Nobantu Shabangu

I’ve been chewing anti-anxiety pills like their mints the whole day. The day did not start off well. Firstly I was cold when I woke up and contemplated ending my life before going to work. Logic won and I put on my clothes and was out the door at quarter to six. I was late for work, it was dark, I was cold and so decided to wait for the bus which was silly on my part because I work for the Bus Rapid System and so should have known that buses come whenever they like on a Sunday. I waited for over an hour but finally got to work. I realised once I got to work that I should have walked, it would have taken me about twenty minutes; I waited for the bus for an hour and it took five minutes to get to work; ridiculous. Anyway my manager was a bit peeved, I made a feign apology but really I could care less- all I’m thinking about is pay day and eating a bucket of KFC. At work I was cold and hungry, I was so hungry I could smell bacon in the air, and when I ate my pear it tasted like turkey, my mind is playing tricks on me or my body craves meat. Did I mention I was cold and shivering like a chuawahwah. That reminds me I need new hoodies.
My job is not the best job in that it is not the most mentally stimulating there is out there for me. I basically man the bus stations, making sure the buses arrive on time, help customers know which bus to ride, filling in paperwork about buses being late or having accidents and some other stuff that I have forgotten about. What I like about it is that I get to see beautiful people as well as ugly people, but they don’t count, also there is a maximum of five people I work with everyday and anyone who knows me well will know that I’m easily irritated by humans most of the time and so having only five people to deal with in eight hours of my daily life is a God-sent gift. Also I get to roam the station on my own and be alone with my thoughts. Not today though, the five people I work with were particularly in a chatty mood, not I, I wanted to stand in silence but I was not allowed this and so I started popping my anti-anxiety pills because my nerves were on edge.
After what seemed like an eternity the sun was up high enough to warm me up, I stood with my hands outstretched like a pagan worshipping the glory of its rays. The light illuminated the colourful leaves of a tree across the street, dew slid of it but I could not follow where the drops fell, the trees seemed to be happy about the heat as much as myself. This tree had gold leaves and red leaves and suddenly a flashback to when I was a child played before me; I was at a market with my mother and the light cast onto toffee apples caught my eye, they were red candy apples and caramel ones, the red ones caught my eyes and I turned to look at my mom with the greed of a child and pleaded that she get me one. She did. That’s all I remember, the happiness and simplicity of being a child- the unbound feeling of being loved. 

Next to the colourful tree was an evergreen tree and I thought how sad it must be to that tree, to not know what it is like to change when the seasons change; how can that tree delight in spring when it never went through winter?
The hours at work flew by and in no time I was back on bus and then off it walking back to my apartment. I was hungry, I had five rand in my pocket and bought some poverty snacks, those are snacks that are knock offs of good quality snacks- ama kip kip and chicken flavoured nik naks. I knew by the time I finished eating these snacks I would hate myself for eating all those trans fats.
I live on the seventh floor but don’t like using the lift and so I began my ascend to my room and as I was doing this one of the friendly gentlemen Xoli and I met two days ago greeted me, I greeted back and for some reason asked if he had tea. I hate tea- I like coffee and have coffee and so don’t know where this question came from. He nodded and told me to come downstairs to his room- I consented but first I had to get my cup from my room.
I’m not a person who is good with one on one interaction, I don’t like small talk or conversations that lead nowhere in that I do not know more about the person or the ethos the person carries with them. Empty conversations drain me. Anyway for some reason I thought of taking a book with but settled on a worse choice: nail clippers; I had been meaning to cut my nails and so I did not want to forget. I got to his room and he had tea for me, we then started conversing. I was propelling the conversation, throwing questions at him like Oprah does to her guests and I got to know a lot about him. He even allowed me to use his laptop and go on Facebook on it. Yeah man this is the start of something new, don’t know what kind of new but I am liking it. He showed me pictures of his dogs, I told him I like cats and then he called me weird. I told him I was cold last night and he said he knows that kind of cold, the cold that only another human being can deter. He then asked me what kind of human I wanted to lie next to me and I told him the kind that loves me. I left him and went back to room where I chewed more anti-anxiety pills. I took a long shower, read a few pages of The Girl who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest and then napped. I was woken up by knocks on the door, I opened it slowly, he was there with a clean cup asking for coffee, I gave him some, then we laughed about something and then I closed the door.
My sleep is gone and worse I don’t have airtime or data with which to go onto OkCupid and rate women from all over the world.