Her peripheral vision caught a flicker of Mr Smooth, whose appearance characteristically co-incided with that of white tablecloths, banners and potted palms. Carnivorous Cow had managed to forget the eventfulness happening down the road, despite lost graduands popping up in the postroom looking for gowns and the annual scrubbing of the floors. This high point of Core Business had somehow snuck up on her unawares.

And so Mr Smooth's appearance took her by surprise. He seemed a little distracted, and muttered about The Prince phoning this morning to announce that he would, after all, be attending his son's graduation, and wished to cap him. This afternoon.

The Prince, it must be noted, does not travel alone. This is not a question of merely squeezing in another chair into Jammie Hall. The Prince, like every other politician, is surrounded by an army of MIBs. The "Fewer Cars on Campus" moves likewise run headfirst into his mile-long cavalcade, and media coverage needs to be rather more than a single Nostril Photographer. All of which needed to be sorted at very short notice, and, judging by the relatively unfurrowed state of Mr Smooth's brow, had been.

Carnivorous Cow had had no idea that The Prince had a son enrolled here. She imagined that The Prince's children would be rather older, older perhaps than the princes she had taught, who would have been cousins of this Prince. She wondered if The Prince was happy that his son was studying here, rather than at the institution that bore his name, or the one of which he was the Chancellor, or one closer to home.

But the musings were interrupted by more pressing matters - the coffee cup was hot, and the chocolate chip muffin cries deafening - so she completed her purchase at the coffee outlet and returned to her office. Besides which, she had no desire to be run over by a seething cavalcade, unable to find parking on Campus.

Carnivorous Cow stood in the parking area at Toad Hall and wrested her iPod from the Nostril Photographer. As he retreated towards his UCT-blue Tazz, their eyes fell upon some imposing SUVs tucked in the yellow bays to the side. And so began - despite the warnings of countless therapists - to talk about the P-word. Or, more accurately, like he-who-must-not-be-named, the topic was spoken around, elliptically, in beautiful spirals.

No one needs a post-graduate course in semiotics to understand that huge cars are all about over-compensation for under-endowment in other areas, but it has been mooted that perhaps the current three-tiered parking bay system at UCT should be replaced by one based on size - or, like the airlines have taken to doing, if you spill over beyond your allocated space, you pay for two. Whether your SUV creates overhang on both sides of your alloted bay, or your Lexus protrudes six metres behind... that's two bays. It's obstructing even a micro-mini or a halfo from parking alongside - unless they pass on the favour and, in turn, straddle the white line, cramping things for the next car... until finally six cars are comfortably accommodated in an area designed for sixteen. And somewhere, someone's bloodpressure is not taking that news too well.

But it wasn't only size that was occupying the minds of the Cow and the Nostril Photographer. They mused about the global picture, about the movement away from semiotic giveaways, and the movement towards More Sensible Options like diesel instead of petrol, or electrical, or even hybrid, cars.

They speculated in that warm, fuzzy way that people can when they realise that their workday is over, about the possibility of park 'n ride sites which would allow staff and students to plug in their electric cars for a recharge while they clambered aboard the safe, shiny Jammie Shuttle to head up to Campus, ridding the historic precinct of its traffic congestion, the staff member of their frustration at finding someone's semiotic giveaway spilling over the only remaining P-bays, and the Universe of unnecessary pollution. In time, we'd have a familiar, predictable climate once more, like the world being righted when The Selfish Giant saw the error of his ways.

Carniovorous Cow clumped back to her office, bade Gramsci goodnight, and headed for home. Realising that she had only enough petrol to get to the petrol station... Which would have been fine had there been petrol, which there wasn't. The pumps were dry. As unbidden thoughts of Zimbabwefication tapped on her shoulder, she thought back on her conversation with the Nostril Photographer, about the kinder, fuzzier world they'd dreamed up, and started humming "imagine".... before realising with a shock that today, 8 December, was the 25th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon.

RIP, softer, kinder, gentler world....

Carnivorous Cow peered through her whisky glass at Lolly, as the wind ruffled the gazebo. Lolly was poised to return to these Virginia Creepered walls as a student, and was asking sensible questions about O-week and Registration and Student Cards - and Kirstenbosch discounts, with the Freshlyground concert next week.

Carnivorous Cow flinched as a rather large splash from the pool diluted her whisky - and attempted to answer Lolly's sensible questions. All around, looks of comfortable nostalgia settled on faces, and even the chief Braaier abandoned his post to reminisce.

It was a rather odd group. Several had been undergraduates more or less coterminously at the "university" geographically closest to the gathering, though only two had known each other at the time. Of those, a couple had had postgraduate experience at UCT. Others knew UCT only as the source of all those unwanted student cars clogging up the parking bays at Rhodes Memorial, or the "owner" of the scary blue buses that nearly wiped them out on their morning jogs, or the site of the Two Oceans finish line.

"You're so lucky working there," sighed one. "All those gorgeous young students to ogle all day..."

"Yes," interjected another, "but then you also have all those professors, with those ghastly bodies that shouldn't be allowed out in public! It's enough to make you lose your appetite!" She shovelled another forkliftful of peppadew chips into her mouth.

Carnivorous Cow thought about that. It was true, there were some really aesthetically pleasing students, but there were others who seemed to delight in defying the tyrrany of beauty. And staff, well - these ranged from people whose religion obviously forbade intimate contact with shampoo, to those who could tell you their weight in micrograms, before and after the sip of espresso they allowed to slip between their lips - carefully rationed, so as not to spoil their BurgerSanlam training schedule.

There were those who celebrated the view that paying attention to one's body detracted from nourishing one's mind, and Carnivorous Cow couldn't help but feel saddened by that. She wasn't sure how shortened life-expectancy benefitted the mind, except perhaps to focus it more sharply at the point at which the doctor chose to quantify that.

She looked across at the guy from the movie production company. "Perhaps you're luckiest," she ventured, "reality never comes intruding into your working life!" He smiled, enigmatically. "Perhaps," he conceded, "but it's so nice to be with people who actually *eat* the food you provide for them!"

At which point the braai was declared ready, and conversation was set aside momentarily. Lolly sidled closer to the Cow. "Maybe," she murmured shyly, "I *do* need another AIDS talk, if there are going to be so many delectable bodies lying around..."

The conversation moved on and came to rest on a local author, whose books crowded the shelves at the local Exclusives. Unwarrantedly, it ws argued - the greatest book ever written in SA Literature was not there - neither in its original form, nor in translation; yet this author's works from the earliest to the latest were all there, in two official languages. And only, those present agreed, were the first two at all readable.

"A third novel, like a third album, is notoriously difficult," suggested someone. Carnivorous Cow disagreed. She thought the first was the most difficult - once one had the attention of the publishers / record companies, the media, and the buying public, it was merely a question of maintaining that. Which the author in question hadn't managed to do.

She had, in the interim, moved to foreign climes and married. And, apparently, gushed about her happiness in a women's magazine. Which had everyone shaking their heads and clicking their tongues sadly. "Well, of course, then!" exclaimed one. "How can she be expected to produce good writing if all her creative energy is being expended between her cambric sheets?"

Carnivorous Cow reflected on that. It was true that much of the really great creative work had been born out of despair, frustration, anomie and angst. Some out of ascetic contemplation. Some out of abundant, overwhelming joy. But rarely were truly great works the product of smug satisfaction.

The initial, heady rush of new love, or the feverish grip of passion, or the roller-coaster ride of intense emotion that accompanied watershed moments often spilled over in creative ways, even among the greyest, most boring accountants or engineers; but once one shrugged on the downy anorak of comfort the roller-coaster levelled out, the sky returned to blue, and a sense of normality absorbed the response excesses. Emotional intensity settled. Neutral colours returned to one's palette and one's haptic vision faded. A butterfly was once more a butterfly and not a metaphor, and the dishes still needed to be washed.

It might be possible, she conceded, to code a really slick spreadsheet macro, or spec a really strong bridge, or proofread a manuscript flawlessly - good work, too, but not *creative* work. One can read only so much Dickens before one yearns for the creativity of a Rushdie novel, look at so much photorealism before the Fauves beckon.

Of course it was a choice - no one was denying the writer her right to domestic smugness. So long as she accepted that it came at the cost of her art.

Carnivorous Cow received in her email inbox this morning one of those emails about "why men are happier" (see below). The usual - women are complex creatures, men have only a single dimension.

Stereotypes, as has been muttered before, stick around because they resonate, and Carnivorous Cow got a sinking feeling in her stomach that went beyond her tummy bug as she reflected on this one. She thought back to some recent conversations.

Monica was a dishwater blonde, a little past her sell-by date and slightly shop-soiled, recently moved to Slaapstad to escape the vestiges of a broken heart, with her young children in tow. Whatever you might read in the newspapers, Slaapstad has a thriving market in second-hand men - admittedly some of whom are still legally married - and so Monica was hoping to find Mr Right among these pre-owned models. She projected herself as a flirt, a bombshell, a sex goddess - but also a caring, doting mother.

Pamela was the real thing. She'd been there, done that, shrugged off the wet T-shirt more times than she'd care to remember, but still looked good on it. When Monica arrived in her neck of the woods, Pamela took her in, showed her around, brought her into her social circle. Where Monica met Piet, Pamela's recycled cast-off. Pamela and Piet had been hot and firey, but short-lived. She moved on, he got clingy, she got heavy, he backed off. They settled into a comfortable friendship, and he was available to Monica's advances. Piet and Monica fell quickly into very public mutual gushing and gooing, but Slaapstad is tolerant and eyeballs were only rolled in private.

Until Pamela decided to host an end-of-year party at her home. Monica took the opportunity to launch into a very pubic dissing of Pamela, and things just kinda unravelled from there.

Carnivorous Cow put on her sherlock holmes hat, borrowed a pipe, and set off to investigate. It turned out, according to Piet, that Monica was "insecure" about his continuing friendship with Pamela. World War XVII erupts, because Monica is "insecure".

It would be easy to shrug Monica off as neurotic (though neurotics are incredibly hard to shrug off, in the main) were she not merely one of several exhibiting exactly the same behaviour at exactly the same time. There's Sandy, worried that she's not as slim as Glenda, so she doesn't want to go to the party in case David leaves with Glenda instead; there's Linzi, desperately colouring her hair and updating her wardrobe, to stay in the running against women she sees as younger and more attractive; there's Zania, dropping her boyfriend before he drops her, and fast running out of men she hasn't been through at least twice before; there's Cally, queen of the put-down, keeping everyone at arm's length in case they melt her icy shell and reveal her to be, just, ordinary; there's Thoko, so desperate to hold on to Jake that she _has_ turned into her mother.... All around her, Carnivorous Cow saw insecure women.

Insecure about men, mainly, but also about their appearance, their children's accomplishments, their careers, their futures, their hopes, and, mostly, their men.

By contrast, Carnivorous Cow flipped through her mental files to see what made men insecure. Well, not an awful lot - only one thing came up, so to speak. Size. Even among those who had no reason at all for concern.

"Maybe men are just simpler," she commented to Gramsci. "Or maybe they're just too busy running the world to worry about whether beige blonde rather than sunny blonde hides their grey hairs better, in case their current brand-new-second-hand sees a sleeker, younger model elsewhere..."

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