Born in Pretoria in 1979, Werner holds degrees in Publishing and English from the University of Pretoria and is completing his Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Cape Town. He is a part-time scriptwriter and crack addict, and has been to the moon, four times. Most of this is true.

This is Werner's first story for Something Wicked.

extract from The Book of Monkeys 

There was someone at the door.

Steven got up from the groove his body had ingrained in the couch to walk into the foyer. He stood by the window, listening to the rain beat its steady rhythm on the world outside. From the corner of his eye he imagined he could see the lapels of an overcoat, playfully flapping in the cold wind.
  There was someone at the door.
  Then there was a loud crash of thunder. From the room upstairs came a scream, a thud and the crash of breaking glass.
The rain kept falling outside, and Steven, although he was unaware of it, had started crying.

Nurse Mary saw the crumpled old body beneath the thin blanket and was struck again by the obvious frailty thereof. She sat on her stool by the bed, helping spoonfuls of soup into the old mouth. The wrinkled lips opened and received the lukewarm liquid, but the eyes remained dim, unaware. There was no excitement or sense of enjoyment; the lips simply received the liquid and down the throat it went. Eating had become a rudimentary task, mechanically performed, the mouth only opening because it was conditioned to do so when a spoon approached.
The heavy cloud overhead cracked its lightning whip. Nurse Mary was not by nature a jumpy person, but when the old body which had been so motionless for so long suddenly jolted in the bed, kicking out the useless limbs in all four directions, Mary jumped from her chair and dropped the bowl of soup, leaving it to shatter on the floor. Her heart racing, her mind in search of the composure she had for so long assumed as her best quality, she kneeled by the bed and took the old hand in hers. Inertia had returned to it, but for some reason the old hand was very hot in hers; not feverish, but burning up with some inner fire.

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