Second chances

If reincarnation was real, Karin Brynard muses, how would we use it?

- Karin Brynard

"In my next life," I hear a young boy declaring, "I'll be a Spitfire."

"Say what?"

It's his oupa asking. The two of them are sitting at a small table in a coffee shop in town. Oupa is nursing a cappuccino, which sticks to his moustache, and the youngster a pannekoek and milkshake.

"A Spitfire, Oupa," he repeats, "a fighter plane."

"It's a machine, jong. You must be a living thing."

"But Oupa, you said you'll be a bull... um... dozer?"

Oupa laughs. "No, man, a bull. But you could be a dragon, you know, one spitting fire."

"Yessss!" They toast each other like conquerors.

I'm at a table close by, wondering about their unlikely topic of conversation, until I notice the bevy of beauties at another table. There's life in the oupa yet, I decide.

Nursing my own cuppa, I think to myself: it's such an intriguing thought, though, a second life. Outside, there's a cold rain sifting down onto white gables and naked oaks - winter in Stellenbosch. A forlorn-looking pigeon is trying to find shelter in the bare, rain-blackened branches of an oak.