Part 3 - Longing
The Adventures Of Jubjub In Delulu Town - Part 3
It was the weekend and Jubjub ached to blow off some steam. As he made his way through the village he was on high alert, ready to hide behind a bush at the sight a familiar face. It's not that he was antisocial, he just had not developed the constant vigilance one does in a small village of continually bumping into people you know. He missed the reliable privacy of the reef, being able to move about with ease and without risk of being accosted by an acquaintance, or worse, experience the awkward extended eye contact and flicker of recognition of an almost stranger. He was learning to resist the muscle memory deep in his bones as it lurched to extend a hand or an embrace to a recognised face in public. Jubjub walked bolt upright with a placid gaze, prepared to meet any distant acquaintance as he bobbled through the throng in the village square with a clenched jaw. He was doing it! He was becoming a village person! Gone were the days of public grubbiness and navigating public spaces with a surly slouch. This was Delulu Town and it offered no protection from surprise public encounters through the sheer vastness of the reef.
Post the pangs of anxiety that reliably accompanied the anticipation of Delulu Town socialisation, Jubjub settled into his newly cultivated village person persona of deep personal engagement and faux profundity of the mundane. On cue, he would bristle with indignation at the correct social injustices and express admiration and a longing wistfulness at the latest performative social pursuit of wandering into the wilderness to bury one's feet deep into the rich cape soil to experience what it is to live as a tree for a weekend.
Across the hall he heard eruptions of guttural raucous laughter that penetrated the indignation and pearl clutching he was actively cultivating, and stirred within him a familiar joviality. The back slapping and sordid belligerence at the table across from his tugged at his restrained smile as he frantically looked for an exit from the anodyne conversation of fresh approaches to being inoffensive into which we was currently engaged.
Jubjub leapt across the table in a tight somersault as if in slow motion as the fishermen and paupers eyes widened in practiced astonishment as he landed with a hearty plonk at the seat of the table from whence the waves of offensive bursts arose.
There was a startled silence as the fishermen and paupers simultaneously raised their snouts in indignation while flickers of curiosity pulled at the corners of their eyes. The crowd of belligerent cherubs paused mid gesticulation and with wicked grins as Jubjub sat in the centre of The Last Supper scene that had unfolded. There was a glimmer of recognition from the degenerates at Jubjub's new table that promptly erupted yet again in unruly fracas as a double brandy and coke was thrust into Jubjub's eager palms. Jubjub's slouched and breathed a heavy sigh of relief as the reprobate recital of the familiar pothole and corruption tale of his countrymen resumed.