Last Week

Last week I worried about today,

I thought today would be my last day at home. The world seemed colder and I hadn’t made my rent in three months.

I had called in every debtor who owed me and the people at every job I had worked told me to wait till next month. 

Every friend I had told me they were just getting by too.

Last week I cried in my bed, thinking that I had failed at the game of life. That I would be on the streets by weeks end. That I would be forced to endure the cold like the refugees who had escaped the boiling oil of war only to jump into the ice cold fires of poverty and homelessness.

Last week I knew I would feel insurmountable pain. Emotional pain. The pain of disappointment. Last week I believed I would have to tell my lover that we couldn’t be together anymore. That she had to go back out to the world and find a new lover because I wasn’t going to make the rent. I was going to be homeless. Where would we love each other from?

Last week I got a phone call from my aunt. She was telling me that she was worried that I wasn’t praying enough. Aunty told me that in her dreams I went to hell. She begged me to come back to the temple or She would never let me near cousin Mbabazi again.

Last week I finished my last slice of bread. I drank my last pint of milk and walked down the streets. There I saw a homeless person laying miserably on the hot hard tarmac by the road-side. They turned restlessly as if trying to find a soft spot to rest their head. When they turned to me, they had my face.

Last week I climbed to the rooftop of my home and glimpsed the beauty of the world. I gazed upon the flow and stream of lights on the city highways. And I cried out “oh how beautiful the world is…from afar!” From the sky it looked like we had done well for ourselves. We had brought the stars down from the heavens and pinched them into the ground. But as I climbed down I remembered I hadn’t paid rent. I didn’t have medical insurance and I hadn’t paid for the water and the electricity and the internet. And I cried “oh, how ugly life is when up close!”

Last week I realised I was going to be homeless. I didn’t have land to build on. My friends were already homeless and cried on the streets like crickets at dusk. They couldn’t help me and I couldn’t help them.

Last week I cried.

Last week went by.

Last week, I said bye.

Written by Denzel Maniple Everd