Long Gone

8:05am. Five days a week, I wait at this very same spot at 8:05am. On Monday, the same single mother and her two children stand alongside me. On Tuesday, the same two silver-headed pensioners have the same discussion. On Wednesday, the same teenaged boy wearing a hoodie and covering his head. I could go on, but I won't. Life these days seems to pass in a blur

I had hopes, hopes of being successful. Hopes of being able to buy my sister a present on her birthday. Hopes of living life, not surviving it. My father would always sit with me, tell me how he had high expectations. He'd make me feel motivated, or for the very moment at least. For the moment he took the time to sit down with me. But that night he took me fishing, he broke, told me he was no good.

I didn't know what to say. I could only listen and watch the carp gulp flies. I can remember my mother howling in the kitchen. I saw my sister draw a man's face on the living room wall. That was the moment I put my dreams on hold. This factory work wasn't meant to last forever. I could picture the Autumn leaves that had begun to fall onto the grass outside my house. I can also recall the trees standing bare in the Autumn breeze. This world was definitely no wish-granting factory.

I never asked for much. Only one thing, support. Spiritual support. Someone to assure me that I was following the right path. My father couldn't cope, however. He could no longer support himself let alone his own son. I had put my father in crippling financial condition, my family was in catastrophic condition.

My dad could simply not afford to keep me in medical school. I had to pull out of my university and move out. I had to let nature take it's course. I was too much pressure on my family, the feelings of guilt were unbearable. I could not cope.

I moved out. 350km away. I found a job as a waiter and realised this is where my destiny was held. I rented a very small room in poor hygienic condition. The wall paint peeling off, like the dying wounds of a scar. A dirty floorboard with black stains in the edges of the room. It was a room not big enough to walk around in a circle without smacking your face into a wall.

I shrink back. I watch as the same two silver-heads have their same discussion. My bus arrives with the same bus driver, every single day at 8:05am. I walk on, buy my ticket, the norm. It's time to get going to work.