Tomorrow

Tomorrow 

Everything went black.

Some people like that blank canvas, the darkness that presents unlimited possibilities, but I don’t find comfort in that. It’s too close to drowning, last bubbles of my limited breath, trickling upward, leaving me alone in the dark.

It is like pouring salt in a wound. It is the space between touching fingers. That close to death. Blocked from my head, like darkness blocks the light, I try to forget, but the memories come rushing back everytime I close my eyes. Will I ever wake up from this waking nightmare? The doctors say never. I will be forever stuck in this vicious whirlpool, never able to escape. Everytime I let myself think about it, salty beads pool on my skin like the spray of the waves as they crash against the rocks. Every single time my ears are filled with the sound of the waves as they hit the jagged rocks, one punch at a time and the drowning out the world.

I am alone in the dark.

Analisa pokes my elbow gently, I open my eyes to the whole class staring at me and my face flames, as if the sun instantly burnt my face. My eyes dart to Mr. Tucker, lines of concern pulling his eyebrows together casting a shadow over his eyes, the pools of pity in them threatening to overflow. That is the most sickening part of my situation… those looks…

Judging by the expectant looks of my peers I guess Mr. Tucker just asked me a question. What class am I in? Oh right… math. What are we learning about again? Oh right… the angles of right triangles which I learned freshman year. I can do the math easy but that’s not important. What was the question?

Thankfully, Mr. Tucker notices the jumbled mess of thoughts swirling around inside my head, like the poetry magnets dad got mom but didn’t think to do anything with. The ones that need caring hands to put them together, to mean something, but they just sit there on the refrigerator door waiting, just like me, for the day that will never come.

Nobody will be able to put me back together again.

This class makes me tired and I don’t want to do the work, I really don’t want to do any of my work. Not being able to live how you want doesn’t make you want to do anything. I really cannot stand being stuck in this place, always rolling through life, never doing what I want.

It really is a different perspective down here, three feet tall, but it’s been so long it’s become normal. I always have to look up, except for those rare few who go out of there way to come down to my height, like my girlfriend. If she hadn’t bent her lengthy frame to see how I was doing, this would have never happened, we would have been in two separate worlds. I never get to fully look people in the eye, because of our omnipresent spacial disconnected when they stand and I forever sit in my chair of isolation. My constant reminder of what will never be the same, but I always remember why I am here: just seeing my sister’s little cheeks pucker up in a smile.

A worthy sacrifice.

My mind focuses on my fingers that absentmindedly pick the formerly pristine submarine-yellow of my No. 2 Pencil, the curls of wood and paint dotting the floor between my limp feet. Ever since… ever since that day, I have been a flower in a vase, the one that no matter what you do, it still wilts, the leaves drooping over the curved lip of its vase and the petals falling, scattered to the base, as if the weight of the world is just too much for it.

I force my thoughts to the sterile whiteboard, the retractable screen pulled down in front of it, our notes projected in real time… I know how to do this. If only life was math. It would be easy. There is something beautiful about the juxtaposition of boundaries and abstraction in mathematics, there are guidelines that always stand true. For mathematics evades time and space. There is infinite possibilities.

I feel a slight brush against my legs, like the faint marks of a cat’s outstretched tail as it creeps by.

Wait, what!? I feel.

Thoughts of the purposeful past come flowing back in soft waves that caress the sun soaked sands.  I almost forgot what it feels like to truly feel life, tingles up my lifeless legs… Are they still without purpose? My memories of this are tainted by time, but I think this is real– a true feeling. Maybe. Just maybe, I will be able to face the water again: my enemy, my love. Face your fears people always say, but it’s really not as easy as it sounds.

I look out the window. Was that tree always there? A robin lands on a branch, making it bow with purpose under its weight, and sticking out its chest in pride it looks at me, its small eyes studying me curiously one at a time.

This time I don’t mind.

And I steadily return the attention.

Maybe I will leave my footprints on life, instead of being confined to these wheels. You have to take what comes first to dictate what comes after. Life comes one step at a time.

Tomorrow.

Hunger is Black and White

Photo of township in South Africa by Niko Knigge

Hunger is Black and White

What does a dollar mean to you? Across the world, it sustains life where, without it, would mean only death. In South Africa, located at the tip of the second largest continent, Africa, people are struggling against poverty brought by economic disparity between races. Some say that the extremely impoverished state of many of South Africa’s people is caused by race but others notice that there is poverty despite color.

For over 13% of South Africa, a dollar means living until tomorrow. The international poverty line reveals that these people are living on less than $1.25 a day (Human). The vast majority of these people are native Africans, confined to row upon row of tightly packed tin shacks much too small for the population that lives there. They are the children of the economic disparity between black and white. But they are not the only ones who live in conditions unfit for living. Since the end of Apartheid, whites have had an increasing presence in impoverished conditions; white unemployment close to doubling in the past 15 years. In this place of unfamiliar poverty they do not feel that they belong. Ann le Roux, who was formerly of a middle class life, now faces poverty and, due to the rising presences of blacks in the successful society, she believes, “Our color is not the right color now in South Africa” (O’Reilly). Although this is the case, the majority of the white population still takes advantage of the opportunities from remnants of the apartheid and live lives that that the poor blacks of Africa can only dream of.

In Soweto, droopy tin shacks with cloth roofs connected by a string of narrow paths, lie merely yards from a brand-new luxury hotel. This juxtaposition illustrates the immense economic barrier in South Africa, and how the majority of the impoverished can’t even dream of the luxuries experienced by others. One of the inhabitants, Ms. Kula, appalled by even thinking of going into the hotel due to difference in race and wealth, said “It is not for us, … it is for someone else” (Lyman). But she is not alone. According to the World Bank in 2011, 45% of the South African population lives at or below the national poverty line of $2.34 per day (South, Nicolson). Also, for over one in three South Africans, two dollars a day is the norm, which is an increase in impoverished people by 2.3 million since 1995 (Özler). These people are stuck in their place unable to move and are thus only experience the basic elements of the world: black and white. A world where a dollar is salvation and a chance to see the light.

Works Cited

"Human Development Reports: Multidimensional Poverty Index." United Nations Development Programme. United Nations, n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2015.

O'Reilly, Finbarr. "Hardship Deepens for South Africa’s Poor Whites."Reuters. Reuters, 26 Mar. 2010. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.

Lyman, Rick, and John Eligon. "Amid Rows of Tin Shacks, a Luxury Hotel Rises." The New York Times. The New York Times, 08 Dec. 2013. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.

"South Africa." The World Bank. The World Bank, n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.

Nicolson, Greg. "South Africa: Where 12 Million Live in Extreme Poverty [analysis]." Africa News Service [South Africa] 3 Feb. 2015: n. pag.Student Resources in Context. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.

Özler, Berk . "Not Separate, Not Equal: Poverty and Inequality In Post-Apartheid South Africa." JSTOR. The University of Chicago Press, 3 Apr. 2007. Web. 9 Mar. 2015.

Msimangu: 

The character Msimangu is very authentic and observant of the world around him; he is not afraid to express his option even if it differs from the beliefs of the church and those around him. Alan Paton uses Msimangu to illustrate the conflict between how the complacent church feels and what the forward- moving younger generation craves and how these two viewpoints can connect and together to create what is the best solution in a ideal world. But, because Msimangu accepts the flaws of the world it forces the reader to think about solution in a practical way and with the characters come to the realization that often solving such a integral social issue is not simple or easy. Msimangu's character is also deeply empathetic and makes striking remarks about the tragic consquesses of the apartheid. 

pH 55 "I am not kind. I am selfish and sinful man, but god put his hands on me"

pg 56 "But the house that is broken, and the man that falls apart when the house is broken, these are the tragic things."

pg 70 "Because the white man has power, we too want power he said but one a black man gets power,  when he gets money, he is a great man if he is not corrupted....and because our desire is corrupt ,we are corrupted, and the power has no heart in it"

Little Phoenix

Sijie uses the symbols of the rooster alarm clock to explain the illusion of control that the clock brings to the mountain.

“[The alarm clock] became an object of veneration, almost. Everyone came to consult the clock, as though our house on stilts were a temple” (14).

“I was convinced that the real reason behind his liberal attitude was the irresistible attraction of our alarm clock… during the four days it took us to get there, see the film and return to our village, he would be lord and master of the clock” (80).

                                                                            Buffalo

The buffalo symbolizes hope; hope for joining one of the three in a thousand.

“Its fall had been broken by a huge jutting rock, from which the mangled body slid only to to land with a dull thud on another rock a dozen metres farther down. The buffalo was still alive. I will never forget how affected i was by its long draw- out, plaintive bellows” (93).

Conform

Conform.

It is not of nature to be another

each one their own, against the world,

outer influences compressed by pressure

form altered, fighting to maintain inner composition.

The world yells out at those who stand alone,

it is now they must journey into the depths of the past

looking back on things found and forgotten

searching to find their inner strength.

Be unique.

What Shapes Our Perspective?

Finger Print

Perspective

Monk

Man Chopping Wood

Trees

Good vs Bad

Single Tree

Pendulm

Glasses

Scale

Tree and House