When one hears that a military ambulance carrying the revered former president of our democracy broke down by the side of the road, leading to a 40-minute wait for a replacement, the heart lurches.
It does not lurch because this is a terrible thing in itself. Mishaps happen. It lurches because the nation is uneasy. It lurches because there is just too much that seems to be going wrong that should not go wrong.
The nation is uneasy. Times are getting harder. Unemployment is on the rise. Every day a community is up in arms over service delivery. Eskom tells us we are using too much power and load-shedding is threatened every night.
Policemen are "executed". Workers are mowed down by the police. The rand continues to weaken. And South Africans are drowning in debt, as figures published in The Times last week showed.
That is why the launch of Agang SA this weekend, and the noises around the launch of Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters movement, have invigorated the political landscape.
They might not have much to offer in the long run, but for now they offer a fresh new avenue for the possibility of salvation.
The nation is uneasy. That is why, when former president Thabo Mbeki goes on the new radio station PowerFM as he did last week there is an outpouring of nostalgia, emotion and even regret that he is now lost to domestic politics.
This despite his extraordinary failure of leadership on HIV/Aids.
The nation is uneasy and it seeks answers, even in the past.
The nation is uneasy. It is uneasy because it is finally confronted with the enormity of the governing ANC's own problem.
The ANC has a Jacob Zuma problem, a problem now succinctly enunciated by the likes of Kenny Kunene in his open letter last week.
Nothing illustrates the enormity of the ANC's problem, and therefore our problem, like Zuma's defence last week in parliament of his friendship with the notorious Gupta family of Waterkloof Air Force Base fame. Asked by Independent Democrats MP Joe McGluwa if he would cut ties with the Guptas, Zuma responded: "Every human being has a right to have friends . We are not in a state that bans people because they have friends with others ...
"I don't think you can just say, because there are these rumours around, can you therefore change what you are doing? Because you don't operate around rumours."
Rumours? Dear sir, these are people who have used your name to land planes at a military establishment in your country in defiance of your country's laws.
These are people who face so many allegations of corruption that most of us have stopped counting. These are the people whom many in your organisation - and in your own intelligence services - have warned you against consorting with. And you say these are "rumours".
The nation is uneasy. And it is restless. And it sees that the world is restless too.
The Turks are throwing stones in the streets and are calling for their leaders to step down. The Brazilians are tired of an inequality that mirrors our own here in South Africa. They too are throwing stones.
The people are uneasy and their leader seems unable to deal with their problems.
This is the problem the ANC faced as it began its election campaign in the Western Cape and Northern Cape last week. It sent Zuma to campaign.
Perhaps the ANC does not see it, but the reason why it is more vulnerable than it has been since the 1994 polls is exactly because the face of its campaign is so compromised. In many jurisdictions Zuma would be unelectable, given the scandals his administration has swatted aside.
Even inside the ANC, now, Zuma is regarded with disdain by many. The only reason he remains in power is because he has sidelined many party leaders, and the leadership that now constitutes the party's national executive committee is largely made up of sycophants or those who are prepared to be sugar-coating for him. The nation is uneasy about all this.
That means this is a time in which the new and old opposition parties should make hay.
It does not seem likely that the ANC will ask Zuma to step down and that someone else will become the face of its election campaign. The party will be taking damaged goods to the battle front.
The ANC can choose to save itself from inevitable decline (it will not lose the next election but it will suffer a bloodied nose) by booting out its compromised leader.
Or it can sit and watch as it replicates the failures of other liberation movements, in Zambia and Kenya, as they rotted from within and died.
In those countries too, the people became uneasy. Then they acted.
