TAKE MY EYES OUT LEST...

Look here son of my father, look here. Look at the women our ancestors left behind, do you know them anymore? The women who were once black with ire now look like pieces of discarded chalk in abandoned quarries. What happened to their faces and skin? What medicine are they ‘eating’? Look to your right, look at the young boys, men of this generation? What happened to their buttocks? Are they too flat to hold their trousers in place? Did the tailor really measure before sewing? Look at the once busy and well behaved women? Times and roles have surely changed. What happened to their cooking like their mothers? I see them drinking like their fathers. The young men of your generation, they make ancestor weep in shame. Which man spends the whole day in the house watching the magic box? What kind of a man stays in his mother’s hut till he shaves his beard? Son of my brother, what kind of a man laughs and mocks an old man in the streets just because he has no teeth?

Son of my mother, take my eyes out lest I see women quarrelling with men in broad daylight. Take my eyes out lest I see men with tonnes of beard weeping in public toilets and in the open air because their women left. I won’t cease to be amazed, just not yet. What happened to husband and wife affairs being limited to the night when everybody was dead asleep? Men and women ‘bite’ each others’ cheeks and mouth while children watch and learn. Where is the world headed, son of my ancestors? Are you sure we lived here ages ago? How I miss the old days, the days when women held their men in high esteem, when women walked with an air around them after being branded the blackest women in the village. When I look into the sea of people nowadays, my old eyes fail me. All I see is white and grey. The few blacks I meet talk with a tongue so strange and funny that I wish I had stayed silent. Son of my father, please take out your carving knife and take my eyes out, lest I see children turning on me for being in my own cocoon of existence. Take my eyes out lest I see the moral fabric of the society finally come crashing down like a leper’s phalanges. Take my eyes out lest I see women, nay, zombies thin as walking sticks starving themselves to extinction because they want to be beautiful. Take my eyes out lest I become engulfed in the many lights of the city like a cricket to a lantern.  I have truly had enough sons of my mother, father, brother and ancestors.