It smells of death.
It smells of death in my car.
It smells of rotting dead rats.
My old car is putrid with the smell of dead rats.
They decompose slowly, slowly somewhere in the body of my car.
The stench cloys, hangs on the air, moist, ripe.
I see them in my mind, six-day-old rat carcasses oozing secretions;
Dead flesh wriggles with hundreds of white maggots gorging on dilapidated flesh.
I cannot ignore the smell; it unsettles my mind.

South African writer Lidudumalingani is a person of extraordinary talent. He was awarded the Caine Prize for his short story ‘Memories We Lost’ and the Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship in 2016, making him the first person to accomplish that fete in a single year; something that other writers can only wish. Apart from writing and film-making, Lidudumalingani also has an eye for photography and he sometimes merges these art forms to tell incredible stories.