What started off as a pleasantly plonked drive home...

ended up as a surprisingly sober drive into the driveway, but not before I let out a little fart in abject fear. Let me elaborate...

Wednesday nights, as Werner - The King has told you, is Action Cricket night. I'd been asked to fill in for one of the guys in Werner's team who was off to Namibia for a few days and, needing a hangover, agreed to play.

We ended up being dropped by our opposition, who failed to pitch up, so we played a short game among ourselves for the fun of it. What the hell, we were there, so why not use the time constructively? Drinking without playing, it could be argued, is not "constructively".

So half an hour later, sweaty and thirsty, we made our way up the stairs to the pub area where Werner, Hilgaard and myself stuck it out longer than the other guys, who retired home early. The World Cup cricket match between SA and Australia was well on its way to being a resounding victory for the Aussies (by far the better side on the day) and there was not one drinker watching the massacre, so we laid into the Capn'n'Coke.

Much re-telling of old fishing, diving and hunting stories later (around 23h30 actually) we decided to call it a night. All off home in our cars, I had a pleasant drive home until, not 1km from the house, I round a corner and see a sea of blue lights in front of me, blocking the way. "Oh, fuck, I'm dead" were the first words in my head and the fart escaped my cringing rusty starfish.

I slowed down considerably, rehearsing how many drinks I was going to tell the cops I'd had that night, when I noticed that there were also a few red lights mixed in the blue sea. I carried on slowly through the four parked cars, slow enough to show that I was compus mentis, suddenly aware that there was not one police officer in sight.

It was then that I noticed the space blanket lying in the road under the bridge, just off the kerb, with motionless "Papvreter" feet sticking out from beneath. I drove by the scene, trying to figure out what might have happened. Lying under the bridge, I thought the now-deceased might have been walking on the highway above, got hit by a passing low-flying Mercedes and taken a swan-dive off the bridge thinking there to be a grass verge on the other side of the railing. Well, technically there was, but it was a ten or twelve metre drop to get to it. I also thought it might have been a successful suicide bid. Anyway, I felt sorry for the poor "Papvreter" for about a second and made my merry meandering way home.

This morning, on my way to work, I passed under the bridge again (it's the only way out of the neighbourhood) and noticed a pool of dried blood on the road where the hapless deceased had lain. I also noticed that the blood was not at the edge of the bridge where I thought it had been, but about 5m under it. Obviously it wasn't a swan-diver that had lain there a few hours earlier (not unless he actually had flown that short distance). In all probability it was either a late-night shooting (there are some shady goings-on in the 'hood lately) or some pissed pedestrian had wandered off the pavement on his way home and gotten whacked by a low-flying Mercedes. Anyway, you think the paramedics would have cleaned the blood off the road. After all, there was a stream not 50m away from the scene.

Not a way you would want to sober up, believe me...