Author: Chana

About the author: I am a creative. That is, I am an actor, voice actor, musician, chef, writer and motivational speaker amongst other things. Born and bred in Mutare, now based in Harare.

Story title: The Untutoring of a Non-Survivor

About the story: The story is on a young man who has never had to fight for anything, ever and is suddenly faced with the choice to learn how to fight for his life or die. I was inspired to write this piece after noticing how many of the Zimbabwean youth has lost the will to live, to thrive and are losing themselves in a battle with drug abuse.

It is said the only thing we are born able to do without prior instruction or trial and error is breath and cry. Everything else outside of our personality we either teach ourselves, or learn; even fear itself is self taught. After 33 years of slowly “living” myself into a highly dysfunctional adult with close to zero chances of making it in this life or the next, waking up one day with only two choices, “Die or Learn to Survive” had never been on my ‘to-do’ list.

“…ing words for this chapter will be…Before commencing cruise ship employment, one receives lessons on forgetting how to swim. A move designed to increase your chances of survival at sea. Apply this concept to your life and consciously choose to un-learn all the negative existences that have latched on to you under the guise of being useful life skills. Your mind is a powerf…”. I paused the audio book playing on my phone and got ready to drop off. Somewhere deep down inside, I had days I honestly wished the driver would lose his mind and just forget to stop till we were somewhere, lost for good. Some unknown place where the building I endured daily emotional torture in exchange for a monthly salary didn’t exist. I swear working for my bosses felt like working with dementors. The routine had started to feel as if we were only allowed to knock off work solely for the purpose of rebooting ourselves and bringing back more happiness for them to suck out the next morning.

The bus groaned into gear and eventually, begrudgingly rolled away. I gave one last look at it and saw a very depressing familiar story. A vehicle that had since reached its retirement age in a transport eco-system that did not have space to accommodate the newer busses and ‘kombi’s’. So old and tired granddaddy ‘Zupco’ bus had to keep on working making sure his now very grown up bus children had fuel to eat and tires to wear whilst they waited for miracle jobs. I let out defeated laugh and started my small remaining walk from the bus stop home.

It had just gone past 7pm and was now quite dark, the road unusually unoccupied. Sure it was not as busy as ‘Samora’ but today the lack in activity was worth noticing. Having grown up in the neighbourhood, I knew the Christ-Church drive road better than I knew my own cell phones unlock pattern, and this particular evening something very unfamiliar hung around. Despite my efforts to pay no mind to my 6th sense and continue walking as if all was well, my paranoia had already started asking me questions like, “You know you can’t fight for shit right?”. As an avid social app user, I chuckled to myself thinking that whomever decided to engage an assault on me right now, had thousands of followers to go through before they could get to me. At this point, I was certain my keyboard knew more self defence than I did.

As I hit the last quarter of ‘Christ-Church’, my confidence spiked a little and even my rhythm slowed down from a rigid ‘Borrowdale’ to a more comfortable ‘Dab’. I was never much of a dancer myself and affiliated strongly with those who were enjoying the hip hop era of freedom of expression and no wrong dance moves. A smile of appreciation slid across my face, acknowledging how my mind had been such good company throughout the distance. And with that, I had reached the end of the long stretching road and made the final left into the close, my driveway coming into full view. A wave of calm flushed through my entire body as the distance between home and I continued to lessen. The excitement of finally making it into my ‘no clothes’ space had me blind to the vehicle that was peculiarly reverse parked in my driveway; only noticing it’s existence just as my left hand made for the gate lock, the right fumbling for the keys in my back pocket. The courtesy light lit up exposing 2 medium build silhouettes engaged in a very energetic conversation. The driver and whoever was riding shotgun kept resorting to massively animated hand gestures that were so loud, if you were nosey enough you could definitely hear whatever it is they were talking about. Annoyed at having my homecoming delayed, I tucked away my bag of sour retorts and walked towards the vehicle. My body begrudgingly made its way to the passengers side, gently tapping the window with my nails. The window slowly came down and the disagreeing voices became audible. Our mystery passenger had their head turned away from me as they continued stressing whatever point seemed so important it was worth ignoring me.

I emphatically cleared my throat signalling my presence. It was one thing to be confidently parked right in a strangers driveway, and an entirely completely different offence disregarding my existence with such class. It is not an overstatement when I tell you that nothing can prepare you for the unexpected. It sounds obvious but it is true. A face painted entirely in white chalk like a broke mime turned to face me. I exclaimed out a sharp scream that left both the people in the vehicle and myself a bit confused. Before I could wrap my head around the awkward 13 year old playground shriek I had just let rip, or answer the call of every sense in my body telling me to run for my life, a large, capable figure imposed itself on me from behind. An even larger arm, much emphasized by my own lack in physical strength, swung round my neck and locked itself in place. I tried to wriggle free despite an undeniable feeling in my gut that this mountain of a man had had enough practice doing this to not be bothered by my weak attempts at freedom. His left arm soon followed suit and quickly clamped my mouth shut with a damp cloth cupped in his hand. A sudden realization of pending and inevitable peril awoke an energy in me I swear could make even ‘Clark Kent’ kryptonite green with envy. I took a deep breath, my lungs taking in a generous share of whatever had moistened the cloth. With one last desperate push, my cowardly kicking and flag bearer style arm waving finally paid off. One of my suffocating rhythmed fingers managed to land in the assailants eye, creating a slight moment of weakness in his grip. More determined and high off the hope of survival, I weaselled my way out of his vice, stepped on the door of the car and catapulted my back into to the core of the assailant. We both tumbled down and I was first to stumble to my feet, my spirit displaying a rather not too shabby side I never knew existed in me. My legs tried to sprint off and live to knock off another day, but my mind could not seem to find them. Instead, all that came out was 5 step baby antelope wobble, as if all the alcohol I had downed in my college years had decided to hit me all at once. Everything before my eyes turned into a heavy blur as my head started spinning, trying to catch up with the earth. My mind started drifting off, slowly letting go of my consciousness. It began feeling more and more easier to close my eyes than keep them open. I begged my body with every last bit of my remaining consciousness to not fail me now…..”MOVE DAMMIT!”, I bellowed to myself as a single tear of non acceptance ran down my cheek. I had spent so much of my life living “peacefully”, teaching myself to patiently wait for death, feeling I had “nothing” to live for. Yet here lay ‘Kudzai’, giving himself a crash lesson in staying alive…and failing.