The billboard that nearly caused John Woods to swerve off the coastal road stood much higher than existing legislation permitted. He knew this because he had recently taken a position as a community reporter on a local rag, and he was starting to get a hang of municipal legalese, whether he liked it or not. A hundred yards on he contemplated its mysterious message, identically phrased in the reverse view, and set against the same blue background that had Woods thinking, for a subliminal moment, that the Billboard was part of the ocean beyond, the white letters nothing more than gently ruffled caps of water. The Wait is Almost Over. He looked around at the green mountainside and the gently waving forest of kelp, which flanked the ocean road. Not an impatient scene, exactly. Not a single soul waiting for a god-damned thing. He read the slogan again, and as its meaning dawned (an understanding that it must mean some development was imminent: that almost over portended the very worst for a perfectly beautiful section of mountainside, untouched for all time) he became aware of an increasing tightness in his chest, as if he were taking on pressurised air. He felt the desire to shout something back at the slogan, something equally presumptuous, equally menacing. He picked up a rock, a nice blade of Cape sandstone, and hurled it. (The missile struck with a clang, and dropped to the ground.) Next he tried to pull the billboard over, but since it was not a supple birch, the thing would not begin to lean, no matter how high he climbed. When Inspector Claude Grey rounded the corner on a routine patrol he intercepted Woods at that point of his destructive endeavours where he had attached a tow-line to the structure's left leg, and was proceeding to push the engine of his car through higher and higher revolutions as white sand spurted out from beneath his balding tyres. On the charge sheet the following information was recorded: Name: Jonathan Woods Occupation: Community Reporter, Environmental Affairs. Offence: Destruction of property Mason Construction PTY (Ltd), to whom the billboard belonged, went ahead with the prosecution. It was not to be the last charge laid against the reporter (then a young man) by that company. The story that follows is, in a sense, an account of this long and bitter feud.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/7465 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Christie, Sean |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Humanities, Department of English Language and Literature |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master Thesis, Masters, MA |
| Format | application/pdf |
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