Once Upon a Time in Yeoville (work in progress)

It was a Christmas night. At 11pm Rockey Street bustled with activity. Glittering neon lights adorned the streets, decorating the night in warm celebratory breaths.  Hordes of people swarmed the streets; traffic thick in the thick of the night. I could see it, and I could tell that tonight had little to do with the celebration of the birth of the Son of God than it had with accelerated consumerism and a transitory joie de vivre. The streets were colourful and jubilant. I now knew why they called this part of the city ‘rainbow suburb of Jozi’. Though I was relatively a new comer in Yeoville, I tried in every way possible to blend in. I didn’t want any of my past skeletons to resurface and catch up with me. No one in Durban knew of my new abode. Like ephemeral smoke, I had vanished into thin air, without telling anyone where I was going. Besides, I was a lone ranger there. No family. No real friends.

In Westville, just a few kilometres from inner-city Durban, I was known for bad things. Although I had over the year eluded incarceration, I had always been on the run, being a suspect for numerous criminal activities. I didn’t belong to any gang. I trusted no one but myself. I despised working in groups. That is why even at school I had preferred games like chess over football. No one had to blame anyone for their downfall. For nearly five years I robbed banks, broke into huge stores, and hijacked sleek government vehicles. My target was the government and capitalist organisations. I never stole from the common man. I never raped or harmed individuals in the streets. I was a man on a mission – caring thug.  

One night in Durban I broke into a government revenue office. I went there with a humanitarian objective of returning the taxpayers money back to the people.  Unfortunately, things went wrong and I had to shoot and kill three security guards. The police responded promptly to the triggered alarm system. I knew they would be heavily armed and well resourced. Trying any escape manoeuvres was tantamount to suicide.  When they arrived, my VW City Golf was parked in front of the building, with a box of ammunition on the back seat and my wallet on the glove compartment. After searching the entire building and the streets, it was decided that I had escaped on foot.

 After a week of living in the confined darkness between the ceiling and the roof of the revenue office building, I crawled out through a gap I had split between the joints of the roof sheets. My skin itched from fibreglass insulation in the ceiling. My throat was dry from thirst and lack of clean air. When my feet touched the streets of Durban, I decided that it was for the last time. I had to move away; to get a new life somewhere. 

I chose Yeoville primarily because the name rhymed with what I had considered home, Westville. There are several other names of course - Troyeville, Melville, Pimville and Dobsonvile. But there was something about Yeoville that pulled me to the place. Scientists call it ecdysis when snakes shed their skin and move on. And like a snake that had just sloughed its skin, I left Westville seeking further growth and to get rid of the parasites that had clung to my old skin. In this huge cosmopolitan metropolis called Johannesburg, I found home and hope in Yeoville.

As I walked along the glittering Rocky Street on a Christmas night, I whistled along with the reggae tunes that permeated the air from the House of Tandoor. Ahead, two huge Christmas monuments, the Hillbrow tower and the Ponte building, threw glimmers into the black sky, enhancing further the festive mood. I walked on without any destination in mind, enjoying the night breeze and celebrating my new ‘born-again’ life. I turned into a street darker and more silent. Lost in my own thoughts, I took another turn into a passage between residential flats, thinking about me, for I only had myself and no one else to think of.

Something smashed through a window, disrupting my thoughts and the crisp silence of the night. Glass fragments showered down onto the pavement like ice rain, followed immediately by a thud of something hitting the ground in front of me. Splinters of broken glass glimmered under a fading street lamp. And there was something else – an object wrapped in cloth. I looked up at the tall building. A jagged gap on a window yawned down at me, revealing a dark interior about five levels up. I looked up and down the narrow path between buildings. No one. I glanced up at the broken window, silence and darkness. Did someone not just throw an object through a closed window?

I inched closer to the wrapped object...

(to be continued)

Writing for Me

Most of the times I write not because there is something I want to tell the world but rather because there are issues I want to converse with myself. I write for me first. My eyes, my ears, they eat first. External eyes only feed on the leftovers. The million pores of my skin become a million ears through which my words reach the inner depths that make the core of this very self – and only in that way do my soul listen. To say I write to satisfy the reader or the editor will be an absolute travesty of this discourse.  For me, writing isn’t about being perched on the literary stratosphere. Many strive to impress, to break through, and to be that shooting star thrusting from the Milky Way.  As for me, my expedition is delineated by each word that I type, every time when I type. Each phrase. Each syllable and every metaphor. 

Although words sometimes elude me, they never cease drumming within the walls of my skull, seeking the right passage down to my fingertips. They are always there day and night; these fecund words trapped inside my head, swelling and scrapping like sentient beings, wanting to tell stories, to say something. When they do, it’s like a nirvana of some sort – a mystery I can’t quite place my finger on yet I know it’s a destiny for which I was born to reach.  It makes me feel somewhat like a pilgrim. That is why when someone asked me yesterday why I write I said, for the first time, ‘I don’t know’. 

Today as I resume conversations with myself, I can feel once again that the waters of my membrane had long broken, and that over the past few weeks, I’ve been pregnant with numerous lives that are soon to take residence on my pages – worlds on which my meditations can perhaps be comprehended, at least by myself.  

Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes

A story, my story, about what happened in Harare, what really went down (and up?) in that simmering city swelling with buoyant expectations, surges of life, radiant promises of love, gloomy fear of death and the unknown, the rush of adrenaline, the cunning underworld, hearty laughter that pours milkshakes into the streets, blistering generator-powered lights at nights, the heart-touching warmth of strangers in the streets; a city that has room in its pockets for even the social pariahs. This is a story about what happened in that metropolis when the biting cold of an impending winter was a harsh reminder that one was in new territories – a land not quite fully known or comprehended, yet. The Sunshine City, a conurbation where the Dollar is stretched to maximum tension; where streets bubble with activities – promises of a good day or a better tomorrow; this place where load-shedding creates out of the city a deep darkness (within which unseen light glows steadily) and a severe coldness that warms things up in an awkward, inexplicable way. Where the sun – and the moon later on – spill tears down at children clawing at closed windows of cars waiting at red robots. Right there in H Town where the very sun can turn its tears into blissful songs of delight, whenever it so wishes. A lovable place. A place to hate. Sometimes. Maybe never. This is a short tale about life, a story of love, yet not a love story. It’s a story about what happened in this city, Harare, where, in the midst of everything that makes this place what it is; there is a Shona girl who has diamonds on the soles of her shoes. Yes, diamonds imbedded in the soles of her shoes.        

Keep Going

Under the scorching sun he trudges through the day with a heavy heart and a pounding head; and legs as heavy as weights. His chest burns like a furnace. Sun rays attack his eyes with a fierce intensity, like they intend to blind him. His vision blurs as sweat drenches his face. He’s not stopping. He will not stop. He can’t stop. He stumbles forth. Directly towards the retaliating sun.  If it means crawling, he will crawl. He will do anything to keep moving ahead. Where are the clouds that had promised rain just yesterday? Why can’t ‘things’ learn to keep their promises? It won’t rain on him. Not today. But beyond this blazing sun there is place where it rains always. A place where there’re no brutal conditions, no death of any sort. Hence he has to keep moving because right there, his Father waits.  Angels are waiting. He wipes his wet face with his sticky hands. His throat cracks for water. Not here, son. You’re not going to get water here. Keep going…

Wrong Number

The wind whipped against the earth with such intensity that the ground on which he tried to walk shook under his feeble feet. He staggered off balance but somehow managed to maintain his stand; to hold his feet to the ground. A man determined. Dust swirled and threw grains of soil in his eyes. He grimaced and squinted in pain. The telephone booth was only a few steps away. But in the rampaging storm, it seemed a million miles away. Walking was a struggle. He clasped his hand against the wound but blood squeezed through his fingers. He felt vulnerable against the screaming wind. He reeled towards the phone booth, a blood stained coin in one hand, the other, though barely successful, was blocking the flow of blood from his body. The wind hauled ferociously – a choir of wolves bellowing a chorus.

After what seemed an eternity, he stepped into the shaking booth, lifted the earpiece to his ear and slotted the blood-smeared coin into the machine. Pain hammered nails into his skull. He punched in the numbers and listened. The wind slapped the sheet-metal booth, threatening to rip it off its bolts. Welcome to voicemail, please leave your message after the tone. Beep.

“John. It’s me... Mogomotsi... Listen, it’s not goanna work. I... I... We underestimated. Listen... Carriage 4. Centre Eagles Grounds... Twilight.”  The booth shook with the wind. He grabbed the structure for balance, his hand leaving the gaping wound in his chest. “Ouch! Glory... John. Glory knows. You should...”

Beeeeeeeeeep.

 

His last coin done. Finished. Less than a minute. The number he had just called was still flashing on the digital display. He stared at it, shocked. The last digit read ‘3’. It was supposed to be ‘6’. John’s phone number ended with a 6. Not 3. Fuck!  He collapsed to the floor into a pool of his own blood. Mogomotsi lost consciousness. The storm raged on, swinging and banging the dangling earpiece of the public phone against the sides of the booth.