‘Gotso!’ someone whispered. ‘It has happened.’ And then they had all run. Bedlam followed as they stumbled around in the dark, frantic and hysterical in their efforts to get away. If there had been light more might have survived. He might have escaped unscathed because when they eventually found him and lifted up the heavy beam that had fallen across his legs he was only a few yards from the spot where he had been working.

Am I getting old? he thought now. Does half a man get older quicker than a full one? Am I getting old that a child’s eyes can silence me? ‘Tsotsi,’ he said aloud and spat onto the pavement. ‘Tsotsi shit! Dogshit! Mangy, dug-dry, yellow bitch shit!’

Morris Tshabalala was on his way to the eating house where he always had his supper. He moved slowly through the crowd. He moved slowly normally but a lot of people made it worse. There were times when he had to wait minutes on end before sufficient room opened up for him to carry on. He moved by putting his hands down in front of him, the palms flat and then dragging his body forward between his arms. This position limited his gaze to the small area of ground immediately beneath his head and a little more on each side, because he could turn his head either way. If he wanted to look anywhere else he had to stop and sit upright with his stumps sticking out in front.

He was glad when he turned out of Terminal Place and into the deserted street. The paving stones were still warm under his calloused palms. This side of the street had had the sun from noon until a few minutes ago when it had disappeared behind the thick belt of smog that ringed the city.

Warm stones, he thought, I can still feel you, and I like to feel you. Anything that is warm I like to feel because once my legs went cold and I learnt that cold is the touch of death. Warm stones, how much longer will I feel you? My hands are dying on me because of the too much work in dragging me through the streets. Six years they have worked now. Yes, six years and already there are parts as hard as the hooves of oxen, and these parts no longer feel. That first year, the summer of the first year, the first day of that summer, when I left the hospital only half a man, then my hands felt everything. Ow! they felt the stones and the hot tar and the burning metal lids of the drains, and that night when I picked the grit and dirt out of the broken blisters and cuts, then I cried and asked myself was it not better that the coldness had gone beyond the hip, through my heart and into my head so that they had buried the lot of me. But then I found that butter soothed my hands and it was easier and the next day came and went and now here I am, many, many days later, and my hands are hard and only in some places do they still feel the warmth in these stones. I had a woman once, and when I fondled her breasts I felt the warmth of life.