My greatest fear

There’s a new author that started publishing stuff in America recently. His name is spelt almost exactly like mine, but with the “u” and “i” in a different order: instead of “Koos Kombuis” he calls himself “Koos Kombius”. This is not where the similarities end. He also looks a bit like me: overweight, greying, bald. On photographs he poses with a guitar, a bandana and a bottle of red wine. I am considering legal action.

Jokes aside, it’s actually me, of course. And, though I finally — just in time — managed to persuade my American publishers to correct the spelling of my surname in the final proof of their recently published SF anthology, most of the reviewers and commentators still refer to me as “Koos Kombius” instead of “Koos Kombuis”. The same thing happened a few years ago, when, for a brief period, The Secret Diary of God (still without the New Testament) was for sale in American bookshops. The Borders chain even managed to misspell my name in their own catalogue.

I guess the letter sequence “iu” makes more sense to the American eye than “ui”. I mean, how many English words have an “ui” sequence in them? Offhand, I can only think of “bruise” and “juice”. I hate to think how they pronounce my name: Cooss Com-booze? In the end, however, this is all a small price to pay for international fame, I guess. (I’m sure the members of Die Antwoord have similar problems over there. Well, I hope they have.)

What is it, you may be wanting to ask me, that drove me, at this late stage of my career — ripe middle age — to look elsewhere for different job opportunities? What drove me from singing silly Afrikaans songs in South African pubs and theatres to sending off silly SF stories to magazines and agents in other countries?

Well, it’s not as if I’ve stopped singing. In fact, I haven’t even stopped singing rock ‘n roll. (Shortly after posting my last Thought Leader blog entry and swearing to lay off from that cursed genre forever, my management had the audacity to book me yet another show with The First National Band! I almost cut my wrists when I heard the news!)

Neither am I giving up on Afrikaans. No, sir! My next collection of Afrikaans essays is hitting the shelves in about three months’ time, and during a recent visit to Nieu Bethesda I got a beautiful idea for an Afrikaans novel, which is already progressing nicely.

It’s not about exchanging one career for another. Instead of giving up what I’m doing, what I’ve been doing for decades, I want to do more. And I have my reasons.

Yes, I admit that I sense a certain weariness, a boredom, with the present limitations of the person that is me. Has this ever happened to you? Apparently, this is the kind of thing that occurs to a lot of people at my age. Career changes in mid-life are becoming more and more popular. A school friend of mine who is a qualified dominee has suddenly gone back to varsity to study to become a land surveyor. Of course, I have no idea what a land surveyor actually does, but these days, almost anything is probably better than being a dominee, so let’s not judge the poor fellow. If he wants to survey earthly landscapes rather than heavenly ones, well, there’s something to be said for finding one’s roots and all that.

At this dangerous age that I am now, I also experience a weariness, not merely with myself, but with my country. Of course, I have no intention of leaving South Africa — I did not even consider attending the launch of our book over in the US — but must confess that, lately, I have become utterly addicted to conducting numerous email conversations with people in other countries, conversations about nothing, or about anything at all.

I am tired, so goddamn tired, of mulling over the same South African stuff in my head. Of reading about the same South African stuff in South African newspapers. Of hearing the same ideological stances repeated over and over again, the same debates, the same hot air that has been circulating around here since I can remember.

Sometimes it feels as if the same problems we’ve had with the Vryburgers and the Hottentots are still with us. The one bunch is stealing the other bunch’s land, the other guys are stealing these guys’ cattle. The one believes in free markets, the other one’s a communist. Both are equally corrupt. And, when push comes to shove, just as violent.

All my life, in all those years when I was protesting apartheid and in the ensuing (look, another word with a “ui” in it!) years when I wrote rock songs criticising the ANC, I have walked the tightrope between hope and despair, pessimism and optimism. I assumed that South Africa had only two possible futures, and I kept on juggling these two outcomes in my mind, sometimes switching preference several times in one day. On the one hand I was afraid that we would descend into civil war. On the other hand, I believed, with all the naïve fervour I could muster, that we were a country destined for great things; that we could somehow set an example the rest of the world would aspire to.

Only during the last few weeks have I come to admit that a third outcome is possible. Not only possible, but likely. And it has scared the hell out of me. Why do you think I’ve been absent from Thought Leader for so long? It wasn’t just all those emails to America. For the last few weeks, I have literally been shitting myself. Ask Lucky Ntuli, he knows a bit about my personal crisis.

I have come to realise that there is a very real possibility that South Africa is on its way, not towards total war and anarchy (Malema-style), nor towards perfect harmony and reconciliation (Madiba-style), but towards something in-between (I don’t have a name for it yet, so let’s call it Malan-style; not after DF Malan, but after my friend and fellow author, the eternal sceptic Rian Malan).

When I think of that something in-between, my heart sinks in the pit of my stomach. Chills of horror run down my spine. I fight back tears of boredom. I yawn. I feel mediocre, bland, and desperately unhappy.

This is my greatest fear. This is our unthinkable future, too ghastly to contemplate. This is The Third Option. This is the ultimate WHAT IF to beat all other WHAT IFs:

WHAT IF nothing ever changes? WHAT IF we just carry on doing what we are doing now, ad infinitum, until … well, sort of forever?

What if the crime gets neither worse nor better, the politicians carry on being sort of halfway corrupt and halfway efficient (without any real evidence either way)? What if the Springboks lose the next world cup, win the one after that, and lose again? What if Steve Hofmeyr carries on selling albums, divorcing women and singing Neil Diamond covers forever? What if the arms deal always remains just a rumour in the liberal press without ever getting its day in court? What if we always remain exactly what we are right now: a country sort of somewhere in the middle between hope and despair, a country where blacks and whites will never really come to grips with one another’s similarities and differences, where there never is quite enough electricity, never quite enough trained police officers, or never quite enough capable teachers to get the job done? What if we, as a society, keep on swinging on this pendulum till the sun explodes or the universe breathes its last, never quite slipping into chaos, but never quite getting our act together either?

What if this is really our destiny? What if this is the future we deserve? What if we are simply not capable of anything better (or worse)?

May God save us from such a fate. Because, if He (or She) doesn’t, I’d seriously consider emigrating to some place where the real action is. Such as Haiti. Or Gaza. Or Central London. Or, if that isn’t far enough from this dismal place, what about an interesting new galaxy, such as Andromeda?

Readers interested in ordering our American Science Fiction anthology can go to www.swordandsagapress.com