I’ve thought about suicide but the truth is I’m too vain and stubborn to do it. It would be like accepting defeat, admitting the ugly truth about myself, exposing my cases to whatever’s out there.

A week of thinking about falling over – intentionally. A week of mental/my reality civil war. i am trying to harness this negative energy around me & turn it into something positive&here are all the negative thoughts directed & controlled as i would like to have over my energies & if it doesn’t make any sense, well: BLAME ME.

Promised Pair of Shoes.

85, I was just about seven years old and life was one big exploration – one big child’s play and the play ground was about a thousand hectares of land. We could do anything as long as we did it out of adult supervision and old people will always bother us with never ending cores so every Saturday morning or holiday morning after our meal – cooked grass – they say it is morogo.

Serole hates all sorts of vegetables accept for onions and tomatoes. The only experience of the healthy vegetation is when he was on his way back from school – hungry – he gets through his home gates, he attacked by the smell of monawa.

Monawa is the leaves of the bean that are picked up during the summer, cooked and dried without any preservatives and dawn it is preserved. It doesn’t expire period.

Serole ate monawa from primary through to high school, pretty much the whole of his life not only him but we all ate monawa because my grandmother will pick up dozens of eighty kilogram bags of those leaves to cook and hundreds of corrugated roof tile to preserve the morogo. To this day Serole doesn’t eat any type of vegetable and in his family the smell of spinach is lot tolerated, basically because he says that it reminds him that he grew up poor. I try to tell him that it was not that we were poor but we were eating from the land but he refuse to see it as that. He insists that it is poverty.

“I started to have a toothbrush when I was in high school and that one tooth paste lasted the whole five years of high school, and how long is the life time of a tooth?” He defended his views.

True. He survived his adolescent stage with one toothbrush that the bristles had turned pure white and have curved like the eye lashes of Khanyi Mbau.

You should find Serole when he is happy with his children. He will look at them and shake his head. “You are having it good.” He will tell them when they don’t finish their food, especially when they are just being a nuisance. When his mother came home during the holidays she always brought with her three to four twelve and half bags full of dried bread that were leftovers from the white family that his mother worked for and the leftover clothes from that the white family that always found a home in Serole’s family. His father had worn those clothes that were first worn by the father of the white family and his mother will just adjust the waist and into the trouser went Serole’s father. All the clothes that Serole has worn in his teenage life were second hand clothes from the children of that particular white family that his mother was mothering but it was luxury then mostly because he had never thought about it.

And basically, we all did wear those clothes because after her children have picked up the once that are looking good. Serole’s mother will sent him to call my grandmother to come have a pick out the best for me as well as did all of the neighbours around.

Tebogo wore them too; she now calls them “white people’s trash, luxury to black people.”

But you wore them too, I reminded her. “Yeah! I did not know, if only knew I could not have.” Tebogo, she is one angry educated black woman. Like all most all black people of this no longer so new South Africa Tebogo had hustled her way to where she is now, indifference to the other [few] black people, she is angry about having to have a hard time to get where she is now and she is not forgiving anybody for it, either is she making excuses.

When his father died, she came back on the Saturday morning that he was going to be buried and after he was safely buried. Tebogo started her car – a German machine and drove back to her home in Midrand and when the family enquired how she could do that to her own father. She responded, “he owes me too much love, he had never gave me any love.” She cried. “This man that I call my father, has never been my father emotionally, not financially, he was a poor man and all I needed was him to be my father but he was never available.”

And people were shocked and she shocked them even, “I don’t owe him anything and how you expect me to love him when he is dead. He did not love me when he was alive.”

Then she reminded them that the cow that they were celebrating her father’s death, she bought it and the expensive casket that they have buried him in she bought it.

Tebogo is that kind of woman, I say that she is an angry woman but that is the way she is. She is still waiting for a pair of shoes that her uncle had promised her over and over again since 1985.

Christmas 1984: Tebogo came to the play ground she was happy. Extremely happy about a pair of promised shoes that his uncle had promised to buy for all of them the next Christmas. He called them all and list their names on a page with their shoe sizes.

And so the prospect of his uncle buying them all a new pair of shoes was an exiting thought. And when makarapa – people who left home for lengthy period of time, usually coming back during the December holidays – returned home (home here referrers to the former homelands) Tebogo was waiting for them (makarapa and the promised shoes) impatiently.

Her uncle came back on Christmas eve and by then tears were filling Tebogo’s eyes and the cheer in her voice was gone too. Her uncle came back – he was looking like a true lekarapa – wearing two tone flosheim shoes – black and white with a pure white sewing – with a black Brentwood trouser, a white long sleeve shirt that were definitely from the cleaners. The Brentwood was cut three quarter so that the ice white sox were in view and a leather jacket that he was holding with his left hand that hanged off his behind. He walked on the dry-dusty-brown soil like he was walking on something beyond description and fascinating as was Gauteng, You instantly fell in love and love this place that he was from. It was as if he did not just come out the back of a Datsun bakkie. He looked like he was just out of a Cressida and he walked like the earth was at his command.

We ran to him fighting to carry his small bag, Tebogo was happy to see him – he was the only member of Tebogo’s family who worked in the city of gold. And we know that he was going to take us to the city of gold and we will live the city life too. The city that we all hoped to see and live, we could speak Zulu words and make friends with Batswana and maybe we can marry Xhosa women – because we were told that there are no people more beautiful than Xhosa women.

After the ritual of formally greeting older people and talking to them in parables, he went around checking this and that, we flocking around him again, he was drinking a bottle of a cold one.

“Do you all go to school?” He started and we shook our heads yes. “Did you all pass?” We had all passed that year.

“Good, because life is shit without education, good education.” He took a long gulp. “Without good education, you have no life, you are living but you are living second hand therefore you don’t have life.” He took another long gulp.

“Don’t let anything distract you from going to school. I am not educated but take advise from an illiterate because this illiterate who got out of primary school through the window. Because this illiterate will go back to school if he still had a chance. Go to school please.”

And that was it the end of the tales of the city, he has never told us anything about the city or about anything and he took another long gulp and this time he never put the bottle down.

He did not come back with the promised shoes because the list got lost and he did not want to guess the sizes and then they wrote another list and wrote another list every year until 92 and every time they rewrote their shoe sizes they believed him but the promised pairs shoes never came.

Fast-forward to 09: Tebogo is thirty plus years old, her uncle is a cattle herder to a dozen cattle barns (including his own herd, an inheritance) but Tebogo is still waiting for the shoes that he had promised her every Christmas holidays since 85 and she has reminded him about the shoes, even thought Tebogo has more money than her uncle could dream about. If her uncle could just buy some cheap shoes it would fill a void but he would not because he doesn’t see the importance of it but it has affected the little Tebogo so much so.

“Seven years.” She cried, “seven years, and we did not ask him, nobody was forcing him to promise us anything.”

“Tebogo. Stop, forgive and live your own life.”

“My life is entangled with his life, as my life affects you, what I say, what I do affects you, it affects my mother and somehow it affects every one and ultimately affects the nation. Seven years of my life, I have been eagerly and hopefully waiting for that promised pair of shoes.” She paused and looked at me as if anything I say would not make a difference in her life and I thought better not to say a word.

“It is my life, people don’t need to lie to me just because they can, because I am poor, because I am mentally poor. I still need those shoes.”

The pair of shoes.

85, I was just about seven years old and life was one big exploration – one big child’s play and the play ground was about a thousand hectares of land. We could do anything as long as we did it out of adult supervision and old people will always bother us with never ending cores so every Saturday morning or holiday morning after our meal – cooked grass – they say it is morogo.

Serole hates all sorts of vegetables accept for onions and tomatoes. The only experience of the healthy vegetation is when he was on his way back from school – hungry – he gets through his home gates, he attacked by the smell of monawa. Monawa is the leaves of the bean that are picked up during the summer, cooked and dried without any preservatives and dawn it is preserved. It doesn’t expire period.

Serole ate monawa from primary through to high school, not only him but we all ate monawa because my grandmother will pick up dozens of eighty kilogram bags of those leaves to cook and hundreds of corrugated roof tile to preserve the morogo. To this day Serole doesn’t eat any type of vegetable and in his family the smell of spinach is lot tolerated, basically because he says that it reminds him that he grew up poor. I try to tell him that it was not that we were poor but we were eating from the land but he refuse to see it as that. He insists that it is poverty.

“I started to have a toothbrush when I was in high school and one tooth paste had to last the whole year, and how long is the life time of a tooth?” True, he survived his adolescent stage with one toothbrush that the bristles had turned white and have curved like the eye lashes of some models on adverts.

You should find Serole when he is happy with his children. He will look at them and shake his head. “You are having it good.” He will tell them when they don’t finish their food, especially when they are just being a nuisance. When his mother came home during the holidays she always brought with her three to four twelve and half bags full of dried bread that were leftovers from the white family that his mother worked for and the leftover clothes from that family that always found a home in Serole’s family. His father has worn those clothes that were first worn by the father of the white family and his mother will just adjust the waist and into the trouser went Serole’s father. All the clothes that Serole has worn in his teenage life were second hand clothes from the white family but it was luxury then.

We all did were those clothes because after her children have picked up the once that are looking good. Serole’s mother will sent him to call my grandmother to come have a pick out the best for me as well as did all of the neighbours around.

Tebogo wore them too; she now calls them “white people’s trash.” But you wore them too. “Yeah! I did not know, if only knew I could not have.” Tebogo, she is one angry black woman. Like most black people she had hustled her way to where she is now, indifference to the other black people, she is angry about having to have a hard time to get where she is now and she is not forgiving anybody for it either is she making excuses.

When his father died, she came back on the Saturday morning that he was going to be buried and after he was safely buried. Tebogo started her car – a German machine and drove back to her home in Midrand and when the family enquired how she could do that to her own father. She responded, “he owes me love.” And people were shocked and she shocked them even, “I don’t owe him anything and how you expect me to love him when he is dead. He did not love me when he was alive.”

Tebogo is that kind of woman, I say that she is an angry woman but that is the way she is. She is still waiting for a pair of shoes that her uncle had promised her over and over again since 1985. Christmas 1984: Tebogo came to the play ground she was happy. Happy about a pair of shoes that his uncle had promised to buy for them. He called them all and list their names on a page with their shoe sizes. And so the prospect of his uncle buying them all a new pair of shoes was an exiting thought.

And when makarapa – people who left home for lengthy period of time, usually coming back during the December holidays – Tebogo was waiting for them impatiently, her uncle came back on Christmas eve and by then tears were filling Tebogo’s eyes and the cheer her voice was gone too. Her uncle came back – he was looking like a true lekarapa – wearing two tone floshem shoes – black and white – with a black Brentwood trouser, a white long sleeve shirt that were definitely from the cleaners. The Brentwood was cut three quarter so that the ice white sox are in view and a leather jacket that he was holding with his left hand that hanged ob his behind.

You instantly fell in love. It was as if he did not just come out of a bakkie. He looked like he was just out of a Cressida and he walked like he earth was at his command.

We ran to him fighting to carry his small bag, Tebogo was happy to see him – he was the only member of Tebogo’s family who worked in the city of gold. And we know that he was going to take us to the city of gold and we will live the city life too. The city that we all hoped to see and live, we can speak Zulu and make friends with Batswana and maybe we can marry Xhosa women – because we were told that there are no people beautiful than Xhosa women.

After the ritual of formally greeting older people and talking to them in parables, he went around checking this and that, we flocking around him again, he was drinking a bottle of a cold one. “Do you all go to school?” He started and we shook our heads yes. “Did you all pass?” and we had all passed that year. “Good, because life is shit without education, good education.” He took a long gulp. “Without good education, you have no life, you are living but you are living second hand therefore you don’t have life.” He took another long gulp. “Don’t let anything distract you from going to school. I am not educated but take advise from an illiterate because this illiterate who got out of primary school through the window, because this illiterate will go back to school if he still had a chance. Go to school please.” And that was it the end of the tales of the city, he has never told us anything about the city or about anything and he took another long gulp from and this time he never put the bottle down.

And he did not come back with the promised shoes because the list got lost and he did not want to guess the sizes and they wrote another list and wrote another list every year until 92 but the shoes never came.

Fast-forward to 09: Tebogo is thirty plus years old, her uncle is a cattle herder but Tebogo is still waiting for the shoes that her uncle had promised her since 85 and she has reminded him about the shoes, even thought Tebogo has more money than her uncle could dream about. If her uncle could just buy some cheap shoes it would fill a void.

Something is going to happen to take this happiness away – the phone will ring/I will wake up – then I will recoil back to the unhappiness of my world.

I wish that the Hobo was here. We were to talk until the sun rises because he would have been happier than I am. He would have smiled that sinister smile of his & said: I told you&it is a good thing that you finally smelling the truth.

There are two things that the Hobo did not want; 1) to love a woman & 2) work a proper job but the Hobo loved to poke the female species&like any other body needed money.

Before the editor&publisher came to delete the Hobo out of a man’s life; there was a war that he was fighting with a woman. A woman who the Hobo hated from the first sight that the writer loved by first impression, so much so that Mr Moele felt that he could not live without this female but the Hobo & Mr Moele weaved their way – the Hobo into her underwears & Moele into her heart – the Hobo thought that they will leave like they always left. He was wrong. He had to learn to love the woman&most of all respect her.

The Hobo would be happy today. He would be singing: I told you&I told you so…

There is a friend of the Hobo[4the sake of privacy] X. X so talented & creative with words that comparing him to Moele, Moele is just a tip of X’ talentberg. Moele fell in love with weaved words be a poem/short story or any other thing X was capable of. X defeated the Hobo & he did not like him but only pretended.

X married Y not for the love of the woman but only because Y was X’s salvation out of say poverty. That was not to be because Y needed not only a man & so X got a Job, the second blow to that Talentberg. & so the ‘pen-point’ was retired. ZA will never know who is X; another sad story.

Today X is a daddy of two.

The Hobo would be in high spirit today. He would be singing: I told you& I told you that without that woman we could write a book every three weeks. I believe him. I have made peace with woman & the riddle of life &l iving. Though the Hobo is not here today, his words are echoing in my ears: we should publish a book or two every year.&that is what I aim to do publish a book or two every year.

The Hobo said that if we die genetically – we will 4ever exist i libraries&rarely one will take us off the shelf&live our life&it will be an answer to the riddle of life.

I miss the Hobo.

There is a diary of suicide that a friend of the Hobo wanted us to look at. Thabang wanted to unravel the mystery of his life as well as the purpose of his life before he walked himself into the hangman’s hook. The author has not yet read the diary – he tried but it is as mysterious as his life&his life’s purpose.

Why is he still living? Because some Indian song saved him though he didn’t understand a word of the song till he walked in a music store.

Kopano ‘Soul Ink’ Dibakwane: honestly the Hobo was amazed&moved when people were praising Mr Moele because he[the Hobo] thought what if they read/heard anything of the abilities of Kopano Dibakwane, they would reel@his feet.

John Kennedy Toole winner of the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for fiction committed suicide because …

Wasn’t it because the manuscript was to die for? We will never know but there is a last verse of a poem by Soul Ink:

you can hate me but please respect the poetry that i spit

i will push a blade through my wrist

i will push a bullet through my brains

you will understand my thoughts when i eventually disappear in a grave

Whoever can say that they have never even in worse storms of life thought about suicide; they are lying. Mr Moele thought about suicide too but thankfully the Hobo was there to put things in perspective.

The thought: Do you have anything worth dying for? If you don’t have, blame those that have because this is to die for. Sad, that most of us don’t have a mother like Thelma Toole.

The Hobo has divorced Mr Moele for good, he has taken all that he had&left without even saying good bye&that was for the first time since he took up residence in Mr Moele somewhere in the winter of 91 left him for good. He has been the smile&the laughter on Mr Moele’s face. He has absorbed all his pain, padded his shoulder&made him laugh in the face of his odds.

“It will be alright.” The Hobo always promised Mr Moele; even when Tebogo told Kgebetli that; “poetry will never feed a baby.” Then six month later she was pregnant, they looked at her – the Hobo&the author – Kgebetli was hurting beyond words but they smiled&gave her a hug playing with her growing tummy.

Late that night Kgebetli wrote a poem:

Poetry

poetry

will

never

feed

a

baby

The Hobo played the comforting part: “It will be alright,”&it was alright. They could write anything the want in a way that they wanted it, there was no amount of self censorship any where in their writing until YOU&the other people who have a stake came.

06: The Hobo&Kgebetli were pointing&shooting at each with mind-revolvers. It was just: the Hobo thought that he will see the light&he thought that the Hobo will cease.

There is this manuscript that guaranteed that the Hobo will cease: there was a total agreement in the structure&focus of the manuscript between the Hobo&Kgebetli. The manuscript had lived in their head basket for more than three years – it was not forgotten but it was being constantly discussed&rewritten then when they sat down in front of the computer, it took them a month to put it in digital form, 54 940 words.

They went to the printers, printed&binding it. Back home, they looked at the 88 pages. They did things to the author that he can only explain but whatever it was, we only know that he came&wet himself. This wet dream takes month but it did came to an end as the Hobo liked to say: “the loved baby grew to become a nuisance.”

Entered the Stake Holders; they loved the manuscript&it did things to them too but had a dozen issues with it.

No problem, the Hobo&the author reworked&they still loved it but the Stake Holders’ issues with the manuscript remained&so begun what was to become the final straw to the Hobo&the author relationship. Both drew mind-guns: the Hobo said, “fuck ‘em, if they know better, why can’t they write their own.” He was not prepared to redraft the manuscript&that was when the mind war begun.

Reluctantly the Hobo in drafting the third draft that he did not like at all because it was an adaptation of what the Stake Holders wanted&still they were not happy with it. So the fourth draft was what the Stake Holders because they were happy with it&so the Hobo’s middle finger was sticking out to the author&the Stake Holders as he vanished because he could not bear it at all.&next time when there is no manuscript blame Kgebetli Moele.

But then Mr Moele is under tremendous stress; he wants poetry to feed a baby, pay rent&in the process he has sold not only his soul but he has sold all of himself – mind, soul&body so that poetry can @least feed a baby&please don’t blame him, he is just a male being trying to be a man. Blame the Hobo for leaving him when he needed him the most.

The Hobo wants to write a book for the love of words without consideration of the external elements, i.e. his readers(because he doesn’t have them)&the inherent elements, i.e. the focus&resolution of the story. The Hobo writes because he can write&he loves it, if only to bind a hard copy of what he had written then hobo-ing around with that hard copy because that is what Hobos do.

Excuse Kgebetli Moele because he can’t write, excuse him when you browse through here&find that the last post was posted a decade ago. Please don’t get offended, it is not his intention to offend you&your wisdom.
Forgive the Hobo-with-the-manuscript too because it was never his intention to publish what you know as ROOM 207. It was Matome’s will&please blame Kgebetli&Matome.

Nine-one; Hostel: I was living rules every second – they governed each move I made. They came close to governing the way I should breath. Everything was timed – you wake up at this time, bath time. Be at the dinning hall at this time then have breakfast then you had to be at school then etc. It was an everyday routine. Deadly, boring&predictable. Within this routine I was bullied around (from being thé tormenter.) I needed to escape it all, I tried to persuade my mother get me out of that school but, no, I had to remain.

Then the library became a perfect hideout, I was reading then somehow I took a pen&woke a writer within that was to be called the hobo with a script. I found a medium of self-expression when I started to express&define myself clearly in writing. The pend&paper made me understand who I was&what I wanted in what I was. Most of the writing that I have written have never been read or rewritten. I don’t know why I was writing them but I was writing them. The thought of publishing was always there, prove; I bought a copy of Basil van Rooyen How to Get Published in SA in 98&to this day I still have the book.

As a writer, my life was simple, all I needed was a pen&paper then everything was possible&limitless. There was no need to have an idea, plot&characters either did I need to have a setting. My motive to write was to escape from reality&live in a reality of my own. I was the creator. It did not matter if I wrote a full page or hundred pages – finished the tale or not. The important part was that I was writing fulfilling the function of the writer – writing.

The Author, Kgebetli Moele: I am not an author&the-hobo-with-the-script hates – despises Kgebetli Moele. What Room 207 did was that it submerged the hobo with the manuscript&raised the author Kgebetli Moele. Worse thing is that the-hobo-with-the-script created&powered the author but the same author Kgebetli Moele needs the hobo with the script to uphold him.
The author Kgebetli Moele is not a freeman – he is caged, on his right is his publisher. On the left is the editors, on his back his hopes&wishes (building a reputation)&in his view are his readers – cage that the submerged writer did not have. Now the author’s cage has become the hobo’s cage because he has a responsibility to uphold the author.

1st: The author has responsibility to his readers, something that the-hobo-with-a-script did not have. The hobo could do nothing wrong with his pen but the author, even before his work comes in the public domain, he has already publisher’s censorship (something that I learned when we were editing Room 207.) Censorship that has now evolved to Self-Censorship – as the Hobo is writing, the author is censoring him then the hobo gets mad&angry then he raises his hands.
The original name of Room 207 was Aborted Foetus Growing, Matome himself loved that title as did the Hobo but it was censored. As did most of the things that were in the manuscript, “you would not live a day, Kgebetli, they will trash you.” words of warning that the author’s publisher gave him when the hobo wanted to include the things that they have censored into the novel. When they accused Moele of being misogynist, the author thanked her because they did not see the manuscript wondering what if they did.
Then author unable to say some things (self-censorship) he then let his characters say those things for him&this is one more freedom the-hobo-with-the-script had that Kgebetli Moele doesn’t have. The Hobo could write anything that he wanted to write as raw as he wanted it – a freedom that he had that the Hobo thinks that even Bloggers don’t have.

2nd: The basic structure of a book; the beginning, the middle&the end. Who said that stories should be told within this structure? There is a manuscript of the Hobo in which the tale is told subjectively protagonist, she tells the story sitting at a table&it ends with her still sitting on the same table. The hobo who wrote the tale thinks that there is nothing more to do to the tale – only publish but not the cage that the author is in.
The author needs the Hobo to write another.

3rd: Character development. Some one accused the author that the characters in Room 207 did not develop of mine&what if the Hobo’s characters don’t develop: The Hobo’s favourite character is Tsietsi from one of the writing living a shelf life in the Hobo’s shelf – Tsietsi is stone cold character as the tale begins&when he dies, he dies still stone cold&loving every second of his cold life. He never develops – never has any remorse – but lives his life with his own rules&if there is any development, it is his death. He dies cold, as you would meet him in the first page (not sure if you ever will.)

4th: Focus of the story. Take a character; David Lurie – the disgraced professor of communication. Is his relation with the opposite sex&the un-consented sex with Melanie had effects to what happened to Lucy? No but one would argue that in had affected David that he even apologised to the Isaacs. But I believe that the cure of Disgrace is not about David Lurie but about Lucy, her rape, her relationship with employee cum partner Petrus. &that gorge that I always have after reading books, as space – a wonder. When I wonder about it, I wonder about Petrus, Lucy&her attackers, rarely about Petrus’ wives. Would it be because the story lost focus?

5th: The climax&resolution. Do this two have to be there in a tale? No. The Hobo says because he has written a tale because he has written a manuscript about six different characters with minimum&no interrelation&only their action relates to the tale&I am sure that you are never going to read it too.

The burdens&responsibilities of the author are a hindrance to the Hobo, when he starts to consider them; he closes himself in a cage – popularly known as a writer’s block.

I want to write. The-hobo-with-the-script within this author that is Kgebetli Moele wants to write but he can’t because the author has to consider his readers&his reputation. I want to write in a way I feel that it is right, I am comfortable&I am telling my tales. I want to tell a story in a way that I want to tell it. The rules of writing don’t have to dictate how I write&what I want to write but no one is reading the Hobo, except for his girlfriend&a few friends. The Hobo has no reputation built or to protect but Kgebetli Moele needs the writer&blame Kgebetli Moele if the writer doesn’t write&there is no second novel.

Benjamin doesn’t like to complain. He doesn’t get excited and definitely he doesn’t like the pigs but he is living with them. They are ruling him. At worse Benjamin doesn’t vote because he knows that the constitution has been amended.
He is unhappy living a farm life&working very hard like the chickens, like the horses, like all the animals in this farm patriotically perpetuating this animal farm chaos&turbulence into something worth bragging about.

Benjamin, like the animals in this animal farm never criticize the ruling animals, never grumble about living in poverty. He never whines to the rulers about his safety&security even when he is being constantly being victimized by criminals. He never complains about anything-education, health, high levels of unemployment&etc.

This Benjamin tried for the first time complain but his affords mounted to nothing.

I went to the a public library in Pretoria, recently Tshwane city centre&I was welcomed by security guards and they like usual demanded to see a library membership card that I did not have with me at the time&so I was denied access to the PUBLIC library. This was the third instance that this happened to me. Twice I was denied access to a public library in Soulsville.

I walked away but I could not get far. I thought fuck Benjamin. It is my basic right to use the public library. I wanted to see the chief librarian but there was no use either. Because after that short confrontation with the security guards. Just an embarrassment to this self. I learned one big lesson, I am not a brave man&that I don’t like to be Benjamin –don’t want to be Benjamin. But like Benjamin, I always walk away from any form of confrontation. I think it is because like Benjamin, we strive for peace however uncomfortable that peace might be; it is peace. For that Blame me&Blame Benjamin.

I went to Alkatrant library in Lynwood. They did not have security guards. I got in the library without saying anything to anyone&three hours later I got out without uttering a word. &that is what I do at any public library in the country where I might find myself with sometime at hand to waste.
I have a city of Tshwane public library membership card, which I didn’t apply for to access the public library, I have applied for it because I borrow library books.

Thought: when was the public library turned into an exclusive members only PUBLIC library? The worse is that it is not all public libraries that have security guards making sure that everybody who accesses the public library is an exclusive member. Only the Tshwane central/E’skia Mphahlele public library&the ones that are in poor black neighborhoods i.e. townships.

Then maybe it is true; the definition of public has been changed during the night when we were enjoying our rest&‘some neighborhoods are more equal than others.’

Until one passed away late of 06. The real life person; I have hugged, kissed, seen her naked self. &no, I did not. I didn’t do it, we did not. Definitely, I needed to but I thought that she had experienced what, to me was the worse trauma that an eleven year old can live. Our conversation helped me see&capture her thoughts. At least, I thought to myself cos wrote about her. She was dumbfounded&somehow angered my actions&questions.
I needed to know a little bit of her sexual ventures.
She was not clean at all but it was expected&I tolerated it cos with that kind of beauty that this Lolita possessed could not go unnoticed in the Ghetto. My township&townships anywhere in SA are rough&our township was, indeed GhettoRuff to this Lolita.

Lolita was rough to the ghetto too. It was as if she was giving back trauma that she got because she was part of it. Her father was working hard in the city of gold&she had never seen her mother.
The bit that I found out did not deter, it in other ways, encouraged me to try&understand her a little but she was brutal in return, ruff as the ghetto, so ruff that it had went to her tongue. But I tamed her with hugs&kisses or I thought that I did for that moment then I wrote her tale. But she never wanted to see me cos she said that, “ke lesoboro.” &yes, I am.

She died at the end of 06&a friend of mine said, “she was like a dog chasing its tail.” We laughed about it but I came in my thoughts when I was just about to rest then I could not rest cos the thought about her brought tears to my eyes&I found myself cursing&blaming God.
I loved her not for her mind blowing sexual escapades but because she was just a GhettoRuff Lolita caught in the ruff. The worse thing she could not help herself, neither could I.
It makes it no better that I wrote her fictitious biography, makes me sad&hate life&living. Then there was a comment that, “she was like a dog chasing its tale.” In a way he had shot the love&will to live life out of me.

As a character, she will live forever&maybe I penned her honestly but I have realised one important point: I love my characters, because they are my inspiration. They are my darlings, whether it be a naked man that I met, once in the morning hours singing his beloved tune, mindless of everything else.
There was no communication at all but I got the message&inspiration.

The hobo with the script/hard-hustler wrote it in less than seventy two hours but when he said that fact; some thought that he was only boasting, bargaining for some free publicity.

I thought why not do it again&prove them wrong. Welcome to our Hillbrow by Phaswane Mpe was penned in less than 72 hours, so I was told. Fellow scribe Dumisane Sibiya wrote his debut novel Kungasa Ngifile in less than 72 hours&so was his second book Ngidedele Ngife, penned in less than three days too.

To the point: why not do it again&prove that I really did. On 30-06-08 09:00, pulled an old ThinkPad, my faithful first wife. Opened a word processing document&started to transcript my thoughts&with the distractions I had, that day ended with just about 6000 words knitted into this tale. Thought I will wake up at night&continue but I had lied to self.

The next day when I turned my aged laptop; I only managed to knit nearly 200 words before being distracted&then being preoccupied with other things life. Later, I tried to increase the words but could not add one single word, except to stare at the lines of my aged wife. Then I kissed her good night but act didn’t guarantee rest in anyway. I was up before the new day, after turning&twirling to the melodies of trying to sleep. Managed to register 1300 words before jumping back into the warm bed. Shut my mind down&tried not to think of anything else.

02-07-08 09:00. 72 hours exactly&I had 7571 words. “Your boast doesn’t ring true young man.” “Your boast doesn’t ring true young man.” Was all that I could hear in my head&it was amounting to anger. The author had failed to do what the hobo with the script/hard-hustler accomplished.

My girlfriend had left earlier that morning&she will be ‘gone till November’ then my distractions were of self.

07-07-08 09:00. 192 hours later&I had exactly 27 303 words, I think there are reasons; most of the things in Room 207, were close to heart. The characters of Matome, Modishi, the Zuluboy&D’nice are real people, who were living in room 207 at one point. There, I was telling of things that I knew, seen&heard.

A Friend of mine challenged me; “…, now you should hit us with pure fiction then I can be able to judge you as a writer.” After he had enjoyed his stay in Room 207. However this manuscript: the protagonist is a sixty year old mother of four&grandmother. She is telling the tale in first person. The manuscript is shapeless, it has big gaps that need research to be filled&breath life&soul in to it.

This manuscript has been soaking for years, more than three, I have been planning&plotting it, writing&rewriting it&Room 207 has never soaked, even for a minute&worse, there were no plans&plotting. No questions if I was to write it in first, second or third person. Room 207 just came on me&for this one, I had to think, think harder.

Please, blame me.