Simba and I sat Beneath the acacia tree, me with an icey beer in hand, a vanilla-flavoured Steri Stumpie in his. Behind us was pitched our permanent tent. Before us, the grill-ready grey, lava-hot coals of the bbq. Above us, countless pulsing bright stars, numerous constellations and the Milkyway galaxy. Infront of us, anything we hoped for, or dreamed of and a beautiful, peaceful future. 

Embedded in the African bush at the Camdeboo National Park that night, we chatted, nibbled grilled chicken, showered, and flipped the switch for the best sleep of our lives.

It was only the marauding mosquitoes and the creeping critters that bothered us as they nipped at our skin...or so we thought.

The sun rose, we cooked the coffee, hurled our bags back into the boot, shut the doors, turned the ignition and before the night's dew could dissipate, the crunch of gravel beneath the tread turned to smooth tar as we headed the 8 hours back to Johannesburg.

Being able to hear the crack of a twig beneath my feet, to feel a gentle breeze blowing, and to smell hints of fresh pine, increased my spirits. I was living a pipe dream. December Silence and serenity. It was left to me to unpack the car as we arrived in our evacuated hometown.

Gripping the luggage handles, the bags parted, split in two by a whipping, snaking, leathery black tail. Aghast, stumbling backwards, I released the handles as if they were a fiery live wire. 'Giuseppe!!!' I exclaimed, 'Giuseppe'!!!

Seeing the tail being sucked into the car like the length of spaghetti in the Tramps mouth, the skin on my back crawled over my shoulders.

With the adrenalin in my body boosted like a Soda Stream, I yanked at the bag handles revealing an exaggeratedly large watermelon-sized hairy, bristling, grizzly-backed striped rat. The peaceful silence that was, was no longer as I screeched from here to kingdom come. 

I calmed myself down, pulled my drenched shirt off of my back, tied my shoe laces and raced up to the apartment.

Rushing up the stairs, my heart thumping like a Lez Zeppelin drum solo, I shouted, 'Lee, Lee, you won't believe what I just saw'.

By candle light that load-shed night, my face glowing from the flickering candle, I believed, and convinced my wife that the rat had evacuated the vehicle. Surely.

Having settled my wife's strummed nerves, feeling a lot more relaxed, I was eager to read my eyes to bed. And so unzipping the luggage in which my book was stored, and lifting it, what fell from between the pages my eyes could not immediately decipher.

Scratching my chin in thought, I recalled a moment of our lives.

"I was once told that when our young lad spent a meal at a friend's house, even though he didn't want to eat the hotdog, he nevertheless took it so as not to embarrass the host. Later that day, while back at home, his au pair found the stray sausage buried in his trousers pocket. What a mensch'

Zooming in on the detritus, my senses buffered, came to, and then immediately suffered an assault. A grotesque blob of bio hazard sat at the bottom of my bag. 3 baby rats cleaving to one another. dead. With the high pitch of a female Michael Jackson fan, I screeched, 'Giuseppe'. From the bottom of my belly, bile bubbled up like a chocolate fountain at a 90's girl-friends pyjama party to tickle my tonsils.

Just managing to swallow hard, I then saw a fourth baby rat, alive, cleaving to a now holey t-shirt of mine. By this point, I had reached my limit. With my hand over my mouth, my eyeballs sweating wet, I picked up my legs and raced the contaminated bag to the outdoors bin casting the lot. Hands on knees I heaved and breathed and downed the half litre laying on the floor. 

That night the sun set, and was replaced by a bright full moon shining its cheesy grin. Peace and tranquility had been restored to suburbia. Our family fell asleep.
The camera panned across the building, then zoomed out. 
Just as the credits were about to roll and the theme song was to play, the innocent silence was aggravated... by an angry, rabid gnawing...........