It was a hot summer day in Brooklyn, not the one in New York, but Brooklyn, Pretoria. I had my first and likely only meal of the day on account of a 21-day fast at the time: a flapjack at my friend’s place next door.
My friend, Kat, and myself had been spending a lot of time together, most likely because we were both bored out of our minds having returned to Pretoria a month before lectures started for either of us. We also had to send emails and grab documents at our respective universities for reasons that would take far too long to explain here. We sat in the upstairs kitchen/living room of her commune, chatting away about the endless number of things that amused us. We then moved to my place next door (both properties are managed and rented out by our landlord) and sat on the porch. It was at this moment I began feeling a pain in my right side and back.
I had a kidney infection once before. It was 2024 and I landed up in the trauma ward with a nurse pumping me full of paracetamol and me urinating in a cup. A kidney infection in some ways feels almost like you have kidney stones. You can’t spring a leak, even if you try really hard. If you do, you get a few drops, which makes the cup thing rather difficult and quite exhausting. Otherwise, it’s more a unrelenting sharp pain from your groin to your back. Funnily enough back then, I reconnected with a longtime friend who happened to injure himself at a rugby game and ended up in the hospital bed next to me. It was jolly fun, mostly because we were high off our mind on pain meds.
This time was different. I didn’t have a mother to take me to the hospital, and I frankly didn’t know where any good hospitals were. I also didn’t want to end up on a drip again and have a doctor feel up my wedding equipment. I spent a good hour or two suffering a pain I can only describe as the feeling one would get if one’s testes were placed on an anvil and hammered repeatedly as if they were being forged into something out of The Lord of the Rings. I don’t know how it feels for those of the fairer sex who contract this, but I’m sure it’s just as painful.
After I was tired of suffering and threw up everything that was in my stomach, I decided I needed to get to the walk-in clinic at the mall to get antibiotics. I was in too much pain to drive, so I entrusted Kat with my pride and joy. She is the first person outside of my family to drive my car since it was bought by my grandmother over ten years ago.
Upon my arrival at the clinic, my testes had been removed from the anvil and I could walk normally. I find it hilarious that the pain chose this time to stop. After answering some questions and urinating in a cup again, I came to a shocking realisation: I had no watch on. I seldom leave the house without a watch. I seldom stay in my house without a watch too.
I left the small clinic for the counter where I could have the prescription dished out. The pharmacist there was probably one of the most gorgeous women I had ever seen in my life. If she scanned the medical aid card three times I wouldn’t have noticed. If she stabbed me I probably wouldn’t have realised until I was driving home. My wrist now felt naked. I suddenly felt that my outfit assembled in a hurry looked unflattering. Was her polite smile good customer service or an outright marriage proposal? I think she was trying to give me a subliminal message that she wanted to have children with me. Too bad I looked like I was the test mule for the 2026 annual testicle-hammering competition.
After that brief interaction, I did the only thing I could have in that situation: yell at Kat because the pharmacist might have possibly thought we were a couple. I know I wouldn’t have done anything different if she was gone, but it’s the thought that counts, especially when it’s the thought of the pharmacist’s locs or perfect cheekbones.
I stuffed my face (with quite some guilt) with a bag of chips as I drove home, not bothering to put a watch on until the next day. I learnt a lot, much about urethras, but, more importantly, that sometimes I forget to give a damn about watches. Even though I am infatuated with the things and could spend ages speaking and writing about them, there are a few days where bigger things occupy my mind. Sometimes when you have to choose between twenty watches, you don’t bother and choose none instead.
The Escapement Room 