Socien's Blog

At 10:34hrs I was still in my blankets, having slept late only to wake up at 06:00hrs. I had to force re-dial my eyes to sleep without results until the time stated above. I had washed all my clothing two days before and my shoes a day before. If there was not to be any water at the tap, which happened towards and during the weekend it wasn’t going to be a thing to ruin my mood. I smiled just as I thought of these two attainments, attempting to get myself up and take the shoes outside so that they could dry out.

A former work fellow at the place I quit (check City Life Series 1) graced my inbox with a good morning message. I then thought it ideal to remember her by visiting her place and blessing her with a dollar for her lunch. But first I had to take care of my feeding. After a brief marination, I roasted mixed pork cuts I had bought at the supermarket for $3.15 the day before in preparation for my girlfriend’s visit which didn’t happen. I prepared a thick porridge known natively as sadza. The former would soon accompany the sadza paste as a relish. A cup of water was a nail to the coffin, a satisfying bang equating only to a hammer in a seasoned carpenter’s arms doing its job.

I dressed up.

Soon I started to check my treasury as I was about to withdraw a dollar to aid a friend. This is when I realised the plot was not in my favour. The shoes themselves had been acting as a vault for some days. When I washed my clothes, I decided to carry the money with me, worried that someone would get into my room while I was in the bathroom where laundry was done.

The shorts that promptly preserved the cash didn’t quite respond as I wanted them to. Repeating the search revealed that the pockets of the shorts were empty. Soon a state of emergency was announced in my brain’s circuit: A total of $30 was missing; a twenty dollar bill and ten. I searched in the shoes again and again. The answer, if any, was not favourable. The cash was no longer in this room. Choosing not to panic yet. I lied to myself. There is still hope. The money has to be somewhere.

I left. Where I went I fulfilled the promise to my fellow worker. She could not notice that I was feeling low as I left her to enjoy her lunch. I had tried to brush off the look on my face with lies pointing to a glorious start of my jobless life, dollars enough for survival coming my way effortlessly. Once back at my place I enforced a cleanup—overturned the beds, whipped the floors clean, and brushed off all the shelves, hoping to find my money. I foraged into what had been litter for days, hoping to find my cash. It was nowhere close.

The remaining cash balance was $1. ZiGs amounted to 260, which could be around $25. There was no way I could survive the distress until the end of the month which I was halfway going through. Had I not lied to my fellow workmate, I would have created room for getting her help. How was I going to survive?

First, I looked sideways and found a debt ($13) almost going bad. On the phone, I demanded my money without fear or favour. I had to wait for the result. Secondly, I scheduled a visit to a hardware. Now I had to buy paints and boards to create signs with the message “property agent, get your rooms cheap: +263*********”. A door-to-door hunt for unoccupied rooms had to commence immediately. I promised myself to walk for up to 16km a day—crucifying my posters on trees and meeting the landlords. I scheduled a visit to the University and three college campuses on foot. There I had to advertise myself as an assignment writer on notice boards.

Thirdly, a secret embargo was placed on my girlfriend—supposed to visit my place on 16 Aug, a little bit later than the days I had initially proposed thanks to her periods, her visit was now postponed with immediate effect. That I had lost some cash was a thing she was never going to hear about unless after some years. But there was our 1st anniversary coming up on 26 Aug. How was I going to have it bypassed?

21:18hrs• There you are Jackson and Hamilton! As I looked down from the bed, the focus of my vision fell into the shoes that I had been wearing all day since the hour I visited my former work fellow. I laughed as I saw the missing money in my shoe. Its short disappearance had unsettled me. Positively, however, new plans had appeared. Of them all, I only had resolved to kill the third plan; happy that I had seen myself accumulate the guts to ask for my money from one who owed me.