In his latest personal essay, Nixon Mateulah writes about a man befriending a homeless person and the conversations they have about life. Read the short extract below:
Wise words to act on from my new friend or not? — a personal essay from Nixon Mateulah
“Why are you making two lunch boxes today?” asks my wife. I look at her with a smile inflating my cheeks, knowing that my true answer will surprise her. Because if I go ahead and tell her that the other lunch box is for my new homeless friend — she will berate me for gratuitous lying. We will squabble until the sun stops shining. To avoid the probable verbatim war of uncanny words, I pretend as if I have not heard her …
… At the shop, I buy two Score energy drinks, one for me and the other one for my new friend. I walk briskly to work, after walking a minute I realise that I have almost thirty minutes left before I reach my workplace. We start work at eight A.M. and sometimes my boss comes a bit late at quarter past eight. I take my time, and my mind takes me back to the previous conversation I had had with my friend, the homeless man two days ago.
His wise words opened my eyes. I have noticed recently that there is a new name given to the people living on the streets — they call them “rough sleepers.” Rough sleeper is a name coined by the City of Cape Town to describe a person who lives on the street with an element of crime.
My new friend does not fall into that category. He is a normal person, sane, trying to eke out a living as best as he can without disturbing the next person. His one-metre-high shelter of plastics and card boxes leans against the Grassy Park Library fence like a chair tilting to one side minus a leg. He is a car guard at the Library parking lot.
Click here to read the rest of Nixon Mateulah’s personal essay on Medium.
Nixon Mateulah was born in Lilongwe in Malawi and moved to South Africa in 1996. Running Home is a fictional memoir based on his experiences when arriving from Malawi in South Africa during the early years of the South African democracy. He has published a number of short stories and poems in various online and print publications.
