Emma

She loved red wine. She also loved the sound, and action, of her name. There was a link. The people closest to he called her Em, but the tail of her name also carried satisfaction. The sip as two lips press together, followed by the exhalation as they released… satisfied.

Emma sipped her red wine. She sat thinking about the people she loved. She was home alone. Lived alone. But she was not alone. The taste of each and every one of those people who had said her name lingered. A warm glow.

Those moments when she sat with a glass, and someone she loved, were her favourite. When she was alone, like tonight, she would close her eyes and visit people. Kuier. Her favourite word. An Afrikaans word. Kitchen Dutch. A language that was born in heartache, and yet still symbolised so much beauty for her.

Emma’s mother was Afrikaans. She had died when Emma was young. Emma couldn’t really remember her, but she had written a large pile of journals. In Afrikaans. Em would visit her mother by reading the pages in which she had poured out her heart.

Her mother had been a lover of life, and people. She had grown up in a very confusing time. A time when the love of her parents had been forbidden. Emma’s grandfather had grown up in Swaziland on a farm. Her grandmother lived nearby, but it could have been another planet.