mr_asante's blog

She sits by the roadside – a mixture of calm and confusion.
Madness becomes her.
On her rock she sits, crossed- legged.
Her clothes, a myriad of silhouettes.
The light plays a number on her.
A revelation here, skin there.
Exposed? Yes!
Barely? Yes!

She sits on her rock smoking her cigarette – a mixture of calm and confusion
She is mad.
For as she blows her nicotine clad smoke against the wind
She mumbles some words.
She stops. Laughs. Shakes her head. And laughs some more
This time hitting her thighs so hard
She screams. Ouch. She weeps.
Barely? Yes!

She paces up and down the roadside – a mixture of calm and confusion.
“Is she mad?”
She says to herself.
How do you justify losing your husband to your sister?
How do you justify being ejected from your matrimonial home with your only child?
How do you justify camping for weeks close to the lotto kiosk?
Opposite the big choked gutter
How do you justify your only child getting so sick he rots away every day?
Starvation? Malaria? Cholera? Depression?
Maggots protrude from his hands to greet me every morning.
Like the foot soldiers they are, they spare no time in their salute.
Flies use his eyelids as a landing strip.
Their flight at par with a Raw-Lings skill.
Worms use his anus as an exit – the confusion.
An emergency greeted with tears and hopelessness.
How do you justify no one seeing a single mother beg?
Not with her mouth, but with her soul.
Do you not hear her cries?
“Help me please” she pleads.
He dies.

She sits by the roadside – a mixture of calm and chaos.
Madness.
She runs to the big gutter.
It is still choked
This time with her son’s body.
A floating mass of rot.
Oozing with many an unspeakable.
“He looks so calm”. She smiles.
“My beautiful son”. She bends down to touch him.
He slips from her hands.
“The Madness is over now”
He floats away.
She sits on the ground.
Laughter becomes her.

Madness!