She strikes a match and feels in her pocket for a cracker, but their fuses are all knotted together. She pulls a whole bundle of them out at the same time. The match burns her hand. ‘Ouch!’ She throws down the match. Wait. First sit down. No, not sit, then she won’t be able to get out of the way fast enough when the thing goes off. Hell, what now?
It takes a while before she finds her bearings with the crackers. She pulls them apart and puts them down in a row on the edge of the stoep. She tries to make one of them stand up so she can light the fuse, but it keeps falling over. Then she puts it down on its side and lights the fuse, but the thing goes out before reaching the cracker. How’s she supposed to get this fuse working now? Mol looks at the crackers in her hand. Then she gets an idea. No, Jesus! Yes, what the hell! She’ll take the damn thing in her fingers and shoot it off. In her bare hand. That’s what she’ll do. If she wants to make a mark for them here tonight, that’s the only way to do it.
She smiles. To think she’d have so much courage here tonight! But she’s got nothing to lose. There’s very little in life that she hasn’t yet seen. So what’s a silly little cracker, then?
Pop wakes up. He feels something going on behind his head, here behind the window. What’s Mol up to now, out there on the stoep? What’s all that fiddling around? He gets out of his chair. He has to try three times before he manages to get up. The chair’s too deep without its cushions. He peeps through the curtains. Goodness gracious! Mol’s holding a flame to a cracker! She brings the flame to the fuse and holds it till it takes. Then she stretches her arm away from her body, turning to one side and looking away. On one leg. She’s standing on one leg. It looks like she’s trying to do a funny dance. Now she wriggles her fingertips, working the cracker further and further up till she’s holding it just by the tip.
‘Poof!’ it goes off.
‘Whoof!’ barks Toby.
‘Hoo-eee!’ shouts Mol, shaking her hands next to her sides. Now she runs round the corner, with Toby on her heels. Who would ever have thought it possible?
Here she comes again. Toby’s up on his hind legs, dancing in front of her.
Pop stands on his chair to look out the window. He pulls open the curtains a bit more. Mol’s truly in top form here tonight. She’s going from strength to strength. Pop feels his own strength coming back too. Little sparks in his insides, like a slow dynamo starting to run. On-off, on-off goes the light. Is it possible? This is a day that got him down so bad he thought he’d never be able to get up again. And now just look at Mol, the old diehard! She’s getting braver with each cracker. Now she’s holding three Tom Thumbs at the same time, right in front of her chest. She gets them lighted in no time at all.
‘Poof! Poof! Poof!’
‘Whoof! Whoof! Whoof!’
She throws them on to the grass. And then Toby goes looking for them, running up and down on the grass until she shoots some more.
‘Poof! Poof! Poof!’
‘Whoof! Whoof! Whoof!’
Quicker and quicker.
Goodness, Mol, where do you get the strength from, old girl?
He knows how scared she is of crackers.
All Pop can make out is Mol’s outline against the dark night sky as she moves around. The stoep-light’s off and so are the lights in the lounge. But each time the fireworks light up behind her in the street, he sees her more clearly. Once or twice, as she turns sideways on the stoep, he catches a glimpse of her face as she strikes a match and cups it with her hands till it takes nicely.
Mol’s face flickers against the dark as the flame dances up and down. He sees the ruts and nicks and bags under her eyes. He sees how she sucks her lips as she concentrates. Mol looks different. It’s ’cause she’s not wearing her tooth. Nowadays she never keeps it in her mouth any more. She says the plate’s too big.
They’re shrinking, both of them. They’re shrinking right out of their teeth. God in heaven, that people should start shrinking like this, gums first.
Pop goes out the front door. He pulls back his shoulders and straightens himself up. He clears his throat.
‘And what have we here! Fireworks, hey?’
‘This is fun. Look how jolly everyone is.’ Mol points to the street. ‘Come, Pop, you must also let one off. I’ve got two left here, one for you and one for me. Let’s light them together. Here! Don’t be scared, it’s nothing. I’ll light them for you.’
Mol’s eyes are shining.
Toby stands in front of them with his ears pointing up and his forelegs spread out wide. He lowers his front and wags his tail.
‘He’s trying to catch them, like tennis balls,’ says Mol. ‘They go “poof! poof! poof!” and then they’re empty, then there’s nothing left. Poof! Finish! Just a shell, with nothing left inside.’
‘Out of our shells. We’re shooting out of our shells. Poof! Finished!’
But Mol doesn’t want to hear. ‘Are you ready?’ she asks.
Pop holds up his cracker. Mol lights it and then quickly lights her own.
‘Poof-oof!’ they shoot, almost at the same time.
‘Whoof-oof!’ says Toby, running in a wild circle on the grass.
Pop sniffs the shell in his hand.
‘Yuk, throw it away,’ says Mol.
‘A bit of powder, just one shot. A spark, and then we’ve had it.’ Mol here next to him is pretending to be deaf. Shame.
‘Hoo-eee! Look! Look!’ she shouts. Suddenly, from behind the houses of Triomf, from Brixton’s side, a huge, red rose rises up into the sky on a long, thin stem of light. Slowly, without sound, it folds open and then falls away into the black air, layer upon layer. Like the folds of a dress. Or like someone turning slowly in a dance.
‘Red Alec!’ shouts Mol.
And then a yellow one.
‘Whisky Mac!’ Pop feels the name in his mouth. It almost tastes like something. Like what?
‘Beaautifull!’ says Mol, clasping her chest.
‘It must be at the showgrounds.’ Pop swallows. The taste is gone.
Together with all the people in Martha Street, they watch and cheer the showgrounds’ fireworks. It carries on for quite a while.
‘It’s a long time since we’ve had a Guy Fawkes like this, hey, Pop,’ Mol says when it looks like the show’s finally over.
‘Long time.’ He puts his arm around her and pulls her towards him. ‘I smell rain.’ He rubs her on the shoulder.
She looks up at him. He can see what she’s thinking. She’s thinking why’s he so lovey-dovey all of a sudden? Yes, why? He also doesn’t know why.
‘Come, come let’s go have a bath. It’s been a hard day.’ Let her think what she likes. He just needs to touch her.
OVERLOAD 
Mol waits for Pop in the dark passage outside the bathroom door. When they came back into the house, he asked her not to put on the lights. They were too bright, he said. Now he’s gone to the kitchen to fetch a candle. He’s looking on top of the dresser where they always keep candles, with the little lids to stand them on. Why’s he taking so long now? She hears things falling over. Pop bumbles around so much lately. Let her light a cigarette here in the meantime. Pop’s got his reasons. Maybe he’s getting a feeling in his bones that the lights will cut out again tonight. The electricity’s always been bad here in Triomf. Ever since the day they moved in. An overload problem. That’s what the municipality’s workers say when they come and work on the boxes. Not that the working ever makes much of a difference.
Treppie says that’s the way it goes in places like Triomf. He says it’s a sub-economic disease. It’s meant to remind you who you are and where you live. For that, Treppie says, nothing works better than cutting off people’s electricity.