The Shitzens

He is quite a fellow; in fact I have never met him for the two years we have been neighbours, but I know he is a mid level to senior peace officer in investigations circles somewhere in the Citi.


Perhaps that’s is the reason we have never met despite occupying the same block; I harbour not so good feeling towards people of uniform. He may have heard that I am a journalist as well; a sleazy one at that and one he would rather avoid.

He has some children but since there are so many children that play in my courtyard- just like they do in all the courtyards in the neighbourhood-I cannot tell which ones are his and which aren’t. I assume that the ones that appear healthier in the bunch are his kids.


He drives a car or his is driven in one. I don’t know which kind because I have not seen it. I hear it once when by coincidence we both happen to be in the neighbourhood.


But it is good that the policeman and me have not seen eye to eye. I harbor many suspicions about his trade just as I assume he detests mine too. Since by calling, God had stationed us on opposite sides of the street-considering the not so cordial professional relationship between the police and the media –Citi was determined to set us straight.

SHITZENS

But telling you about the policeman neighbour without introducing the neighbourhood would tantamount to giving you the bone rather than the meat of the story.


CLAIM TO FAME

It is located just behind the famous penitentiary in Citi where inmates are serving time for participating in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Citiland as recently as 1994.

A large prison enclave populates the suburb, it hosts over 7,000 inmates serving time for their role in messing up Citiland; they are known as shitzens.
The prison is our only claim to fame, commerce and is symbolic of the Citi, it is also a large presence in all our stories.


large presence

Shitzens as the inmates are known wear a bright colour uniform and in the evening they watch TV; passersby hear the sound of Citi TV news in the evenings. And we are irritated by it.

There is no water connection and the electricity is also very shady in thevillagebehindtheprison, but the large prison makes its own electricity from the shit of the war criminals hence the name shitzens. They call it biogas and when the villagers see the shitzens walking about in the street with their colourful outfits they cannot help some envy.




Behind the fence of this gigantic structure lies semi detached houses where yours truly and some other people working to oil the economic machinery of Citi reside. The suburb is simply known as theVILLAGEBEHINDTHEPRISON.

Amongst those people is my closest neighbour, a policeman with whom we haven’t met but maintain an amicable relationship aided by a network of emissaries involving children, housekeepers and other neighbours.

I still cannot understand why said police officer chose to reside here; from the look of his house and the wall fence around it is clear that he could afford to reside elsewhere in the Citi. There’s a lot of irony on some days like today.
You see the shitzens have these schemes where they can work their sentences away.


Working Time

Say if one is in for 30 years for butchering his neighbours-and God forbid if said neighbourhood is this one behind the prison- works away at their chosen trade and the earnings are converted in terms of time. So if he worked for 10 years his sentence reduces by 20. So weekends like today the shitzens some of whom are engineers, masons, teachers and farmers are building a new modern residence.

A lone prison guard in full gear closely watches events and proceedings; my neighbour stands in his courtyard and lazily walks about not even aware and concerned about the close proximity of war criminals, children, house girls/boys, wives and motorcyclists.


In my mind I picture a scene where the shitzens turn on the guard and attempt an escape but they would be stopped in their tracks by the guards of said peace officer. Yet the shitzens cannot escape because they are in a tricky situation. First them colourful uniforms come off as signs of privilege; they are driven around the Citi like they are some important people.


Second because if the shitzens were to escape they would not survive beyond the warmth of the prison fence with its television and electricity. Shitzens would also be vehemently prosecuted by the kind of mob justice that I fear to imagine leave alone write.

To be continued

KAGAME.

Foreign hours, foreign people

The bright light in the bus shows all the tales,
Especially those of fatigue and to pay bills on the faces,
But I don’t see fatigue,
I see irony.

As we wait at the bus stand,
We stuff earphones,
In and on our heads,
We dance.

Some nod,
Some whisper to the tunes,
Others speak in foreign tongues,
We all might as well be thinking in some foreign dialect.

Foreign dreams,
Foreign jobs,
Foreign hours.


Visibly tired people,
yap away on cell phones,
In foreign tongues,
To people perhaps in foreign countries too.


A lone man walks about picking cigarette butts,
Burnt out and thrown away,
On the ground.


The Indians walk far off the Bangladeshi,
The Filipino away from the native,
The Ethiopian away from the Somali.

The awaited bus arrives,
Off go the cleaners,
Nurses,
Cooks,
Kitchen hands,
Factory workers,
More cleaners,
More foreign people.

Because the work shift is over,
And the bus shift must start.

Kagame