The registration process was successful for the two rappers. After registering, they both parted ways, and each of them went home. When Toby walked in at home, he found cigarette smoke lurking in the air. He was used to the smell, so he did not even bother covering up his nose. He found his mother sitting on a maroon couch with a burning Stuyvesant between her wrinkled fingers, and she had her face glued on the small TV that kept making fuzzy sounds. She was watching the repeat of an episode she had seen the previous night, and she was ignoring the two cockroaches that were racing on the crippled brown table.

There were scattered patches of dust on the concrete floor, and some of the old cupboards in the kitchen had missing covers. Inside the cupboards were only three plates and one glass, and Toby could not remember the last time the plates and glass were washed, or even worse, used.

He was hungry, but he did not bother opening the fridge because he knew it was as empty as his brain. Well, that was what his mother once said to him. Besides, other than not finding anything in there, one of the reasons why he did not open the old fridge was because he had once opened it after arriving from school, and Doris, his mother, had scolded him for doing it.

“Did you buy any food? Did you come with any money?” Doris had asked, and Toby had shaken his head in respose. His lips had been so white that he had to lick them whenever he remembered to. “So why you opening that shit!” his mother had continued.

“Good day, ma. Happy birthday,” Toby said, and Doris just raised her hand in response to her son’s greeting.

She was turning 41 years old that day, but the last time she had had a job was five years prior. Now, she and her son were supported by government welfare. She had once forced him to drop out of school so he could go look for a job, and when he refused to do that, she had threatened to kick him out of the house. That had not happened yet, but every time he arrived from school, he sometimes wished not to find his bag of clothes on the streets.

After a while, Doris’s phone started ringing, and Toby went to his bedroom. He then threw himself on the bed and overheard Doris’s phone call conversation. He figured that she must be talking to Aunt Nina.

“Yes I heard about the talent competition …” Doris said, and Toby was still overhearing her. “… ah! That one, even if he entered, I do not think he will ever win. He is my son, I know him. He has no talent. He probably doesn’t even know how to spell that word talent … yes … mmhh …”

Doris’s words, just like the many others before, exited her mouth and head straight into Toby’s heart. They rested there until he was able to forget them, but some of them were unforgettable.

“Your nothing but an idiot, just like your father!” he remembered the time she had shouted at him, right after she had come back home with his report card. She had walked a long distance to his school and had to wait in a long queue only to get a report card that had four red pen rings on them. Tobi had only passed Life Orientation, IsiZulu and English. She was not surprised though, it was confirming what she already knew: her son was stupid.

“… no, he doesn’t have a talent …” Doris continued on the phone.

But Doris knew that Tobi had a talent, or perhaps she did not know that because she had never seen Toby’s rapping as a talent. She had once told him it was nonsense, and ever since then, he stopped practicing his rapping at home.

After a while, Toby unlocked his phone and went to WhatsApp. The happy birthday message he had sent to his mother, along with the audio file, had blue ticks. She must have not listened to the audio file, or else she would not have said he did not have a talent. “Or did she listen to it?” he wondered.

He then took off his sweater, and the scars he had made with his razor blades got revealed on both his arms. He needed to make more because no amount of sad rap songs would ever make him escape the numbness his felt at that moment. After a while, he opened his drawer, took out a new pair of razor blades, and then cut himself. He felt the adrenaline rush of the pain as it erased the emptiness. At least he was feeling something. He felt something other than the emotional pain.

Physical pain was better than emotional one. That was what the razor blades had taught him, but there came a time when cutting himself became too unbearable, and now was that time. The dripping blood had turned a part of his bed sheet to red, but he only came back to reality when he opened his eyes and tossed the sharp thing to the side.

Toby quickly covered the wound with his washcloth and opened his journal. He had Accounting homework, but he did not feel like writing it. He did not know accounting. He only knew rap and depression. Just like the Math and Business Studies period, the Accounting period was just a time for him to dwell in his daydreams of being a successful rapper, and those daydreams were one of the things that made him happy. The real world was too harsh. Doris was too harsh. Life itself was too harsh.

He flipped through the pages that had the love lyrics he had written. When he was with Sello, he wrote normal hip hop songs, but when he was alone, he wrote songs about anxiety and his troubles. Oh, and about Nelly as well.

***

Tell us: What advice would you give someone who is facing depression like Toby?