I am standing by the window gazing at an amazing clear blue sky. Almost white with full beams of sunshine reflecting on it. It’s a wonder of nature but I give it an antagonistic stare. But not because I have a grudge with a thing that has existed more years than me. I feel sick and I am trying to keep my food inside my system before I throw up again. It’s been a week and half since I developed a strange sickness that doesn’t allow me to digest food. Every time his face comes to my mind I throw up. The hurt in my heart has turned to a constant sick feeling I can’t connect to any known medical condition
I know I did the right thing. The world I ran from was muddied with so many lies and secrets. It was a ruined picture that held an artistic façade while beneath lurked the true ugliness of each paint stroke. Scars that were never visible on the surface but were hidden in vivid confusing strokes of paint on the canvas. That was the life I ran from. But I feel like I have dropped a load off somewhere and now I have no idea what to do with myself. The load I have dropped have just revealed another one, bigger than the one I abandoned.
I feel like I am chasing a rainbow, Taylor is a storm swirling violently inside my chest and in my memories if I don’t hold on I will be swept away. There are many occasions I almost dialed his number. But I am bend to fight this obsession until it fades. But today I decide to pull myself together and start living the life I wanted to taste. It’s not much—I’m pretty much living like a street rat in a shoe box of a room with very few possessions and I hope to find peace in the little that I have. The world of plenty I ran from was nothing more than a nightmare. Woe betide anyone who envies it.
And Tonota village is the right place to live with little. The people here don’t have much or live flashy lives. At least not my neighbors. The yard I rent a room is large, making the two opposite blocks of rooms look like little compartments in a corner. My neighbors are barely ever around, at last in the two other rooms that are occupied. There is complete privacy here. Here I am really invisible.
I put on a simple jeans and t-shirt and sandals before I walk out of my room. I inhale the cool forest air as I walk to the small community college I found online the other day. It’s mid-April. It’s not very hot but annoyingly windy as I enter the gate. The small but neat yard of the college premises is nice and refreshing. It’s a house turned to a tuition centre and I like it because its gate and building does not bring a foreboding feeling within me.
Or maybe it’s because I am here for completely different reasons. I am here to look for a job. It feels stupid, I don’t even know what I am doing.
No, I really don’t know what I am doing but at least I am doing something. Wild appears with a lack of faith in all this look on her face. My sense and logic are ready to take this on. If I don’t go for it, I never will. My emotion has been tucked away into a dark corner because its existence is a reminder of what I can’t describe inside my heart. Not here, not now.
‘Miss Heather?’ a deep incredulous voice startles me. I turn around so fast I think I twisted a bone out of place. ‘oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean to startle you.’
It takes me precious seconds to convince my racing heart, wild mind, logic, sense, emotion that there is no danger. Celine or Taylor haven’t found me. Father haven’t found me and no one wants to kill me. Because deep down I know that what I know hold a death warrant for me. They hate leaks and weaknesses. Just thinking about Zelda and what Celine told me solidifies that fact.
I straighten up and smile at the man in front of me. The man looks different than his online photo. Or perhaps he really is young and he looks older because his brow is deeply furrowed, unguarded surprise is all over his features—plus the annoying hot and cold sharp breezy weather and he’s easily over eighty.
‘Mr Diphina!’ I manage a polite formal smile, ‘I was deep in thought.’
Some winkles slowly vanish from his face.
‘So I noticed.’ He beams a smile and immediately he looks younger, whoa, ‘how are you?’
‘Not sure at the moment with all the wind.’ I run a hand to smoothen my hair down for emphasis.
Mr Diphina sighs, ‘I know right—please this way—would you like some cool water?’
‘Yes.’ I nod as I follow him contemplating whether to let him bring me water or to offer getting it for myself. But I decide that the servant role does not go well with my new life whereby I need to survive a cruel fate as I ease into the chair he gestures at.
‘You look so young!’ that’s what he says first when he finally sits down and I’m still working on my professional expression. It takes me off guard—I guess I was expecting him to begin with a sharp voiced ‘so!’ as I’d pictured him do a zillion times in my head—all my brain inhabitants laugh at me.
‘I’m a final year college student on semester break is my explanation though I had already written that in my response to the online ad which I doubt he read or maybe he did since he recognized me by my name.
He sits back in his chair, ‘I am looking for someone who can tutor the holiday class.’
And so I read on the ad
‘It feels like you could vanish in seconds.’
The story of my life—I am wanted right? Well I’m sure Taylor has a new woman he is pursuing so maybe father is the one looking for me. My chest constricts and I push the unpleasant thoughts away.
‘You are worried that I can’t handle it?’
‘You won’t handle it.’ He declares confidently
I raise my chin, to show confidence but why is he looking at me with half weary eyes as if I am a petulant child?
‘Students enjoy tutoring from fellow students.’
‘They are paying for professionalism not group work.’
‘Well knowledge is the same whether it comes from expertise or studying.’ I say—the philosopher in me appearing.
H sighs, ‘I didn’t receive many applicants—most prefer to work after the holidays—so since I have no one else to fill the gap and lessons are starting tomorrow, I can give you a shot.’
I don’t care what he calls me or his perception, all I need is a stable income so that I don’t starve to death while I’m in the middle of figuring out what to do with my life.
I feel like I am playing house. Like the sun is going to set, end my day and I’ll have to return home. Another week passes and another. I have adapted much better. I think. My life has a regular schedule, work, home force-feed myself, toss and turn all night and then back to work again. I dread weekends when I have nothing to do and nowhere to go, but I usually take walks and have brief chats with a few elderly women in the neighborhood who recognize me and ignore my leave me alone vibe.
I have normal everyday problems I guess normal people experience. I’m running out of money, I still can’t eat or sleep properly. I have a noisy neighbor who just came last night to spend the last days of his holiday here.
‘I’m not trying to be disrespectful.’ I say to Brian, he’s a soldier or he claims to be. Maybe he got fired—do people get fired in the army? Either way, the reason why he’s not living in the BDF camp like the rest of the soldiers (not that I know much about that) cannot be decent, ‘I just asked you to turn down your volume a little bit.’
He sighs, his eyes irritated. The man is big. Over six feet tall and bulky. A hulk. He’s always in a t-shirt and camouflage pants whenever I see him which is too often these days.
‘It’s the holidays, I am celebrating.’ He says his words slurring a little bit, great its just ten am on Saturday morning and the guy is already drunk, ‘so if you are not going to join me let me be.’
‘Mr-.’
He shuts the door in my face. I decide against knocking again. I’m not sure if he owns a gun. So I endure the noise all weekend and it’s not like I already didn’t have insomnia. Lucky for me he leaves Monday morning with a camouflage bag to whatever hole he had crawled out of. I do a happy dance by the window as I watch him stuff his keys into his army pants and marches for the gate.
‘Good riddance!’ I clap out loud and wild mind ticks off problem number one as solved
Now problem number two besides the fact that I am close to starving and all my clothes are becoming bigger and lack of sleep is slowly turning me into a zombie, Mr Diphina is trying to prove a point. Or rather he is just mad because in a world where the rate of unemployment triggers utter desperation, no one—but me—took up his ad.
Big deal, few want to work in the village, during the holidays for half a salary.
He spends the whole day making me fetch coffee, taking calls and makes sure I attend all classes. I am the receptionist, the tutor and his personal assistant and woe betide to me if I don’t do one little thing right. He says he is training me. But I know a tyrant when I meet one because I was birthed by one. Tyrantism runs in my blood.
‘Why didn’t you turn in your assignment?’ I ask one of the students. What’s her name again? Neo. She acts like she was forced to attend the holiday lessons at gun point—personally I hope that is the case—comes to the lessons late, doesn’t take notes and is as dump as a chicken.
‘I didn’t do it.’ She answers simply, her eyes daring me to challenge her. Challenge is an old friend of mine and we are reuniting.
‘Very well then.’ I turn back to marking the pother students’ work
‘you know these holiday lessons don’t really count anyway—what matters is the final result and graduating after being taught by real professors with real degrees.’
‘True.’ I say not looking at her.
‘Not wanna be girls.’ She adds
‘I can relate.’
She huffs, ‘I won’t come to lessons anymore—but you have to mark me present.’
‘Why?’ I ask
‘Because it’s beneficial for both of us. You won’t be paid if you don’t obtain a reasonable pass mark and you need all of us to perform well in order to achieve that,’
I look at her. Is she trying to blackmail me?
‘What about your parents?’
She rolls her eyes, ‘what do they know? All they care about is good grades and graduating—they are no longer familiar with the real world.’
I sigh, close my eyes. I want to count to ten, normal therapy but having a spoiled girl try to blackmail me when I am already in a bad mood for personal reasons is infuriating. Well not her— but it just brings back a lot of bad memories.
When I open my eyes and look at her she cringes.
‘You behave as if the life is not yours. As if the whole world will fall at your feet when you fall—get real, nobody cares. Look around you, everyone is busy trying to live their lives and solve their own problems. You don’t have the whole world wrapped around your little finger missy!’ I scoff, ‘even being pretty is nothing, looks can’t get you far. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life advertising soap and they won’t even accept you in a beauty pageant, they want beauty plus brains and you have no brains at all. And don’t delude yourself as if your parents will outlive you. Which I hope they do unless you want to start using your dormant brain.’
Neo looks speechless when I am done with my speech and I turn back to my papers before she storms out from the classroom.
You insulted a student,’ Diphina glares at me the following day, ‘insulted her parents and made her leave. That is so unprofessional Miss Heather. You should know how to deal with customers well.’
‘I’m--.’
‘I have lost two thousand pula now that she is gone. If you’re going to chase away my clients at least do so after they have paid everything.’
I didn’t chase her away—I didn’t even say that much—okay maybe I did. I don’t even remember half of the things I said that day anyway. My lack of sleep and being unable to eat is starting to get to me. If I had money I may visit a doctor. And running around this god forsaken place all day isn’t helping either.
But it doesn’t matter anymore because I have already packed my stuff, took my purse and I am heading back to my room. Diphina did not pay me because he has costs to cover which I created. So I have no rent money when that intimidating woman comes to knock on my door. I can’t buy electricity, but at least the water is available. I have no idea which disease I have contracted but I hope it’s not going to cost me money to treat.
I am so tired, maybe I may just sleep tonight. At least I have something to look forward to. But all my hope fades when I enter the gate and a big van is packed in between the apartments. All its doors are wide open and music is booming from inside. I recognize Brian dancing near the open door and in front of his room is a braai stand where another man in army pants and a t-shirt is turning meat. The smell of roasted beef comes to my nose and I have the urge to vomit and I start to walk fast past them with my lips tightly mashed together.
A woman emerges from the other side of the van wearing what could be a stretchy blouse. She is holding a glass and dancing to the music as well. She gives me a cheery greeting as if I am her long lost friend and I just nod in return.
I reach my door and I position my box and purse under one arm while I put my key in the lock. I jump when Brian’s large frame towers over me.
‘It’s nice to see you again neighbor.’ He winks at me and I just stare at him with my lips pressed together because the moment I open them I may throw up on his shirt, ‘why don’t you join us for the party.’
I shake my head
‘Why, you were pretty talkative the last I saw you.’ he smiles, ‘do I make you speechless?’
I inhale deeply, the smell of roasted beef rushes to my lungs and I feel bile rise to my throat and a muffled gagging sound escape my closed lips. I turn away from Brian and push my door open. Without glancing at him I shut the door and manage to lock it before I rush into the small bathroom and the content from my stomach all come down into the toilet. I am grateful that the rooms have their own bathrooms each, but now I can’t afford it.
I could sell some of my stuff, like the small bed I bought in a yard sale. Other than that I have nothing else to sale.
Who cares, I have a pounding headache and nausea. I rinse my mouth and face before I walk to the bed and throw myself on the hard mattress. I close my eyes and I fall asleep.