Of pyrotechnics and terrorism

"I was born in South Africa, but the government says I'm not allowed to check 'African' on the census. Apparently 'African' is a term you call black people!" Tim's potent white rage spills forth and floods the back of the classroom with racial tension. It is a Thursday afternoon and the Experience Science participants are scattered about the classroom, milling around and experiencing little more than social anxiety as Mr. Job rummages around the supplies room for the constituents of a kitchen pyrotechnics lab.

I watch as Michael Daly oscillates playfully between two tables, and much of my conscious thought is occupied by the sour jelly beans stowed in my bag and how I am going to eat them at some point this session. Preparation takes a while, and by the time everything is ready I have already touched Jane inappropriately, mentioned something about Jamaicans to Kinross, spotted a guy who bore uncanny resemblance to the local Guy Ritchie and held a denial-wracked conversation with Jason about a bio presentation.

With everything in order, Mr. Job stands before a table while the rest of us collect around him, interested in his next move. I establish myself as an onlooker by wedging myself between Nick and Ernie.

"This," says Sir, brandishing a plastic container of white powder, "is icing sugar." Conveniently absent from this introduction is the bit that indicates the hazardous substance the sugar is laced with. Nevertheless, several people elect to dip their fingers in the container to test that it contains real icing sugar, and not some cheap, black-market substitute.

"Who has a good memory here?"

"Me, me!"

"You're going to have to remember that this is icing sugar. You'll need to be able to tell me what this is when I ask you -"

"Ask him tomorrow, sir!"

"- within the timespan of Now."

During this exchange I find myself being gradually pushed back by Ernie's imposing presence. I opt to bite his shoulder, after which everything seems to spin slightly and I am required to massage a lump on my head. "What you were hit with was the equivalent of the Northern Hemisphere in sheer head size, Mary," states Timothy resourcefully. It takes about five seconds for Ernie to process this and then become offended by it.

"Ow," I say. "Why is your head so big?"

"Shut up! Serves you right for biting me!"

I bite Nick after this to demonstrate that his head poses a much lesser threat than Ernie's, and also that his hoodie is tastier than a dress shirt.

Sir picks up a small plastic bag filled with a white powder that resembles the icing sugar. "This," twirls it in his hands, "is saltpeter. They use it in pyrotechnics, and -"

"That's two rand fifty a bag, sir."

"Rob is obsessed with saltpeter! He's always burning the stuff in his room..." But Rob is obsessed with many things, Tim. Saltpeter isn't the first, and definitely won't be the last.

Sir lights the Bunsen burner, tears the baggie open and pours some onto a tile. He tips the burner so that the flame touches the small white pile.

"Amazing," someone gasps. Their caustic sarcasm lingers in the air as the saltpeter sits on the tile, oblivious.

"As you can see, hardly impressive," says sir. But he is already spooning icing sugar into a mortar. "Three parts sugar to two parts saltpeter," he mutters, mixing said ingredients in the mortar and beating them into submission with the pestle.

Upon ignition, the mixture fizzles and sputters, producing a lovely tongue of yellowish flame.

Sir motions to the various bottles of substances lined up on the table and explains how photons released by electrons in ions have different wavelengths, producing different colours. He also mentions why he will not be using a substance that harms asthmatics and a substance that injures people who are allergic to shellfish.

"We're using that, though," he points gleefully to a bottle of orange powder. "But that'll just cause cancer."

Many minutes and several demonstrations later, we are left to make our own pyrotechnic mixtures.

I hover around with my beaker, purposefully walking into people as I search for interesting things to dump into the vile lumpy mass already present in my glass. The most interesting thing turns out to be the charcoal as I heap gratuitous spoonful of it into my beaker in appreciation.

“You like the charcoal, don’t you?” observes Guy-Ritchie lookalike.

“Oh yes,” I mumble. “I’m a big fan of it. Charcoal, yeah. Burnt wood...carbon, yes. Great stuff.”

Just then, a piercing yell rips though our collective consciousness. “I’ve got it on my hands! I’ve got it on my hands!”

“It’s just magnesium powder, you won’t die or anything,” I say to a distressed Rowan, who is soiling himself in horror as he stares at the purple powder mottling his hands.

"You tried to wedge that stuff out with the spoon, didn't you?" I grin. "Ha. I did the same thing. Stupid hard magnesium."

A series of otterlike lowing indicates that Dominic has again produced up to five seconds of unbearable laughter. I cast a glance in his general direction, discovering that he and Jane have formed a tag team for putting ethanol into their beakers, resulting in an intriguing, sludge-like substance. I manage to contain some of my distaste as Dominic snickers hatefully. "I hope this thing'll set alight," he laughs, blissfully unaware that the potential explosion may severely impair his ability to do it ever again.

"Where's the cancer-causing stuff?"
"Um sir, is the beaker supposed to heat up?"
"Mine's going to be the coolest EVER!"

After a few minutes of milling around the lab concocting cool sparkly stuff, we are finally ready to test our mixtures. Rowan opts to go first, eagerly tipping his mixture onto the tile as a couple of other people prepare the Bunsen burner. Pushing the burner into the powder seems to yield the much-desired effect of nothing happening, but Rowan, wrapped in denial of his mixture's lack of enthusiasm, seeks to try again and again until what does happen is something other than 'fuck-all'. This point in time is never reached, even after substituting the Bunsen burner for a candle.

The rest of the group, dismayed with the absence of ignition, seek to burn their own cocktails, secretly pleased that the proverbial bar has been lowered to being nonexistent. Various powders are lit with varying degrees of success, the effect of which are fluctuating levels of envy as the sparks range from "awesome" to "retarded".

Some people, annoyed at the crowd gathered around the tile, decide to break off and form their own faction for blowing things up. Soon most of the club is gathered around one of the back tables and not the sink.

A couple of members cast some longing glances at the tile, which by now is having a big, malcoloured seizure in the corner. Sir translates curiosity to genuine concern for the tile's wellbeing. "Don't worry about it," he assures us, "it'll be fine."

The dramatic irony in his words only manifests later when the tile against the wall bursts into angry pillars of flame that reach heights of at least 40cm.
"Eeek!"
"Holy shit!"
"We're going to die!"
The sights and smells of panic and alarm saturate the smoke-filled air. I hover around, ambivalent about the chaos.

"Make way!"

Sir hurries to switch off the gas and, uncertain as to where he is headed, I take a step back, positioning myself exactly between sir's trajectory to the mains. This proves somewhat disadvantageous to the lifespans of the people in the school. Thankfully, sir gets to the mains in time, resulting in local newsagent having one less scandalous story to consider for the headlines of tomorrow morning's paper.

An autopsy of the incident reveals that Nick, seeking to turn the gas off the one outlet, had instead turned the gas on full-blast in the other outlet. This sounds suspiciously removed from an accident, and Nick is branded as the pariah of the day in addition to being an arsonist. My swift, maldirectioned move stamps me as his accomplice and a terrorist of a lesser caliber. The ball of fire leaves its mark on the classroom as a black, 2D spike in the topology of the stukkie wall near the back sink. The wooden box is also tainted with soot, but fortunately its shape and contents are unaffected.

"At least you left your mark on the school," Tim tells Nick, as most of the other members leave the vicinity. The entire lower level of the building is now filled with opaque, art-film-esque smoke.

"Ooh ooh! Did you get a video?"

"Yeah...but Daly got in the way. Did you see him? The thing goes "BOOM" and instead of moving away like a rational person, he goes and stands right in front of the fire!"

"You never know. Maybe he has a subconscious death wish."

"No. How about, he has a subconscious wish to RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD VIDEO?"

"You seem a lot angrier at your mediocre video than his potentially lost life. I see where your priorities lie."

"Well, at least that was an interesting session."

"How does it feel like to be an arsonist?"

"Argh, I'm never going to hear the end of it from sir."

"How do you know?"

"I asked."

Nick snaps a picture of sir walking into the distance, fading to white.

I do not get around to eating my jelly beans.

Hey guys, a roadtrip!

The day I bought myself a packet of Fisherman's Friends I thought I was adding spice into a boring weekly routine that would either have me buying a box of Smint or a tin of those weird polar ice things that promise to be really fucking cold but end up being the disconcerting temperature of dog urine. Little did I know it was, in fact, my gateway to a world of inadequate sanity. The bitter aniseed aftertaste was only the beginning.

The following day, between brandishing the FF packet at various unsuspecting people and coercing them into eating one by tastefully insulting their sexual orientation, the remark passed me that "You'll get brain cancer from eating that". Shrugging it off as no more than a highly personal jab at both fishermen and malignant tumours, I thought no more of it.

One afternoon after Physics class I noticed a group of students crowded around the teacher's table. This particular teacher sported a blonde ponytail, which was able to sum up his entire personality in one striking visual cue. I trailed behind, expecting the remaining students to be huddled around an interesting chemical reaction or impending exam paper or both.

Instead, it turned out to be them signing up for a science excursion! At this thought I became very excited and began querying about the whereabouts of the visit, because I am totally into that kind of thing. A classmate slipped me the words 'titration' and 'Stellenbosch' and 'very very boring' before hastily slipping out of my line of sight. I mentally discarded the first and the last terms and focused entirely on 'Stellenbosch' because I wanted to find out a way to get there for...various reasons...

Anyway, I'd hoped that it was during school, but a quick consultation with the teacher in question (Mr. Job) shattered my dreams and made me want to go even more.

After I made sure my name was on that outing list, I smiled to myself, adjusted my pantyhose and slipped another Fisherman's Friend under my tongue.

-

The Friday afternoon of the excursion, I found myself in a shitty, claustrophobic exam room, sweating profusely and penning a highly homoerotic story about schoolchildren at wartime.

After handing in my paper without a neat copy, I half-jogged to the front of the school, where a couple of students, the driver and the teacher were pooled in front of the school bus. After an embarrassingly-timed trip involving bathroom use, I was shoved into the bus onto one of the big seats which just so happened to have 90% of its surface area occupied by none other than Nick and Jeremy. Incredulous at my having to pull another 40% of seat out of my ass, I turned to my right and spotted Eric, whose leg I'd end up sitting on for the remainder of the car journeys. I discovered later that apart from a comfortable right leg, Eric also sported a camera. This fact was highly amplified as I cooed at his collection of birth-defect photos involving dead deformed babies in jars while the rest of the bus eyed them with varying looks of distaste.

During the journey to Stellenbosch, I recall many things that happened on the bus, several of which I am able to recount without sounding strangely detached from it all. I think I'll put it in point form, chronologically

1) I have an intense desire to punch Dominic in the face. Because he laughs like a paedophile. I share this with Tim, who remarks that the boy in question should grow a moustache in order to fulfill his child-loving destiny. I call Dominic and heavily hint to him about this. Sadly Tim's excellent witticism is lost on Dominic's beaverlike countenance.

2) Nick and Jeremy spot a man driving in purple tartan pants. We point and laugh at how socially objectionable it is and how he expects no one to be able to see it.

3) Eric pulls out his camera and scrolls through the deformed foetus gallery and blood donation video. The bus is intrigued and the subject shifts to 'Old man who dies in a bathtub while his waterheating device simmers his cadaver for two weeks', then 'Train versus Pedestrian' and then to the age-old 'Woman tumbles down hill in a sickening demonstration of the effects of gravity'.

4) The conversation turns to hard narcotics as Michael Holiday enthusiastically recounts the story of Brett's friend, who did crystal meth and as a result had his lungs collapse. I only share half his enthusiasm as Brett is my friend's brother and she is dating the boy whose lungs had collapsed.

5) Michael Daly pulls out his white earphones and I am tempted to steal one because I don't know what he listens to. I am spared from temptation by Mr. Job encourages Michael to put the earphones away. Forcefully.

6) Mr. Job gives a brief overview of the place we're about to visit, something that I hadn't had the luck to hear previously. I am rendered suitably alarmed at the key words 'CSRI', 'sediment' and 'coastal engineering'. Sir then goes on to instruct the bus to be respectful and gave a crash course on how to address the man at the CSRI. At this point a boy sitting at the back whose I do not know the name of bursts into a cry of suicidal excitement. "I SWEAR I'LL ADDRESS HIM AS YOUR MAJESTY, I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL DO IT, PLEASE SIR LET ME CALL HIM YOUR HIGHNESS". The Institutes's pamphlet is tossed around like a defective trout.

7) I pull out the various items of food I have concealed in my blazer. Jane in turn whips out a packet of berry-flavoured Jelly Tots. We exchange food, and the bus is rapt at this candid presentation of sugary delights. Nick puns badly on 'meat stick'. I choke on my food on several occasions. Jane and I yell happily about the night market in Taiwan and how a stall there serves snakes in broth.

8) The bus is filled with the overwhelming stench of shit. Attempts are made to lessen this olfactory assault as windows are shut amongst suffocation jokes. At least half the bus resolves to take this minor obstruction 'like a man'.

9) I really should have put this in earlier but someone started playing Linkin Park on their cellphone. I died inside until Ernie played something better. His knee digs into my backside. I run my hand up his leg as a perverse social experiment. Ernie only yells "STOP" at around mid-thigh.

10) The bus becomes stuck in an amplified version of traffic congestion. "It's impossible to get to Stellenbosch on a weekday."

11) The left window guys spot a half-dead kitten lying on the side of the road. After driving past the kitten sandwiched between two long lines of traffic, Mr. Job runs out to retrieve the kitten. The bus is excited. Jane really wants to touch this kitten. Sir does not capitulate, and calls a friend to meet him at the CSRI to pick the kitten up. The kitten dangles in sir's hands looking very maudlin.

12) We reach the CSRI, and meet the rugged, yellow-shirted coastal engineer. I am ashamed that I remember what colour his shirt was but not his surname. We are ushered into the building, where a man in a blue-striped shirt showed us around the section of the Institute where they analyze water sample for contaminants - 'mercury', 'lead', etc.. My heart goes out to him as I remember that 'faeces' is also a contaminant.

13) The man in the striped shirt shows us around the different labs, each of which houses a different smell to the rest. I am quickly able to pick out my favourite artifacts in each of these rooms - 'Water-analyzing machine I', 'Water-analyzing machine II', 'Water purifier', '40 000 rand microwave' and 'Contaminated waste disposal'. I was saddened that the man in the striped shirt seemed to like taunting me about how my flavoured water bottle didn't have a Nutritional Information label. Michael Holiday's striking display of curiosity shows that he is very interested indeed.

14) We exit the water-analyzing part of the building. Ernie remarks to me about dandruff, which makes me burst out laughing and feel incredibly bad for doing so.

15) We are led to the coastal engineering section of the institute by the man in the yellow shirt. I remember that there was a sort of dark yellow grid on that shirt, but I still don't remember his surname. The section resembled a large warehouse with the startling distinction that there was water on the floor. Several people raise their deep desire to strip and wash in said water. I do not get around to asking why the water seems illogically soapy.

15) Yellow-shirt man explains to us that in the warehouse is a scaled-down model of some coastal construction they are doing in Durban, complete with little weights and concrete and things.

16) On the other side is a model of a dam. Dominic asks YSM how concrete can be decompressed. I am interested as well. We gaze in delight at what seems to be a huge concrete water-feature. Jason tells me someone stinks. I could not empathize, but put forward my theory of who it was anyway.

17) We walk to yet another side of the warehouse room thing, this time to survey a model of an impending addition to a Capetonian harbour. As I was lulled into a mellow stupor by the pretty pictures, the multi-coloured stones and the sickening 'splat-splat' the water made thereon, I suddenly realize I could empathize with Jason after all. I rush excitedly to him to report my findings.

18) We leave the Institute after audibly thanking The Men In The Notably-Coloured Shirts. With our hands. I wanted to say something to go the extra mile in terms of the audible bit of the deal, but was rendered socially awkward by a twist of fate and just ended up patting my bottle on my hand like a big retard.

19) Christiaan corners me brandishing a bottle of ridiculously purified water he had asked Striped Shirt Man for. He urges me to take a sip, my answer to which was a very distinct 'Do Not Want'. Eventually I am coerced into drinking some, partly because he impressed the bottle upon me so, and partly from morbid curiosity.

20) To my surprise, the water tastes exactly like Dominic's personality. I rephrase this more politely as 'It tastes like drinking air'. The bottle is passed around in its disturbing attempt at mimicking hard liquor.

21) We head back onto the bus for the return journey. Rowan either rushes to the bathroom or does something incredibly entertaining, but I was too busy pulling out my mp3 player to know what it was.

22) Kaelin calls Byron Clark. Everyone has a turn with the phone. I do not get a chance to ask him what he was wearing, what a boy like him was doing in a place like this, and if that was a Geography textbook in his pocket or if he was just happy to see me.

22) We are once again deluged with a smell akin to that of the gastrointestinal tract. This time, suggestions were that we opened all the windows. This illogical procedure only served to drown the bus with an aroma that suggested we had been hit by a large open septic tank.

23) I prop my elbow against Eric's seat and doze off listening to Fire in the Head and wondering why it is on repeat. In the background I can hear that Ernie has once again resumed his playing of cellphone music. Eric remarks that Ernie has excellent taste in music and I notice that Michael Daly has once again resorted to his white earphones. Christiaan leans into the front seat for unknown reasons and displays a dismaying halfmoon, complete with dipping elastic waistband and the impending promise of asscrack.

Tim pokes me in the elbow and tries to blame this on Ernie. But I am too smart for his debauchery! I know it was him. I can see it in his eyes.

24) I am woken by an uncomfortable dream in which everyone in the bus is staring at me. It hits me that it is not a dream. From between the music Mr. Job's words of "Can you hear me?" filters through and I am able to extricate myself from a mental orgy of confusion. I pull my earphones from my ears but this does not alleviate my nagging suspicion that everyone is actually staring at Your Majesty boy. Sir wants the entire bus to be listening as he iterates that the delay in our arrival back as school is Not His Fault.

25) Sir asks me about a question I had asked him earlier in the week, namely "Are you a liberal?". I did not think he would still remember it, much less proceed to ask me if I meant liberal as opposed to conservative or liberal as opposed to political liberal. I have no idea what the difference is between a liberal and a political liberal and state this accordingly. Sir then remarks that it is the most interesting question he's ever been asked, which gave me hope that he would answer it. He didn't. In retaliation I did not shift my decision that he was indeed a liberal.

26) Sir restates his policy of never answering personal questions. The occupants of the bus catch onto his intricate ruse and infer that sir simply uses "I won't answer that" to any question that a) he is unable to answer, and b) potentially embarrassing.

27) "Sir, how long is your hair when you let it down?" "Quite long."

28) "Sir, how many bottles of shampoo do you go through a week?" "Seventeen."

29) "Sir, are you a cat person or a dog person?" "I won't answer that."

30) "Sir, do you ever let your hair loose at metal concerts and circle headbang?" "Do I look like the type of person who'd do that?" "Yes?"

31) "Sir, I saw you at the beach the other day. SIR, I SAW YOU AT THE BEACH THE OTHER DAY!!!!" "What was that you said, Ernie?" "Nevermind..."

32) We arrive back at school, and the sky has already pinkened. Sir redisclaims all responsibility for our late arrival, skillfully extricating himself from being the subject of many an irate parent's shit fit.

33) We loiter around the front of the school waiting for our lifts. Mrs. Splinter arrives with a carful of six year old children stating the occasion as a birthday party. I find this severely amusing.

I'm too lazy to write any more; I just realized that it's nearly two o' clock in the morning and I am craving raisins. There's also the smell of burning wax for some reason.