Hobo

This is the name I have come to live by.

I live where you can always see me, struggling on a daily basis to get through the next. I ask for spare change so that I can get myself Nyaope to numb me from thoughts of starvation and fear of death from the winter’s cold. I see you every day staring at me wondering why I put myself through this and not just go home. I once had a home. I once had a family just as you do. I use to be so smart I have come to believe that it is the books that drove me insane and led me to the streets. I had a nice job with a good pay despite government’s insistence on tax. My children were at the best schools treated them in a way a father should, awe it was always so beautiful. I do not know my age I stopped counting when I realized no one would ever buy me a cake.

You probably want to know my story just like everybody else. You have already ruled out the possibility of me running away from home, those are usually the little ones right? Running away from home because of abuse or some are hysterical they just run because they were shouted at, I always find that one funny. Though you must have set your cards on it being an issue of alcohol, gambling or drugs? But truth is I only tasted drugs when I got here on the streets. I spend most of my days counting the number of red cars passing by. I got to one thousand and something because it began to seem as though I was counting the very same cars, and in my mind it felt like the same day playing over and over, and that scared me. It is not because of alcohol. Don’t get me wrong I use to drink a lot, lost my first job because of alcohol. I got to work completely out of it one day and it just happened that my stench got me fired. Apparently, I use to do this every Friday, and it was because of what blacks call “Phuza Thursday’ best times. It is not because of gambling. Even though once in a while I would bet on that Orlando Pirates vs. Kaizer Chiefs game it was always lovely to hang with the boys. I bet now you really want to know why.

I see you every day. Walking by dazed by the stresses of the world, wondering why you. If only you could look at my life you would feel blessed it is you. I see your friends walk by also they laugh and smile and sometimes throw a burnt up fifty cent my way and convince themselves that God is watching and for that fifty cent they will be blessed one hundred folds. And you, the one who turns the other way while in your fancy Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Coupe we both know you going to spend your whole life trying to pay for that car, you just want to seem like you are doing great to your friends, idiot! Don’t think I have forgotten you lady who works for Fish and Chips always throwing the leftovers of the day at my face like I am a common dog. You are the worst.

All you people walk around thinking we chose this life. You call us dirt and treat us like savages because you have a bed to sleep on? Or food to eat at the end of the day?  A bath every now and then? I was once just like you. Under all this dirt and my tangled hair that now seems like dreadlocks, I am human. I left for work one day and when I came back I had nothing to come back to. My home was burnt to the ground, my beautiful wife dead along with my two young little girls. The insurance company wouldn’t pay me anything because I missed payments on some months. Distant family members really defined the term ‘distant’. I became so depressed. I wondered to myself how when my life has stopped everybody else carries on like nothing happened. My boss gave me leave, but even after the leave I did not feel like going to work, I lost my family, my life. But in business things need to go on. I lost my job. I had nowhere to go. And now I am here.

You do not know my story, so go on acting like you are better than me; life has its own way of amazing you. (Laughs)

I know one day I will die and people will still pass by, and then I will be buried without a name. But I am still alive today and all I ask is not to be called Hobo, because my name is Thomas.