Andile lay underneath his blankets, warm and comfortable, but with a heart that was torn in pieces. His teary eyes observed the room. It was a pigsty. He now realised that the room had not been swept for days and he couldn’t remember when last he did. Not that he cared anymore.

There were dirty dishes and pots he had not washed; crumpled up papers of stories and poems he hadn’t finished writing and was not planning to finish anytime soon; and Drum Magazine cuttings of Sis Dolly’s love advice. His life was a mess just like his room and nothing seemed to be easing the pain in his heart.

His eyes lazily followed the dirt trail and landed on his roommate’s side of the room. Thabang’s side wasn’t the cleanest, but it was a surgical ward compared to Andile’s side. His books were nicely packed on the shelves. The only thing that was on top of his desk was a textbook left open when ganja overpowered him. And he had slept not caring about the test he was supposed to be writing the next day.

What a risk, Andile thought to himself, to smoke ahead of a test. His thoughts were interrupted by the unbearable snores that came from under the green, yellow and black duvet covers. The carefree e snores were the only sounds that could be heard at the break of dawn. The whole dorm was fast asleep; even the crickets had called it a night. But sleep had eluded Andile.

He now lay underneath the heavy blankets as if he was accustomed to the filth. His eyes completed their tour around the room and landed on the window above his heart. He looked through the dirty window and saw the sky dark with grey clouds. A great storm is coming, something whispered inside of him.

He crouched into a foetal position, pulling the covers over his head. He tried to tame this ominous feeling of a brewing storm by closing his eyes to seek refuge in the comfort of darkness. But even in the darkness, a little light shone through; an angel’s face smiling innocently like a harmless statuette. She was a promise of a future pain that Andile couldn’t avoid; but he was more than willing to open his heart to it.
He had done the one thing he swore never to do again after he had his heart broken; he had fallen in love with a girl. Not just any girl; Koketso, a beautiful Mopedi girl with round innocent-looking eyes. The same girl who had brought confusion into his world.

He shuffled through his memory slides, going back to the first day they met. It was love at first sight, Andile had concluded. They had met on campus during registration week at the beginning of the year. She was lost; looking for the administration building and had asked him, a stranger, to go show him. He didn’t know where the building was either but had asked around until they had found it.

As she was busy filling in forms he had waited for her. Later that day they sat at Steers and enjoyed awesome burgers which they downed with an ice cold coke. They had spoken at lengths about everything; she was a daughter of Limpopo, registered to study Literature. She was brought up by a single mom who had done all in her power to educate her. Her mother was her everything and she was planning to work hard and get a job to take her mom “out of the claws of poverty”, she had told Andile.

Andile told her a bit about himself; some parts fictionalised so that they may have a great impact on her. She saw through all this, but kept mum, smiling wryly and playing along, as she listened to his childhood tales. These stories were meant to charm and impress her. But they were not convincing enough for her to date him. But Andile didn’t care a whit about all that. In his mind they had just shared the perfect first date.

But soon, Andile discovered that Kokie, as he called her, was seeing someone. Apparently, she had been seeing this ‘someone’ for three months and he was not aware. It was not just someone; but a white, rich boy. He could afford to buy her all the things she wanted and Andile couldn’t. This, he found to be the greatest betrayal of them all.

“Why does money have to be a boundary to my happiness?” he questioned the darkness. He knew now that Koketso, just like his previous girlfriend, Mbali, had slipped from his hands like sand and he was not getting her back. This fact made him feel helpless, powerless and useless.

The feeling of helplessness grew like a balloon being inflated inside of his heart and Andile experienced another anxiety attack. He desperately wished for something to take him out of this hell hole he was drowning in now.

Just then his roommate mumbled in his sleep. Probably dreaming about his ganja; thought Andile. How nice it must be to have no worries, to be immune to life’s ups and downs. Andile looked at his roommate’s bed with envious eyes. For the first time in all his simple life, Andile wished he could have a few drags of the potent tree. He got up from the bed and slowly walked over to the other side of the room.

He picked up a half-smoked zol, he stood there and pondered over lighting it or not. He knew that it was bad for both his health and heart; that is what his Life Orientation teacher once told him, but now her teachings were insignificant and could not get him out of this hell hole he was in. Besides, he reasoned to himself, they say this is a holy herb and herbs are for healing ailments.

“I have an ailed heart so I might as well,” he said as he scanned the room for the matches.

***

Let’s chat: What do you think of what Andile is about to do?