Short Story: The Traffic Lights In Jo'burgh

Traffic Lights in Jo’burgh

The traffics lights in Jo’burg go from red to green-green to red rapidly. Like everything in this city reaction is what counts. Some intersections offer mildew amber; half-hearted arrows that flash a brief possibility of passage across paths driven by ruthless mothers on their way to school in 4x4 cars with burnished hubcaps. The mud of days splashing silently against the immutable needs of offspring.

After catching a red more than a few times I learned to wind up the windows. I learned to dread the hands reaching into my moment. Tugging at my conscience, offering inflatable dolphins for my non-existent pool and scratching though bundles of cell phone re-charge cables seeking a quick sale before the lights switched them off from my field of vision and I speed away.

Soiled by lack of generosity and overwhelmed by the magnitude of need in this smart African city of lights I found myself longing for a patch of green and a place where sun hit a clean horizon. My mind has adjusted to a new speed and is no longer open to the sound of birds. Days that once were photon sensitive, bright shadowy days, spent looking for the pin prick outline of a lions’ ears deep in the grass, are now lost in the strobe of a city that never rests. My mind quick to see an opening in the traffic now shuts out the living shapes that carve a shadow in my soul.

Today I went to Italy for an hour and the sky was painted. Set off the William Nicol highway; turn right past the orange plastic beanbag chairs on offer for only 30 rand, lies Monte Casino. A magnificent erection in concrete. I left the day outside as I walked up the wide classic staircase and wandered through a Tuscan town created for my delectation and delight where my senses were controlled by a panel of computers that cooled the air and cast shafts of yellow light on walls that had no algae growing between their plastic bricks. Cool fountains tinkled in piazzas with tables set ‘outside’ under a cerulean sky that had worn patchy round the edges. I bought sour plums from a Chinese street vendor and tickets for the Moscow State circus; how cosmopolitan. My eleven-year-old son bought a helmet and two hours of street time on a skateboard rink. Lulled into a false sense of security fat men and brightly painted women gambled in the soft light of the casino. ‘What would you do for love’ win 50,000 rand TODAY.

I wandered into Exclusive books and breathed in the familiar smell of hope that fresh books offer. Clean un-dog-eared pages filled by minds that I would soon encounter. Perhaps they would teach me something new. A kind woman searched for a book that I needed to hold in my hand to stabilize my senses. A book written a lifetime ago, by my children, when I had the smell of elephant dung in my nostrils and the sound of laughter in my ears. When my eyes were not blinkered and I had owl vision. My Africa where the smell of acid black skin smoked by night fire made me feel safe.

The patchwork pigmentation of the Rainbow Nation lies still unsettled on this great country; ruckled in hope waiting for better times to smooth away the creases.

I needed a cigarette and chose not to go to the smoking casino where I could gamble with my life as well as with my money. I left Italy behind and sat upon the steps and watched the traffic weave its way across this vast land that was once a wilderness. Beneath the concrete ancient leopards had imprinted their journey on the soil. Unburnished gold, sinewy in the dappled sunlight, had made way for metal now glinting on the arms of the chosen few. Jo’bugh the Dutch Eldorado. An urban forest so huge it can be seen from the moon. Planted with trees from foreign soil that now offers oxygen to a city that is starved of air. Stunted, knarled acacia fixing the nitrogen in the soil made way for more flamboyant things and in the spring Jo’burgh pulses purple with Jacaranda blossom.

In the car on the way home I saw a man in the middle of the highway. The lights were green and he was in my way. His misshapen body irritated me. He was not built for speed, so I had to slow down. I wound up my window and then I saw his smile. His face was old and wrinkled by love. His kindness had not been leached and he owned his concrete space as he had once owned his fireside. His patch of Africa in which he had to trust in strangers not to mow him down. He had nothing to offer for my money but this body. Tired by a lifetime of twisted steps taken on bent legs. But someone must have loved him for he had no fear. I gave him my loose change and in exchange he gave me back my kindness. A gift I will not squander.