ENCLAVES

Preface

1. This is a draft of a new novel about future political resurrection of humankind out of insurrection and apocalyptical chaos caused by humans moving billions of tons of metal around this planet for no good carbon-footprint outcome, combined with senseless buildup of military ordinance. The story starts and is set in South Africa where conflict between poverty and affluence is becoming apparent.
2. The book is entitled Enclaves because coming global political and trade chaos is going to resolve into multitudes of independent sovereign enclaves.
3. The story starts on a remote gravel road running along the Mopeli River that leads to a farm east of a town called Clocolan. The farm borders a landlocked country called Lesotho. You might like to do a “Satellite” search on your computer maps app to get a feel of the remote (yet agriculturally vibrant) aspect of that area. I suggest you scroll around the areas of Clocolan, Mopeli River and the beautiful mountainous area of Lesotho.

Chapter 1

Despite the corrugations in the dirt road that rattled his small speeding VW Golf car into ruin, Luke Rekkab was happy; for he was on his way to his brother’s farm, and not far from it. The narrow road twisted and turned with the meandering of the Mopeli River that flowed from Clocolan towards the Lesotho border. He had to slow down occasionally to negotiate causeways constructed over river crossings, then he would speed up again into his rattling noisy impetus.

Nevertheless, he was happy, whistling the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” as he drove along. Luke was a happy guy. His life motto was Happy thoughts, Good thoughts, Happy words, Good words Happy deeds and Good deeds. That is the way he lived his life, always thinking happy thoughts, thinking Good thoughts, speaking Happy words that were Good words, and doing Good deeds that he designed to make people feel Happy. Whenever things went wrong for him, he would remind himself, “Come on Luke, get yourself into HG-HG-HG”. And in this mood he whistled himself happily along his bumpy ride.

Then, all of a sudden, as he rounded a twist in the road, he was confronted by a large stationary Ford spread-eagled across the narrow road. As he approached it, suddenly all four doors opened and out popped four evil looking men like slippery bars of soap oozing out of squeezed hands. These guys were certainly not HG-HG-HG; they were clearly Villain Evil (VE) in their thinking, Villain Evil (VE) in their shouting and Villain Evil (VE) in their deedless un-goodliness. Adrenaline spiked rapidly into Luke’s veins, which very effectively replaced all of the HG-HG-HG he had had in his head with flight response that took over his body and actions as he observed the scene before him of VE-VE-VE.

He instantly saw a gap between the open doors of the car and a steep earth embankment on the side of the road and accelerated into that gap and through it, much to the surprise and annoyance of the depraved villainous ambushers.

The small VW Golf was nimble in handling the twists and turns of the narrow gravel road, and as Luke sped past, he could see in his rear-view mirror that the miscreants had piled back into the Ford which was now accelerating to chase after him. In an attempt to shake off his pursuers, Luke took a skid-turn into a side road and sped fast. He could not shake them off and the chase went on for some time before Luke was confronted by another obstacle – a herd of cattle in the road.

*     *     *     *     *

Luke’s sister, Anna-Marie Rekkab, lived in Pretoria, a city quite distant from the road upon which Luke was travelling. She was walking home after her day at work. It was about five o’clock in the evening, just as Luke was fleeing from his pursuers. and she had a strange premonition that Luke was not in his usual Happy thought, Happy words and Happy deeds state of mind.

He had promised to phone her at work upon his safe arrival at the farm, which ought to have been at about four o’clock. His lack of calling her caused her some concern. There was not much she could do about that but she determined that she would call him as soon as she got home.