{"id":1864,"date":"2013-01-25T04:07:43","date_gmt":"2013-01-25T04:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=1864"},"modified":"2014-01-03T18:42:24","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T18:42:24","slug":"herman-by-marijke-hillmann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/herman-by-marijke-hillmann\/","title":{"rendered":"Herman by Marijke Hillmann"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1865\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1865\" style=\"width: 233px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Alley-Brenham_72dpi_Christopher-Woods.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1865 \" title=\"Alley by Christopher Woods\" alt=\"Alley-Brenham_72dpi_Christopher-Woods\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Alley-Brenham_72dpi_Christopher-Woods.jpg?resize=233%2C357\" width=\"233\" height=\"357\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Alley-Brenham_72dpi_Christopher-Woods.jpg?w=648&amp;ssl=1 648w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Alley-Brenham_72dpi_Christopher-Woods.jpg?resize=195%2C300&amp;ssl=1 195w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 233px) 100vw, 233px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1865\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alley by Christopher Woods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Herman<\/h1>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Johannesburg \u2013 mid nineties.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">by Marijke Hillmann<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Herman, my assistant, enters data on a user-unfriendly computer system.<\/p>\n<p>He swears in Tswana.<\/p>\n<p>I look up and notice that his complexion seems very dark today and then I look him in the face.<\/p>\n<p>His eyes glisten.<\/p>\n<p>I shiver \u2013 down to the depths of my core.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s up, Herman\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am sick, Em\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow sick, Herman?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe doctor says I am very sick, Em \u2013 I am positive\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I put my hand on his shoulder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut you told me you do not have a girlfriend\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His eyes glisten.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy white friends, Em. The men who buy me shirts and give me money for the taxi &#8211; they do not use protection\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>His eyes are blank.<\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n<p>Born in the Netherlands, I left for Africa with my husband, a mining engineer, where we spent 40 years in different countries. We returned to Europe a year ago and now live in Germany. I am a translator by profession (Dutch-English and German-English).<\/p>\n<p>Africa is still very much in my blood and so many memories wanting to be told, hence the story. See more of Marijke&#8217;s work on her <a href=\"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/africa-in-short-by-marijke-hillmann\/2013\/\">featured page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Herman by Marijke Hillmann is part of our series Africa in Short. Each month we have a new story from Hillmann about the time she spent in Africa. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1864"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2354,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1864\/revisions\/2354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}