By Nerine Dorman
(In collaboration with Dr Annette Hübschle)
Guy’s smiling so hard he’s going to give his cheeks permanent marionette lines. As are all the other folks hanging over the edge in danger of falling into the enclosure. Then again, this is a historic moment, and I should be ecstatic that I’m here to see it. Six rhinos – southern black rhinos, to be specific – are busy demolishing alfalfa their keeper has dropped in their trough.
This is Guy’s moment to shine – after all, he’s been putting thousands of yuan into RTC Biosciences for the past three years. I shouldn’t deny him his triumph, yet I can’t help but feel like this is a pageant, designed to make a bunch of rich arseholes greenwash their Big Tech billions. It could be worse. Guy could be investing in the military–industrial complex. Small mercies, huh?
Then again, maybe if the powers that be had spent money on conservation sooner, we wouldn’t have gotten ourselves into this situation where we had to de-extinct the black rhino. I saw the figures they spent on the programme – enough money to make a dent in South Africa’s healthcare. Or education. Or solve our housing crisis.
Here we are. Six magnificent black rhinos, muscles rippling under thick, wrinkled hides – the first to tread this earth in more than a decade since the last beast died alone in a miserable British zoo. Granted, they’re all young still – mere babies, according to Theuns Theunissen, director of Houmoed Private Game Reserve. Dear god, I loathe that man with the power of a hundred suns going nova. He looks like he’s stepped out of one of those nature doccies on one of the major streaming services – all blond, with a tan out of a bottle, and his teeth so white they must’ve cost as much as a small car. Apparently, he’s eighty, but doesn’t look a day over forty. Amazing what money can do. Especially when it comes to scrubbing what he did to a young, upcoming influencer at a product launch five years ago.
Guy says I shouldn’t be a bitch, but hey, a girl can have Opinions, amiright?
That journo, Jenna Andrews, is here, too, waving her camera about. Of course, she is. God only knows which Big Tech conglomerate she’s simping for this time. I still haven’t forgiven her for that hit piece she ran about me last year.
She tries to make meaningful eye contact with me, as if she’s labouring under the assumption that I’ll want to engage with her. Instead, I focus on what I’m supposed to do – get the shots of me feeding the adorable baby rhinos so my sponsors can get all that sweet, sweet engagement.
Up close, the okes are undeniably cute in their own lumbering way. I reckon they’re the size of those large Shetland ponies I saw at that larney ren faire when I was doing that ambassador gig last month.
Mbulelo, their keeper, even says a good bit about how they’re still being bottle fed, even though they’ve been eating solid food since only a month or so of age, and we get awesome content of me holding a bottle so that one of the babies can suckle. There’s something so freaking adorable about that little hook lip that curls around the teat. Up close, I get to see their weird flat feet with three toes they step with almost daintily, considering their bulk. I tactfully say nothing about their noxious farts.
I know enough about the beasties to tell my followers about how black rhino are browsers while the white rhino – which is not extinct…yet – is a grazer because of its square lip. I even manage to keep a smile pasted on when one of the buggers steps on my foot. Holy crap, that’s gonna bruise later.
And…that’s enough of a moment of wide-eyed wonder for me. The weather is shifting, with a dust storm brewing on the horizon, and although the boma and its attendant luxury accommodation are in a protected part of the reserve, we’re quickly ushered back to the main buildings along the covered walkway. I have my footage that I’ll send to my editor later this evening after the reception, since I need to get some decent shots of me with Theuns of the Wandering Hands, among a bunch of other crusty movers and shakers in Big Tech, government, and assorted celebs. For now, I quick edit and upload the best stills of me feeding baby rhinos – pics my followers have been gagging for ever since I announced I’d be attending this event.
I won’t lie. I’ve got mixed feelings about being here. It’s weird walking about the renovated remains of my old home. They’ve kept precious little of the original structures – not even the cottages downslope where my family lived on what used to be the Van Zyl family farm. The Van Zyls are long gone – sold out to RTC two decades ago. I should go see Ma and the rest over in Plathuis on the other side of the fence, but I simply don’t have it in me. It’s been years, and that young girl who left for Cape Town with big city lights glowing in her eyes is a very different person from the woman I am now.
A tired woman, who’s Seen Things.
They kept the mission chapel; however, it’s the media centre now – oddly apt, if you ask me. And the old, rambling ostrich palace that was built during the feather boom – that’s where all the larneys stay when they visit. Guy and I share a room that used be where old Tannie Johanna slept. I helped Ma in the house when I was little, but all the outbuildings – it’s all been replaced with ultra-modern glass-and-steel structures, terraced against the hill overlooking the valley where thornbush thickets grow on the bones of old vineyards.
I feel strange – and not in an entirely good way – for having come full circle. This was once home, but now it’s not. The achingly familiar shadows of the past are superimposed over the new, leaving me dizzy and ever so slightly nauseated. A herd of giant sable antelope browses where my family once picked grapes.
I should rejoice that nature has been given a fighting chance, considering everything that’s happening in the wider world – something Guy has made me see since we started dating – but I can’t help the creeping sadness, and that little voice that whispers, At what cost?
A measure of that creeping sadness fades when I attend the reception. Guy and I have had a chance to freshen up, and I’ve replied to my followers’ comments – and muted and/or blocked some of the haters. There are always haters who spew bigoted bullshit. I like to tell myself I’m not pizza; I can’t please everyone. And it’s often the frothing bunny-huggers who spew the most hate. They’re so deluded. If someone with actual power doesn’t step in to de-extinct, then what? Already the white rhino numbers are beyond critical; if they can bring the black rhino back from the dead, then surely this is a good thing? Even if the mammoth de-extinction can be considered somewhat hit and miss.
I’m right in the middle of what I’d label a typical ‘glittering event’. Unfortunately, with the sandstorm raging, the big plate glass sliding doors must stay shut, but the interior has been done up prettily enough, with little fairy lights entwined with bonsai baobabs in strategic positions throughout the wide, open area. A string quartet playing electric instruments that look like anorexic afterthoughts of the real thing huddle in a corner, whatever suitably African medley they’re churning out at a volume where it won’t interfere with the guests’ chatter and laughter.
People who only a few hours ago were decked out in their prerequisite khakis are now slithering about in satins and tuxedos, all bright, shiny, and pouting for the camera. Jenna’s ingratiating herself with everyone, walking around with that stupid smile pasted on as she engages in conversation and gets them to pose. As much as I’d love to avoid her, my turn is unavoidable. Keep the sponsors happy, dah-ling.
I’m busy checking my lippie in a corner while Guy is off schmoozing the minister of tourism when I have that sense of being stared at and snap shut the small mirror. And look up into hazel eyes I haven’t seen in nearly twenty years.
“Kayla.” He’s dressed in the white shirt and black slacks of the waitstaff, and he’s wielding a tray of canapés like he’s about to decapitate the nearest clump of guests.
“Shayne.” I slam down my social media influencer mask like my life depends on it. Which it does, in a way.
“LayD-K…” His laugh is a short cough of amusement. “Gone up in the world, hey?”
“Whatever.” I glare at him. After all these years, he still knows exactly which buttons to push. “Glad to see you still know your place.” Geeze, that’s a low blow, even for me. I give the tray he’s holding a meaningful look then flounce past him, to slip my arm into Guy’s, like I’ve always belonged there.
Bitch, bitch, bitch, my inner voice yells at me. You’re such a bitch.
My face is so hot, I’m certain my foundation’s going to melt off. Instead, I focus on the damned minister whatsisface, who’s blathering on about some or other tender process they’re putting out for work to be done on a surveillance drone programme that has Guy absolutely riveted. I still feel Shayne’s hot eyes on me – like those laser sights the military use for their rifles.
What’s he doing here? Last time we parted company, he was lambasting me for deserting our community.
“They’ll change you. You’ll see!” he all but spat at my feet. “You think just ’cos your daddy was the farmer’s son, you think you’re white, hey?”
He made me so fucking furious that day, but my little voice whispered that maybe Shayne’s accusation held truth. Anyway, screw him. What does he know, anyway?
We sip our bespoke blended cocktails while Theuns and then Dave Poulos, the CEO of RTC, both give what’s best described as a slick presentation about happenings here at Houmoed and with the whole black rhino de-extinction vibe. I’ve never been one for facts and figures, but the gist of what they spew doesn’t rest easy.
Ja, ja, I get it, these okes have put in millions of yuan. They’re creating jobs, blah-blah-blah, and boosting the local economy while providing conservation with a much-needed shot in the arm, but I’m not twelve. They’re gonna want to extract their pound of flesh in return.
Theuns is flapping on about how certain allowances for commercialisation will be on the cards once the rhino population is stable, how initiatives like big game hunting help ensure the continued sustainability of a species. And I can’t help but flash back to that visit Guy and I had to that solar baron in Dubai, who had that big room full of stuffed animals. Damned eerie, with all those glass eyes looking like they were following my every move.
And those babies – big babies – sucking on the bottle, making those cute little cries so at odds with their size. Which one of them is gonna end up in the crosshairs of some larney who’s paid a fortune for the bragging rights for having bagged a rhino? Or have the horn carved into a fancy handle for his knife. Or whatever the fuck it is people want with the horns – grind ’em up and fricking schnarff them so their dicks get hard. I dunno.
The last sip of my cocktail has turned sour on my tongue, and I excuse myself to the bathroom, where I hide in the stall for a maximum of five minutes so I can calm the fuck down. Cognitive dissonance. I fucking hate it. Especially when my mask slips.
I flush the bog, purely for the sake of appearances, and lo and behold, who should be conveniently touching up her mascara when I exit but Jenna fucking Andrews.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.”
We stare at each other, somewhat stupidly. Awkward.
She sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose. “Um, about that—”
“It’s fine,” I say, even though it’s not. “Water, bridges, and all that.” I’m not a complete cow. She was only doing her job, like I must do mine. Plus, I’d be seriously stupid if I acted like a diva around someone who could possibly tank my career with a few clever words and footage.
Her face colours slightly, her smile slightly sheepish. “Thanks. I didn’t mean… It was the editor…”
I shrug. “Whatever.” I wash my hands and touch up my lippie. Not that it needs any, but I must keep my hands busy.
She’s not getting the fucking message, because she hovers. “You grew up here, right? On the old farm.”
I pause, turn a stink eye in her direction. “What of it?” Great. Someone’s been digging.
“I was wondering if you could—”
“No.” I snap the lipstick’s lid down with a crack.
“I just thought, you know, that you’d care that your people are going to be moved yet again to the township there by Ladismith.”
“It’s nothing to me.” It shouldn’t be. Yet that day remains indelible, when they shifted us with our bags and what boxes we could fit in the back of the truck and dumped us at a derelict railway siding with ‘starter packs’ of tin and recycled-plastic poles. I didn’t stick around long after that. I don’t want to go back there, either, though Plathuis is just over the mountain from here. Now they gonna move people again. Of course, they are.
I don’t give her an opportunity to say more and hurry out to rejoin Guy, his perfect little poppie on his arm, smiling and making all the right words so that no one will even guess that the cracks are covered by a thin layer of foundation.
Dinner is a dreary affair, and I’m hardly enamoured by the chef’s notion of Karoo ‘sushi’ – dressing mealiepap up as sushi rice with springbok carpaccio doesn’t work for me. All I can taste is Ma’s pap she used to make us. Damn Jenna and damn Shayne ten times over for making me think about stuff I’d rather leave buried. Yet, this is Guy’s hour of glory – there’s no way I could have skived off coming here without him being super pissed.
Speak of the devil, I can feel where Shayne is in the room without looking; it’s like standing near a fire and having the flames lick at me however I turn. Oh, he’s the perfect server, like the bunch they’ve got scrubbed up all good for this shindig. All locals – Theuns claims to be big on ‘upliftment’ and job creation. What’s the bet he’s paying his staff a pittance while expecting them to be grateful for the crumbs? I’ve worked for people like him many times.
But the way Shayne keeps glaring at me I swear I’m the one who’s going to spontaneously combust. The few times he tried to reach out to me over the years, I never returned any of his calls or messages. So, he’s got all the right to be salty.
“…you think you’re white, hey?”
Fuck that. Shayne has no fucking clue. The dessert has curdled in my stomach and, pleading a headache, I peck Guy on the cheek and make my way back to our suite. I’ll post some stuff online then catch some zees.
Except Shayne waylays me in the covered ambulatory leading from the reception area to the old manor house. He steps out of a darkened alcove and blocks my path, his hands held out as if he’s herding skittish sheep.
“Kayla.”
“What do you want?” I cross my arms over my chest.
“You heard what they said! We’ve got to do something!”
“Do what?”
“Those bastards are going to let some stupid billionaires hunt the rhino! Are you going to sit by and just do nothing? You can do something!”
“What can I do, Shayne? I’m just some pretty face the corporates use to sell their products. I don’t bite the hand that feeds me.”
“You see, that’s the problem.”
“No, I’m just being realistic.” I try to shove past him, but he snakes out his hand and grips my wrist with bruising force.
“They deserve to be free! They’re no better than cattle for the slaughter where they are now!”
“And maybe they also need to be useful to us if they’re going to carry on living,” I retort. “You heard the man!”
“Like they’re factory farming lions and tigers out near Colesberg? Keeping them in small cages, like battery hens.”
“That’s not my battle.” I yank my arm from him.
“You can help!” he calls after me as I storm down the passage. “But you won’t! You’re just like them now. Wit poes!”
The way he spits that last word hits me like a rusty barb right through my chest, but I keep on walking. I’ve always hated that word. Having it directed at me makes me feel dirty.
Shayne’s always been like this, and things clearly haven’t changed. When we were seven, he got it in his head that we should go look for snares set by poachers. That was until Uncle Jacobus caught us in the act and beat both of us bloody for interfering with his bushmeat business. Ma pitched a hissy fit, and I wasn’t allowed to play with Shayne after that. But nothing stopped Shayne. Last time I called Ma she told me he got involved with some Dutch scientists doing research about critically endangered rabbits. Of course he did.
Until now.
His presence here can’t be a coincidence.
Some things I’d rather not know about.
And yet I can’t help but be furious for myself, too, for being here, for letting people pick at my scars that were perhaps not so healed, after all.
Guy comes back later, coked up as fuck, just after I’ve bathed, and tries to get me to go join him with Theuns and the rest on a night drive.
“Come on, baby, they’ve got tigers here, did you know that?”
“What?” I choke out, incredulous.
“Strictly off the books, of course.” He winks at me, looking ridiculous with his one reddened, white-rimmed nostril.
Whatever clever retort I have dies on my lips because an alarm starts wailing, and judging by the direction, it’s from out by the boma.
“The fuck?” Guy’s joking demeanour cools instantly, and he rushes to the sliding door and peeks out.
“What is it?” I ask. Whatever it is, it can’t be good.
He makes a shooing gesture at me then hauls out his phone, the device pressed to his ear while he continues to peer out the window.
Will someone please shut down that alarm? I want to bury my head in the pillow, and then thankfully the thing is killed, leaving me to overhear Guy’s one-sided conversation.
“Nothing else damaged? The rhinos…” He nods. “Uh-huh. I’ll get there shortly.” He ends the call.
“And?” I arch an eyebrow at him, not sure if I should be alarmed or relieved that everything appears under control.
“Can you believe it?” He grimaces. “Some dumb cunt tried to break into the rhinos’ boma?”
Icy fear clenches my throat, and I fight to maintain my mask of unconcern.
No, Shayne, you didn’t.
“But we got him!” Now Guy’s grinning like a baboon on crack. “The bugger didn’t realise he needed one of these.” He pats the lanyard around his neck – his access fob, of course. A perk handed out to the investors when we arrived earlier today. All-access pass.
“Looks like investing in AI military drones has paid off. Hah! The bugger didn’t stand a chance.”
“I don’t want to know about it,” I mutter.
Guy rushes out, his party and all else evidently forgotten so he can go crow over the poor dead guy who thought he’d free the bleeding rhinos.
Oh, Shayne. I don’t need to be told it’s him. I know. And it doesn’t escape me that the rhinos have better security, health care, and food than my people. My eyes burn, but the tears won’t come, and I sit and wait for an hour before Guy returns to confirm what I already know.
Guy yaps on in exquisite detail about how Shayne tried to override the system manually, only to set off the alarms and get himself taken out by the automated security.
My heart clenches, but I grimace out a smile then affect my most neutral resting influencer face. “How awful.”
Still jacked on adrenaline and whatever narcotics he has in his system, Guy has a shower, gets changed into a fresh outfit, and heads out to what he calls the ‘after-after party’ while tapping the side of his nose, as if he’s absolutely fricking hilarious.
I smile mildly, tell him to have a good time, that I’m still feeling under the weather. The last thing I want to do now is shove designer drugs with fancy names up my sinuses.
When he leaves, the cloud of agitation that buzzes around him goes with him, and a few of the knots in my chest unravel. I sit in bed, propped up with pillows, and drag my fingers through my braids.
Oh, Shayne.
In another universe, another time, we might’ve been more.
I could be dramatic and dwell on how part of my past has died with him, but there’s no profit in that. Until I spy the fob on its lanyard Guy discarded on the bedside table. For an eternal space between heartbeats, I stare at the thing. I glance at the door. Check my phone.
No doubt they’ll too busy chopping lines. And doing whatever else it is they’ll be doing.
A shudder runs through me.
It’s a useless gesture, really. What was Shayne thinking? What am I thinking?
This will end my relationship with Guy, for all his talk of fortressing our wildlife to protect them from ‘those people’. Who’m I kidding? This will tank my entire career, and I cannot summon even a cupful of trepidation. This is my moment of looking in the mirror, of not seeing the girl I once was beneath the layers of cosmetics and smart braids. The girl who used to care, and care deeply, who shoved all of that deep inside her that day she left Plathuis with a suitcase and a big stupid dream.
And what has that big dream been? It’s all smoke and mirrors, surface stuff, where I must make nice to people all the time. And I’m tired. So, very tired. I’m like a swan on a river, paddling against the swift current.
“Fuck it,” I mutter as I swing my legs over the side of the bed and reach for Guy’s fob.
* * *
It’s somewhat terrifying to think that Shayne has been reduced to the ashy contents of a little wooden box that takes pride of place on his mother’s dining room table atop a crocheted cloth. Next to the box, with its little brass plaque with his name – Shayne Heathcliff Arendse and his date of birth and death – a digital frame branded with the funeral services logo displays a slide show of Shayne through the years. I can’t bear to look, and I glimpse a few shots where I’m a gap-toothed, gangly girl grinning madly next to my friend.
I haven’t been a good friend.
I don’t think my childish, futile “stunt” – as Guy put it – achieved anything other than make my name gat with just about everyone. I also can’t bring myself to care.
I opened the gates, using the manual override, and the damned stupid rhinos merely huddled there in a corner, meeping at me. I tried shooing them out, but they crowded around me instead, snuffling with those silly hook lips snaggling for treats. They’re no better than cattle, at the end of the day. Rich men’s cattle that don’t run, even when the gate is opened.
I filmed myself doing this, of course. I was furiously ranting, crying snot and tears while I broadcast the livestream. By the time security caught me and confiscated my phone, I’d already sent five spicy minutes – no doubt enough to get me demonetised across all my platforms. Or sued. Maybe both.
Anger, hot and thick, wraps itself around my spine, and I focus rather on being present. Paste on my most neutral resting influencer face, like I seem to be doing far too often these days. I’m no rich man’s cow. Not anymore.
I’m here, after the service held right here in the sitting room, surrounded by my aunties, uncles, cousins. Ma hasn’t stopped crying whenever she clutches me to her ample bosom and shows me off to her people. Our people. The prodigal daughter. Like she’s so proud of me that she can burst. Big city girl come home. Gone dark. I don’t miss the world beyond. It’s an amputated limb with a hollow ache. I don’t miss the constant noise.
Not that we’ll have much home left. The trucks are coming next week. We have much packing to do. I know what’s waiting for us in Ladismith – a barren patch of earth that’s so dry it won’t even push up weeds, chemical toilets, and a queue at a standpipe to fetch our drinking water.
But we’ll make it work. We don’t have any other options.
“Kayla,” a woman says behind me.
I turn to find myself face to face with Jenna Andrews, who looks completely out of place here with her paleness.
Whiteness.
“What do you want?” I snarl. “Come to get the scoop about my little meltdown the other day? Or is it to come write something suitable to tug at the heartstrings about the poor brown people getting chased off their land?”
I wouldn’t think it possible, but she blanches even more, her lips compressed in a bloodless line.
“It’s nothing like that, actually,” she murmurs. “We need to talk.”
“About what?” I spit.
“About everything.” She sighs, drags her hand through her short, cropped hair.
Don’t be a bitch. I huff out a breath, round my shoulders. “Not here.” I side-eye my family, some of whom are looking but not looking. I’m going to get the third degree later.
We go outside, stroll down the long dirt road that bisects our little community that clings to stubborn life on the scrubby round hills where the goats and sheep have gnawed the plants down to the roots. Here and there are some of the pre-existing houses from when this was still a railway siding. Our homes are situated on the foundations of what used to be the railway workers’ homes – twelve cottages of mismatched bits and bobs – something old, something found, something repurposed. Much like us, I suppose.
The dry, baking heat is slowly giving way to the long-fingered shadows of evening, the sky hazy with the promise of a dust storm. The stones our shoes kick loose on the ground rattle ahead of us, and Jenna speaks.
“I’m starting an NPO,” she says.
I raise a brow. Okay then. “What’s it to me?”
“Let me speak, please.”
I kick a collapsed water bottle so that it skitters across the road.
“Everything’s kinda shit,” she tells me. “I get to see a lot of stuff. That I have to write about. After…” She gestures helplessly behind her, towards Houmoed, over the mountain. “I was close enough to hear the gunshots. I saw—” She shudders, and genuine pain shadows her features.
Realisation gnaws at me. “You saw Shayne?”
When she looks at me, tears are making dusty tracks down her cheeks. “He cried for his mommy. I held his hand, Kayla. While he cried for his mommy. And it hit me then. Really hit me.” Her ragged sob makes me pull her into a rough hug.
We stand like that for an awkward few seconds, and I hate that I’m crying, too.
“What can we do?” I ask her.
“It’s not our job to change the world,” Jenna says, wiping at her face with a wrist that only smudges the damp patina of dirt on her face. “That’s something my girlfriend told me. And it got me thinking. I can’t change the world, but I can start reaching out to other people and… Dunno.” She shakes her head. “This is gonna come out all stupid and naïve.”
“No more than I am,” I say.
“That NPO,” she rushes out. “I want to know if you’ll help. You’re good with the whole social media thing. We gotta try, at least.”
I laugh. “No, I’m not!” Not anymore.
“You know that livestream of yours went viral, right? They’re mentioning you in the same breath as Greta.”
“Bull. Shit.” She may as well have slapped me upside the head.
“Not talking kak. Promise. Let me show you.” She digs in her bag to get her phone, then frowns as she swipes at the screen.
I laugh. “There’s no signal here, meisie. Nada.”
“Well, fuck it. Will you trust me on this? We can fight. Raise awareness. You know all those people, know how to talk to them. I can handle the technical side of things. We can stick it to arseholes like that doos Theunissen. We can do good. Something. Even if it’s small stuff.”
“And Guy.” I shake my head and allow myself to chuckle.
She looks at me so earnestly, and it happens. I dare to hope.
A small sliver, but it’s there, pricking against my heart.
“Fine.” I hold out my hand. “This is crazy. Where do we start?”
©2026 Nerine Dorman
Nerine Dorman is a South African author and editor of science fiction and fantasy currently living in Cape Town, with short fiction published in numerous anthologies. Her novel Sing down the Stars won Gold for the Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature in 2019 and The Percy Fitzpatrick Award for Children’s and Youth Literature in 2021. Her YA fantasy novella, Dragon Forged, was a finalist in the Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature in 2017, and she is the curator of the South African Horrorfest Bloody Parchment event and short story competition. Her short story “On the Other Side of the Sea” (Omenana, 2017) was shortlisted for a 2018 Nommo award. Her novella The Firebird won a Nommo for “Best Novella” in 2019. In addition, she is a founding member of the SFF authors’ co-operative Skolion.
Published by Ping Press (2026)
