Neglected

As i leave for lunch....

I look for her again. I turn left. Then right. Can't seem to see her today.

I walk over to the crossroads, all the while thinking where to eat. The sun is warm, the humidity has started to nag at my neck, asking the tie for a release.

On my way back, i see her.

Somehow i dont know how i missed her in the first place. But now i cant take my eyes off what i see nearly everyday.

As i walk past, she is lying. I try to look at her face, i want to look into her eyes and see the sorrow she possesses and how? I want to know the whole story. But, today is better, she seems in a state of rest. A state of peace. No state of nakedness i seen when i walked past yesterday, no shes not trying to take her t-shirt off today, trying to bear the humidity.

She is wearing the normal dusty, dirty, worn out vest she always wears. Her broken umbrella beside her. Somehow my mind cannot comprehend, how she manages to balance on the broken item when she walks.

I want to scream, to the loudest voice my throat, my stomach, my whole body can conjure up in one big breath. I want to relieve what i feel. I want to grab them all...The passer-by's, The boy in the office, the girl in the office. I want to grap them by their girebaan and shake them, keep doing it until some sort of recognition as to how i feel is knocked into them.

Why couldn't the boy in the office give me a reason as to why she sits there, why she lies there. Naked or not and how people can walk by her as if she is invisible. Why couldnt he ask her if something can be bought for her, maybe some food, clothes...something? He is embarrassed, he cannot. And she doesnt sit with this expectation. Neither does the population walking by, oblivious to this invisible human being.

In this state of sheer frustration and anger, my nafs calls out to me and tells me again:

'This is the land of the rising sun.'