73 ACADEMIC Review shade of brown with blonde highlights scattered through it. Her fringe is clipped back, tucked to the side, just out of her eye. Her eyes are a hue of golden honey with scatterings of darker brown around the pupils. They are soft eyes, warm and loving eyes, eyes that could melt my hear t in an instant. Eyes I could get lost in, eyes that speak a thousand words. Her clearly defined cheek bones shape her face into a permanent smile. Her skin is beautifully tanned, with a subtle tint of rosiness in her cheeks to remind me that she is just 17 and not the gorgeous women her appearance would lead you to believe. Her enticing lips round into a smile, perfectly framing her glistening white teeth. It is not a fake smile, not a smile that has no meaning. It says “I never want this moment to end” and it is a smile I could never let down or disappoint. It is a smile that says what the lips forming it cannot. Her lips part and her voice resonates from within her and it is the voice of an angel, a voice that doesn’t judge, and a voice that I could never imagine angry. She squirms slightly, like a cat burrowing into a blanket, and gets comfor table, her body fitting perfectly against mine as I hold her. Her perfectly propor tioned legs, beautifully firm from years of dancing, are stretched out on the couch next to mine. I feel something brush up against my leg and look down to see her petite foot close enough to notice her nails meticulously painted and decorated. They are concealed in a dark purple nail polish and each nail shows off an impossibly detailed flower. As I lie there, her small body draped over mine, I feel her hand blindly searching mine out. Our hands meet and her fingers slip like sand between mine, filling the spaces between perfectly. Her small hands, creamily soft from a lifetime of care sharply contrast my large, boy hands with calices formed at the base of each finger from hours of hard toil against motorbike handlebars. She firmly squeezes my hand, a wordless gesture telling me that she never wants me to leave. I squeeze back telling her I never will. Beauty is subjective. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. If we love something, then it is beautiful to us; and to me she is the most beautiful girl in the world. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I hold in my arms a girl of beauty beyond belief. PUSHEDTOTHE LIMIT Andrew Adie Heave. Quads ache – ‘clank’ – calves burn, pant… Heave. Quads ache – ‘clank’ – calves burn, pant… Heave. Quads ache – ‘clank’ – calves burn, pant… Heave. Quads ache – ‘clank’ – calves burn, pant… The tingling pins-and-needles feeling begins on the soles of my feet and works its way into my toes; star ts under my nails and works through my palms – ends under my ankles and wrists. The inexorable rise in temperature, the sweltering humidity of the Dusi valley, so thick you feel the resistance of it pushing against your skin. My feet feel like they are being rubbed raw, the soles of my shoes are like hot tar. I feel a blister starting to form on my right big toe.The extreme pressure of each step is tor ture, then relief, tor ture, then relief. My ears throb and my head feels swollen, my lungs scream for more oxygen, rejecting this hot humid replacement. I feel fiery balls burning in the core of my calves with each step, right down to the hear t of the muscle. Francois Conradie grade 11
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