THE ROAD TO SUN CITY

After winter, the grasslands of Gauteng become a tinderbox. One careless spark could turn the whole veld to flame. It was in this dry, neck-high grass that I stood looking at an aged granite koppie, one that had somehow escaped the mining industry, perhaps simply because it was too small to matter.

I had made countless journeys from Johannesburg towards Sun City in search of Nimbus. Along this road, many koppies had already been demolished for granite and minerals. Even while standing there, I could hear the distant percussion of drilling and cutting, the industrial rhythm of a landscape steadily being taken apart.

For two hours I watched the clouds build. Cicadas sang in the heat, drills echoed across the distance, and the sky slowly darkened over the stone. It was one of those moments when weather, industry and endurance seemed held in uneasy balance.