I finish the charcoal drawing on my canvas as I draw in that long breath of satisfaction and acknowledgement; I am not some guy with a fluke. This has to be my best work yet, until my mind and hands surprise me yet again. Then I look up from the desolate classroom and through the window; dark and gloomy is my reality as it sinks in to the pit in my stomach. I pack my scanty tools and fold up the canvas and walk past the rickety wooden gate.
All my life I have lived in this neighbourhood, I have witnessed it get dark. The sun is constantly being shadowed, the fun has gone down the open sewer; there is no hope for anyone let alone just me. The stench, the constant kid crying in the background amidst gossiping women and drunken talk of men in the area is the common scene here. I see with frustration as I realise that I might amount to what the status quo dictates.
You have to live it to feel it, if you wouldn’t you wouldn’t get it or see what the big deal is as I do. The wearer of the shoe knows where it hurts most, and this shoe has been glued to me since birth. My heart revolts at the thought, my mind riots at the impossibility of a different path… the constant reminder that this is my tag, certificate of authenticity and all my credibility for it had been everything. It was sad that even the closest of friends couldn’t see me beyond what I am, a charity case for the Salvation Army.
As I trudge down the dirt path, I see the condescending looks they all give me. My peers sitted on the idle bricks that have since become part of the scenery, the gossips who look at me for a split second to refresh their memory on their regular character and the pity from the men who think I have long overstayed in my dreams, time to wake up and smell something closer home and coffee was not among their list.
And I had tried to smell what they had prescribed for me, but the stench overwhelmed me. That was not what intuition told me I was worth, my dream was bigger than this and the air was clearer than it was. The frustration was too much, I had sat alone in a corner and cried begging God to open a crack and not let me be pigeon holed in a regular job. It was too mechanical and caged for this free bird. That was just not my road…
I get home with the darkness, it is the exact picture you have in mind. Candle wick flickering with my baby sister chasing the shadows and my mum adjacent preparing the staple maize meal. Both are happy to see me; my mother asking if I had broken ground and sister my number one fan waiting to see what I had come up with. Poor baby sister, she didn’t understand what is happening. Dad had got a new wife and left us to the mercy of nature, a lump forms in my throat.
I get an urge and builds to a surge. Suddenly a new outburst of energy has occurred, a light bulb is lit, and a resolution is made in the dark. The realisation is profound, it may be just time for me to stand up and travel new land. There is a need to take matters into my own hands and make a new plan, the only way I can escape this road. I hear the concern mum but I must travel alone, am not following any footsteps am making my own. Understand that I must travel alone but once I break ground I will be back for you and give you what we have never had.
Once dawn breaks and I am over the dirt tracks onto the tarmac, the world on my shoulders and odds stacked against me, I will not look behind because clearly… this ain’t my road.
donmu2ua 