Apocalypse Now Now, by Charlie Human

Apocalypse Now Now, by Charlie Human. Random House Struik Umuzi. Cape Town, South Africa 2013. ISBN 9781415201862 / ISBN 978-1-4152-0186-2

Charlie Human has a great voice, strong, intelligent and very, very funny. Apocalypse Now Now is fantastical, transcendent and cynical, twisting local lore into a mythology with worldwide appeal. The South African love child of Douglas Adams and Bill Hicks.

Charlie Human  

Now now (adv.) A common South Africanism relating to the amount of time to elapse before an event occurs: In the near future; not happening presently but to happen shortly. 'There are questions that run through your head when you find out that you're a serial killer. "Am I more evil than Ted Bundy?" is one. "I wonder whether I'll be on the Crime & Investigation Network?" is another. But on the whole, it's the who, what, when and why of it that really takes up the mental bandwidth. So, here goes: 'My name is Baxter Zevcenko. I am sixteen years old. I go to Westridge High School in Cape Town and I have no friends. I've killed people. Lots of people. Brutally. At least I hear they were people. They looked more like monsters to me. Anyway, I won't bore you with the details. If you're interested, look on the Internet. 'People are saying that I'm satanic, but this is not true. I have seen things. I saw the great Mantis God of Africa fighting a creature from the primordial depths, a billion-year war until finally the Mantis threw the writhing creature from the heavenly sky into the deepest pit. I've seen the past through the lens of the Eye and it wasn't in tasteful sepia. It was etched in blood and death and filtered through a veil of tears. I've seen the sweating, grunting, cawing, scratching, bleeding, yelping feathered, scaled and clawed abyss beneath the city and, believe me when I tell you this, it's not pretty -' - 'Baxter,' my psychiatrist interrupts, 'I thought we'd agreed that these delusions were counterproductive?' I take a breath and force the images from my mind. 'None of that matters. There is no Mantis and there is no dark, primordial creature. There is no weapons chemist, no bounty hunter and no girlfriend to rescue. There is just me and I am sick. In the end, we're all just victims of our own perceptions, sparky. I hope you can see that.' - 'Good,' my psychiatrist says as he turns off the camera. 'I believe you're making progress.' - 'Charlie, Delta, Niner, that's a big ten-four,' Rafe growls into his cb radio. I have ten minutes before I need to make the walk to school. My parents force me to walk to school even when it rains. It's raining. The cb hisses, crackles and squelches like the soundtrack to a horror movie about a demonically possessed computer that considers humanity a lower form of intelligence that must be eliminated. I'm lying in our living room on the shaggy burnt-orange rug that's so old it's been retro twice. Rafe, my older brother by two years, has his portable cb radio positioned strategically on the small circular glass table next to the tv. Strategic, because he's the Sun Tzu of irritation and the cb radio rattles on the glass creating a perfect frequency of brain death. I push my long fringe away from my glasses and glare at the back of his skull. 'Turn it down,' I say. He turns his shaggy red-haired, knob-shaped head and stares at me with the knowing-eye. I feel the rage build like a dark wave inside of me. [...]

This is an excerpt from the SiFi-novel: Apocalypse Now Now, by Charlie Human.

Title: Apocalypse Now Now
Author: Charlie Human
Genre: Fiktion
Publisher: Random House Struik
Imprint: Umuzi
Cape Town, South Africa 2013
ISBN 9781415201862 / ISBN 978-1-4152-0186-2
Softcover, 15 x 22 cm, 176 pages