The contemptuous queue marshals at the unemployment line poked holes at his graduation gown each time they walked past him, and in the very ideology that sutured it when they told him to come back the next day. He patched the holes with synthetic courage that breathed like hope and draped like despair.
His friends’ mercies took him on trips of escapism, if the road to prosperity had a dead end sign, beer gave him the balls to raise his middle finger to it, it made the world of endless impossibilities an immaterial condition. With each sip he found joy and faced the grip of anxiety the next day; a cold case of brew worries. Hymn 108 in Amagama evangeli gnawed at his soul; “Ngifuna yini kuyena? Ngifun’ impumulo. Kungekho Ntokozo enye, efana naleyo” – “What do I want from Him? I want rest. For there is no greater joy than that which comes from Him.”
He had a complicated relationship with faith. On the one hand he could see the appeal of the assurance that a greater power was moving chess pieces behind the scenes for you and that one day all would be alright, if not here then in the life after. But on the left hand the pursuit of miracles had created a million rand industry that fed a few tricksters off the desperation of the masses. “He prepares a table for me, in the presence of my starving congregation.” He suffered cognitive dissonance. But perhaps more than the hope of salvation or false adverts from major prophets, faith appealed to a much more terrifying need. We suffer many injuries on this journey to death, we stomach them like women, flee like men or hide like children. The unbearable insult to these injuries is the realisation that they are just a result of impersonal fortuities. While we might face deliberate and unique violence as a race, class, gender or sexuality within those groups we are fungible. There might be a force working against black people, the working class, women or LGBTQ but the individual black person, worker, woman or transgender is not targeted by this force. For most people, nobody is tirelessly working against them, shit just hits their fans, randomly. We cannot deal with this indifference, the stare is the coldest when you look into its eyes, only to find it’s actually looking past you. To deal with this indifference some believe old inventions about devils, others imagine haters.
A kinder, engaged gaze would recognise his individual struggles, anxieties, dreams and potentials. He longed for it, he just couldn’t articulate it yet. A couple of high school friends were in town back from their city jobs and they invited him for a drink at one of the rural town’s “posh” bars. He somewhat enjoyed these catch up sessions but wondered if his underachievement helped his friends shine a brighter light on their achievements, a little like how the bar they were in only felt posh because a tavern that used beer crates as stools was right opposite it.
He did not entertain the thought for long and as he removed his head from his ass he was met by a gaze he mistook as familiar because it was so welcome. She looked like a Lebo Mathosa reincarnate who, having seen the face of God, wore the assurance of their likeness as make up. The few brass braids on her head swung like the pendulum in the summer breeze. In the pit of the horrifying abyss her eyes whispered folk songs about past glories and a mating call to rebirth the future. And over a courtleigh and Stella Artois her personality burst open with a kaleidoscope of flavours that hinted at a life of endless possibilities.
They are in his flat outside the main house where an SAB beer crate carries a Hisense television whose antenna’s position speaks of a patiently negotiated settlement. “Konk’ okulaph’ endlini, kungokwakho Thandekile” he invites her to be the queen of his castle. Condescendingly her eyes walk around the room taking stock of the bed whose springs moan in pain when the smallest object lays on them, the closet filled with his dreams’ skeletons and the Hisense TV that functions as a mirror when off. Without speaking she asks “Ingade ibe yintoni na le iye yam?” Heartbroken but not discouraged he changes his tune, “konk’ okusentliziyweni yami, kungokwakho Thandekile.”
He wakes up grateful it was just a dream. He checks his WhatsApp, glad he has her number and not she his. He views her profile picture, she is as he remembers. He decides he will never contact her, this way she remains a beautiful, uncorrupted idea, much like life, despite what we go through.
Malizo kaMlandzelwa
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