Dear Readers,
I’ve gone quiet on posts for a reason. The manuscript is on the table — all five books, being edited clean for publication. It’s slow, careful work, and it deserves full attention.
While I’m in the edit, I’m reaching back into the material for the moments that stay with me. This one hasn’t left me since I wrote it.
Elena is eight months pregnant, somewhere in the Waterberg mountains of South Africa, in a pre-dawn farmers market with a silver-eyed man who does not blend in. A stranger overhears her talking and sits down.
Long before sunrise, the Boeremark is already humming — stallholders stacking produce, breads, and crafts like ants in an orderly frenzy.
I can read Afrikaans, tracing its roots back to Dutch, but the chatter washes over me, lively and nostalgic. My hair and belly have me sticking out among early risers in hats, gloves, and headlamps; Mikhail at my side does nothing to blend in.
Still, people are kind, smiles are quick, and when I’ve soaked in enough, a coffee stall calls to me with the promise of warmth and African treats. As I tell Mikhail the old story of death’s origin, an elderly man overhears and asks if I’m keen for more legends. Enthusiastic, I invite him to join us — Mikhail surrenders his seat to him.
The elderly man hesitates, then with gentle Dutch courtesy says, “Ik wil niet storen.”
I wave off his concern. “Don’t mind him, he has a mind of his own.”
He eyes Mikhail, then switches to English. “He looks dangerous.”
I grin. “He is. But please do tell me the oldest story you can remember.”
The elderly man settles, eyes faraway. “Let me tell you one as old as time, child — a story my grandmother told by firelight before the world got busy.
“Long ago, people didn’t die. When someone’s time came, they went out beneath the moon, and their body was left for morning. The old ones said, ‘Man die and come back again, moon die and remain away.’ But one day, when a young child passed, a man mourned deeply and mixed up the words: ‘Moon die and come back again, man die and stay away.’
“So it became the way of things. People leave, and do not return; only the moon keeps coming back to us, waxing and waning — as if to say: Even loss is not the end, only the next beginning.
“We tell this so children remember — the moon’s a lesson in patience, but life reminds us to hold what we love, for nothing comes back quite the same.”
He pauses, letting the morning dawn catch my face and belly, the memories settling like dust on old market tables.
I.Ph.
© 2026 I.Ph. de Lange All rights reserved. Published by CYcrds OÜ.
The C.O.M.C. Files 