The coin with the silver lining...

The car slowed as it reached the junction, waiting for the traffic light to turn Green. She looked over to her daughter, seated beside her in the front, and noticed she looked uncomfortable. As she began to inquire what was wrong, she followed her daughters gaze; that’s when she noticed the miniscule scrawny hands extended to her, slightly cupped together, the beggar’s gesture. She slightly held her breath and quickly fumbled over the buttons that pulled up the car windows.

“I hate these beggar children!” she exclaimed with a grimace. Her face screwed up out of edgy unease rather than anger. The sight of the malnourished tattered street children, some as young as two, struck deep in her. It hurt her. Made the car, the clothes, the lifestyle she and her family had seem obscene in comparison. Yet she knew there were much richer, right here, like the overweight lady in the Cream Mercedes in front of them, flashing her golden bangles and rings that draped her oversized hand that was crocked out of the car window. Or the man in the dark suite, laughing loudly on his blackberry in the car that towered behind them.
They seemed oblivious to the half naked begging child. It reminded them too much of the poverty they desperately escaped. The poverty they knew too well. So they conveniently avert their eyes. Roll up their windows to shut them out, at least for a while, until the traffic moved again.

But no matter how high the car, despite tightly sealed tinted windows and loud music over the car radio, they were unable to shut out the nagging yet faint voices of the beggars. “Mama…mama…aunty…lukumi…aunty…lukumi…”

Young and unexposed to the harshness of life, her daughter pleaded; “Mum, just give them 500 shillings…please, he’ll go away…just a single coin”. If she wouldn’t do it for the beggar child, she would do it for her daughter. To ease the discomfort from her face; it wasn’t making the situation any easier to deal with either. After all, what did she care what the street urchin did with the money. He could go buy drugs for all she cared; at least he would be able to escape his godforsaken existence just for a little while.

So she pulled her large Gucci bag to her laps and scratched for a coin in her purse, amongst large 20 and 50 thousand notes. She eventually pulled out a 200 shilling coin. That would do. As she began to roll down her window slowly, the street child became excited at her response. She had heard his pleas. He began to grab for the single simmering coin.The coin with a silver lining. His heightened reaction stuck panic in her, the feel of his boney, grimy fingers on her lotioned hand made her jump. She spastically tossed the coin.

It flew over the boys head and struck the ground in the middle of adjacent road. Increased heart beat made her deaf to her daughters screams, as he scrambled for it, on hands and bare feet, it struck. Like a single heart beat. Then speed off, departing with his life, flinging his bloody body to the side pavement. He lay, lifelessly limp, a dirty bundle covered in capitalist shit, clutching the shiny coin to his chest.

The man in the car behind began hooting impatiently at them.
The light had turned Green.




WRITERS NOTE: Decided to write something a little longer than my short poems...i guess i have more time on my hands these days. I didnt know where to blog this, but i figured 'in the middle' would be appropriate, after all, its about art...and stuff. lol. But since it looks odd there because its more text than that page is used too, i shall post it here too. Why? because i can. (and witnessed a similar occurance, but less graphic...hence it can apply to my "real life blog")

Bless

R.I.P Roxy...

Meet Roxy.

She's a half breed between an alsatian and bull dog, named after Roxy in the Musical Chicago (a favourite)...a sasy lady who killed her husband acted by Rene zellwegger.

Meet Roxy.

She died today.
It was pretty shocking, but I guess looking back she has been quite unwell.
Sad that I never really said farewell.

My brother had noticed she, Roxy, had not been herself. She’s been acting sluggish of recent, especially yesterday. She wouldn’t eat, and had extra foul doggy breath. He spent the whole day outside with her. We called the vet that night and he said he would come over the next morning. Today after school the house help announced that she had died.

I couldn’t believe it. We knew she was ill, but ill enough to pass away?! I was shocked.

At first I couldn’t bring myself to go see its corpse. I never have been able to see dead things.
Even when they brought my father’s coffin back home for the night the day he died. I couldn’t bring myself to look into the coffin. I was taken and I stood right next to it, bowed my head as if to be looking into the coffin but my eyes were closed. Not even a glimpse in the corner of my eye. My eyes remained tightly closed.

There’s something chilling about the emptiness of corpses, something cold and menacing. Especially if the eyes are still open. And the smell of death…it’s the most sickening smell! But my brother assured me she looked like she was just asleep. And she was, apart from the stiff way her legs jutted out. Or the unresponsive way her head swung and dragged on the floor when we lifted her out of the kennel. There’s just something so creepy about that, I know she was dead but I kept telling my brother to be careful with her …the corpse, like she could still feel it. I know it sounds stupid but it makes me really uneasy.

My first response was to file charges and Sue!! Of course I’ve never actually sued anyone, but I’m wondering, do I have a case?
We’d need the vet to prove it was the food that directly caused the death of my dog, which would be difficult since the corpse is already buried as I type this out. Also my mum says court cases are expensive and are a hustle she wasn’t willing to go through or finance…I don’t know of any Ugandan animal rights groups or a board I can appeal to that checks the quality of animal feed here. Neither do I know whether we have a member of parliament for animal rights I can write and appeal too. I won’t even bother calling the manufacturers of this shit ‘cause I know they wouldn’t give a damn, or be of any help. HELP?!

I feel that justice should be served, not just to Roxy but all the dogs that have suffered at the malicious hands of crooked opportunist fat bellied capitalists and manufacturers all in the name of consumerism. All in the name of cutting costs and maximizing profits!

So we decided to bury her today, we felt it was the right thing to do.

We dug out a pit, me, my brother and the house help even offered a helping hand. So we put her in, carefully, and covered her up.

The sky was a murky blue all evening, like dirty soapy water after washing with omo…a mirror image of the gloom that hung over the household that evening. Funny how whether tends to do that, reflected moods…maybe it’s just us who project our moods unto the skies that reflect them back…

Turns out the sky wasn’t just a reflection of the gloomy feeling but was heavy with rain. After the rain, I felt much better. Standing out in the rain is so therapeutic. Especially tropical rain, with its swollen drops and rhythmic splash … I defiantly felt much better after the rain.

We carried out a mini funeral service.
We reminisced, we talked about death, we lit a candle, we engraved the tree she was buried nearby, we prayed, we were silent, we were grateful for life, we let it pass.
For death is a part of life.
We weren’t the only ones. My other dog, her brother, Bugsy (also named after a gangsta character in a musical called Bugsy Malone), seemed to be mourning too in his own way. Tell me you don’t see any emotion in his face?!

That’s why I think Animals, in fact all living things have souls. Its an vital part of life, I think…part of the reason science hasn’t discovered how to create life yet, its much complex than the physiological, its all to do with the spiritual. And you can feel it too. You can feel the presence of spirit, an aura of sorts that you can feel near trees, plants, animals…

Plus animals have personalities, if you have had any kind of pet(s) before you would surely agree with me. No Dog, cat, Fish, parrot, whatever has ever really been the same. Its more evident in dogs I think. They clearly show emotion, not human emotion but their kind of animal emotions. The fact that they recognize death, and even mourn the death of their own kind, supports this view! Its not just dogs, but elephants and primates do too!

I once had a conversation about where animals go when they die. Is there such a thing as an animal heaven, or is that a childish thought? we are all God’s creatures, he surely cares for the animals as he does for us, or does he?

Since the animals and plants were never kicked out the ‘Garden of Eden’, my theory is that they never left Eden. They still live there in mind.

Notice how animals lives are so carefree, no worries apart from survival, which the earth provides for them food shelter. no pressures like we humans face. We used to be that blissfully ignorant, in the ‘Garden of Eden’.

Unfortunately animals do struggle today, but that’s because we have encroached on their habitats and displaced them into a hostile world that has no place for them, forced them into domestication by breaking their wild spirits and bringing quite a number of them to near extinction.

Anyways, Eden has been described as heaven. As it is no longer physically on earth…its said to be in a spiritual realm of sorts. Some think its somewhere in the cosmos/“in the skies”, some think its in our minds, a state of being reached through meditation…

so lets assume animals are constantly in this state of mind, since they were never banished from Eden. What happens to their souls when they die?
Are they reborn into another form of life? Reincarnation sort of thing? Like re useable life energy that keeps the world turning or something…

Guess i'm yet to come up with a theory for that one...*Sigh*

1:28am - I swear i can hear all the dogs in the neighbourhood howling...

Death Of A Legend

I could not believe it when i heard that a legend of our time, Miriam Makeba had died last week!!!
i regret not trying hard enough to go see her perform recently at the jazz fest here in Uganda, took her life for granted, thinking i'll see her "next time", now i am seriously sorry!
She's one African woman i greatly look up too, a jazz legend and political activist who wasn’t afraid to address issues like the white apartheid regime...

even more shocking is the nature in which she died, apparently she collapsed as she left the stage at a benefit concert in Castel Volturno (Italy) on Sunday and died in a Naples hospital. They say it was a heart attack...Heart attack? it sounds fishy, Miriam Makeba was healthy and well, if she was having some complications she would have noticed, it would have been known and she probably would have taken it easy and wouldn’t have planned the tour...heart attacks don’t happen out of nowhere, usually one feels some pain and has a few cardiac arrests which hint at the likeliness of a heart attack...then there are all theses rumors about someone poisoning her drink due to her provocative lyrics and messages...also when u think death in Italy, you think mafia...

I just don’t know what to think! all i know is that i shall morn this month for the death of "mama africa"!

Long live her music, messages and voice!
Viva Miriam Makeba!