Thoughts at 2AM...

Being up at 2am does not mean you can't sleep.

Being up at 2am means it’s just you and your thoughts – to which the only disturbance you can allow is trying to find 165million reasons why it pays to be corrupt in Zimbabwe - and there has never been a better opportunity to be at your creative best.

Except maybe if you are a wanker; in which case you can wank your poker – or pokee – into kingdom come at 2am. Maybe there is special skills required for wanking at such a goldenly quiet hour as 2am.

But I'm no wanker. I mean, I am a wanker. Just a literal one; not the kind of wanker who is such a menace to mankind that even his father wishes he'd pulled out in time; and his mother wishes she'd had an abortion.

There is a serene quietness about the ghetto right now that calms your nerves. You can almost feel - nay - hear Harare breathing the carbon monoxide of the previous day's rigours out of their system - in preparation of the day the new day's new rigours.

Which could very likely be worse than yesterday. Such is the state of our country today. A country of ardent believers whose prayers never get answered. At least not in the way people want, anyway. Somebody once said there was one very good reason why Zimbabweans almost immediately stop praying once they sneak out of their mother borders: it's because out there, 80 percent of their wishes are answered before they even become prayers.

So why pray when God grants your wishes before you even know it? Might as well enjoy the life while it last, right?

But I digress...

I'm not out of my country. Not yet anyway. This somewhere in southern Africa, whose existence God surely has permanently forgotten, has not trodden me into submission yet. I don't know how long I can keep getting up for the next blows, but I's still here, baby. 

Do your worst.

For now, I'm still here, in the confines of these cursed borders. Right on the tip of Mushore's horns, as our elders would love to remind us. I'm still up at 2AM.

Me.

The horns of Mushore.

And the silence.

Of course, l'm in the ghetto; you can never have total silence in the ghetto. Once or twice I have left the house at 2am and met some enterprising women – their baskets in tow – already looking for transport to ferry them to Mbare.

And they do carry real baskets too, capable of containing market produce. Not those winnowing things witches allegedly use to globetrot all over while the world sleeps. I wonder if there is a witch passing by my house in a winnowing pan at this quiet witch hour. Some women really work hard. No; I do not mean the witches. The women commuting to Mbare. They work hard.

And suddenly my thoughts go out to Mbare. But not my prayers. Mbare doesn't need prayers. When it comes to Mbare, it is prayers that need prayers.

I'm wondering if Mbare will ever know any peace. Because Mbare is simply not a ghetto; there is the ghetto. Then there is Mbare.

And Mbare is whole another story altogether...

But I do not live in Mbare. Thank God. In the ghetto where my humble abode is, the only noise to quietly keep me company is System Tazvida's evergreen hit, Anodyiwa Haataure, blaring off somewhere in the night. I cannot tell where. Somebody must have had a night to remember. And to forget.

On some days at this hour, you may hear a man and a woman screaming at each other in the distance. I sometimes wonder what people do right after they stop screaming at each other. Maybe they fuck the shit out of each other's matching rimfuls of anger. Or - most likely - they grow tired and quietly go on screaming at each other in silence.

Both of which options are fine by me.

But not today. Nobody is screaming today. Today it is dogs barking in the distance. Could be burglars climbing over walls, looking for houses to turn upside down. But they are not outside my window. Not tonight anyway.

Tonight is somebody's turn to be unlucky. Tonight I get to be useful with my 2AM.

And I can do that without wearing earphones...