I am the greatest of all time. The top of the mountain is mine until I decide I want to descend. You’ll get the glory when I am done. Everything you see here is mine, everything revolves around me. I am the pulse, I am the whole business. Acknowledge Me, I am not going anywhere! I am on God mode, no one is on my level. Everyone is an afterthought in my presence. I smash my competition so bad they become irrelevant in their future endeavors. I dare anyone to step-up and take these titles from me. No one can, it can’t be done. I have beaten them all, there is no one left. Acknowledge Me now, I am not going anywhere, I will remain on top for as long as I want.
I remember when we used to play indoor soccer. Soccer indoor tournament organized by Bra Givo and the timers. It was a good idea, there was a lot of enthusiasm. The whole tournament was paid for, all that was required was consistency from the players. It started off well but 3 weeks into the calendar, one by one the timers started bailing out, I don’t blame them, we playing 2 games every Friday with people who knew their story and we would lose by huge margins. To be fair we were cast into the deep pit considering we didn’t know each other all that well. This is in reference to the timers and us, “the young stunnas”. My guys were consistent throughout! You know the guys I had on my team? I had Lloyd, Phimza, the Lord KG, gravel the shavel Stumza, Wanda, Man Senzo, Skuta and some other niggas who made guest appearances. I am not dissing anyone, thank you to everyone who made a contribution to the team, we are grateful and we appreciate it. Like Comfort who made the greatest guest appearance ever! We were low on numbers and Lloyd being a plans man called up Comfort and suddenly we had something. We had 5 players and we played 2 games back to back! We played exceptionally well, Phimza and Lloyd linking up well to get us the goals. Comfort played our center, Kg played the defense and I was the goalkeeper. Comfort played great that day, we were all impressed. The second game we were all fatigued but we gave our best, it was a great day. Now that the timers bailed out we had to fend off for ourselves. We gathered up momentum and week by week started getting better and improving. We started winning and our stock started increasing. Lloyd and Phimza were so important, getting us the goals we needed, they were consistent, every game more than 3 goals a piece and they assisted each other. I also made assists, I averaged 2-3 assists in a game, I started a lot of the moves, I was playing the sweeper-keeper role, I was very active, the gents nicknamed me ter Stegen, I was very happy with that nickname. I made a lot of game saving saves – one of the goalkeepers of the tournament. Phimza was the undisputed assist king, he would delete one player and deliver an incision pass, no showboating, quick and decisive and Lloyd would do the rest – control and shoot. I loved Lloyd’s approach, just shoot! Shoot, shoot and shoot! That’s how you get goals. If Lloyd scored 6 goals, Phimza had 6 assists. Lloyd was our top goalscorer easily scoring more than 5 goals a match. I remember one day another team asked for his services because they lacked a guy. Lloyd agreed but it would have to be after our game. In our game he was named the man of the match and was given a Powerade drink, then he went out to help out the guys who asked for his help. In that game the score finished 12-12, Lloyd scored all those 12 goals – another man of the match and Powerade.
I am tired, tired of complaining about the daily injustices of the Archiepelago, tired of not having a voice, they stripped us off our names and gave us numbers so we ceased to exist as human beings but as livestock. The message is simple; “You are now the property of the State, we own You”. I am tired of working for 9 straight hours. You can’t even finish your task quickly with the intent of rest because if you do, you’ll be given more work and if you refuse punishment awaits, work loves fools, a zealous horse doesn’t live long. I am tired of the insults and negative energy that suppresses confidence like a compressor, if you call a man a “pig” for 7 years, he’ll end up grunting. I am tired of not seeing my family. I forgot what they look like and my memory is failing, I don’t have pictures and I didn’t get the chance to tell them how much I love them. That’ll haunt me until my last breath. I am tired of living this comedy of an existence that lacks a punchline. Maybe I am the punchline, it would certainly explain the multiple bruises throughout my body and my soul crushed like garlic, maybe the joke is on me. Why would God play such a demented joke on me? Doesn’t he love me? Is it a test? Can’t he hear my sobs of pain and great distress? Maybe he just doesn’t care. Just the other day a woman was sentenced to 25 years for allegedly praying for the death of Stalin because not even our thoughts and prayers are our own. I am tired of not owning my will. God government does what he wants with my life. We got second sentences, we were just informed to sign, no trial, just an additional 10 years and if you didn’t sign they put you in punishment centers were they would torture you until you gave in like penetration, in other words, you screwed up either ways. I am tired of the humiliations and mistreatments, they put me in a cold cell below 0 in just my underwear, they spit on my face, how am I going to cope with another 10 years? Whom did hard labor ever correct? I am tired of the numbing cold, there’s 12 months of winter and the rest is summer. They give us 2 letters a year and most don’t reach their destination because they are simply burned – the Post Office can just be blamed. I am tired of the kids in this place with flawed morality. They steal, rob, rape and kill. Being a great thief is their only ambition because “to live a straight life at the Archiepelago is stupid”. Stealing and a life of crime is better in a world of hell because at least you benefit. The kids only respect the thiefs and disrespect everyone else; the thiefs are their role models and so the cycle perpetuates. I am tired of the Police dogs being better fed than humans. I am tired of suffering. I am tired of life and death in it’s negative polarity because who say’s its better?
August 1918, the term “concentration camp” was coined for the first time by the Soviets to refer to their own people who were imprisoned in their camps.
Before we go any further, I want you to register the words and internalize them. You are worthless, your life is meaningless, no one cares about you, your self-importance is an illusion, you are a cochroch, you have no rights, unfit to be treated like a dog, you are useless, you are a stupid shit head, you are insignificant and no one would care about you if you dropped dead right now.
That was the reality for people in labor camps in the Archiepelago. The labor camps were made for destruction, to break the human spirit and the human body. It was meant to cripple and decapitate any prospects you had for the future. You were meant to break down and crack, to be irrevocably shattered like a broken mirror. It meant to shatter your reflection, reducing you to a state of helplessness. Prisoners worked on digging canals until their backs snapped like a twig. Some prisoners worked for 14 hours straight in the icy-hell. There was no way to escape too, how can you when you were surrounded by water. Those who did the impossible task of escaping drowned instead. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. The working hours in most prisons were 8 hours non-stop everyday. No break, no lunch. If you stopped for some reason you were punished. As a punishment prisoners where dragged on horses by their legs until they stopped making a sound. They were stripped off their clothes and their hands were tied on a pole and a net of mosquitoes was released for them to feast on. They were beaten with clubs and torn a part by dogs like a Tarantino film. Sometimes prisoners were left outside in the snow to freeze to death. While other prisoners were burned to death. There were not enough clothes and some prisoners were forced to work naked in temperatures below 0, – 36F and – 70F. There were diseases and epidemics spreading in camps and because the interrogaters didn’t know how to treat pupils who contracted these sicknesses, they were simply isolated in cells and they lived there until they died. A lot of prisoners died of hunger. Others rot to death. They witnessed their bodies fail and decay, they witnessed their skins peeling of like a potato, they witnessed their teeth falling down on the ground. Hunger, a process that breaks down your cognitive abilities. A process that makes every other thing irrelevant. When you are hungry, you think of nothing else but the hunger. Nothing exists besides that hunger. You even dream about it. Hunger breaks you down slowly. It makes you weak, devours your muscles, decimates your immune system, kills off your will to live before you die and then kills you. Hunger was so dire in the Archiepelago that prisoners ate a corspe of a horse that was dead for 2 days, it smelled and had maggots. Prisoners made themselves invalids to get better jobs or to be released early for health purposes. At first some succeeded and got pardoned. They broke their legs. They damaged their lungs by smoking tea bags. They swallowed aluminum spoons so they can be sent to hospitals to have the stomachs open. They did everything imaginable to inflict pain on themselves and cause irrevocable damage to their health. Soon, the jailers caught on to the trend and extended the sentences of those who committed such acts, a lot were just shot.
For women, prostitution was a means of surviving. It was a curse being beautiful as you were always propositioned by a crowd of men. It was better to choose a handful who could protect you. Gang rapes were prominent and vaginal diseases were the norm. In one prison, nearly 50% of the prisoners had them. Women ceased to be feminine. Hostility and violence was the only way to survive. On a positive note, in 1948, the prisons were split up for women and men and the prisons were surrounded by barbedwire. This made things better. Ordinarily “better” was not in the Archiepelago’s vocabulary. 30-50 prisoners were shot daily behind their ears or head. The NKVD (the jailers) would decide that prisoners needed to be reduced to accommodate new recruits and old prisoners were just shot. It was 2 people per casket, that’s if you were lucky to get buried. Other bodies were left outside until the bodies decomposed. In some prisons, it was 1 casket for 6 bodies and people were buried naked in order to not waste underwear. Cannibalism was prevalent, people were cut into meat, they were cooked and they were eaten. Committing suicide was not easy too, one lady tried committing suicide 3 times. She tried to hang herself, the rope was cut, she slit her wrists, the blood was stopped, she tried jumping off a ledge but the prisoner caught her dress. She was saved 3 times only to be shot behind her head. If you wanted to poison yourself, then go on with it, you making the jailers jobs easier and bullets will be spared.
The days go on and you get used to the torture tactics, you got used to the torture techniques, they all become internalized, a part of you, ingrained, permanently incrisbled from within, deep rooted, DNA and RNA defining phenema, they grow to be a part of you. Sometimes you might get 3 ounches of bread and 1 glass of water. Their rule was one bathroom break per day 6pm, no arguments, comply, observe and let things discipate in the sky like a memory, listen to God government, do what he says, he is right.
I am God government. Don’t give me problems, I will change the sentence to 25 years, do you really wanna labor in a concentration camp all your life, or I could outride kill you, because hey, I am God government. You know what I did to one of you just 5 minutes ago? I shot him in the head for being a hero. You have no rights. There is no such thing as rights. I gave them to you and I can revoke them if I wanted, you stupid insignificant peasant. Shithead, I’ll crush you right now. Don’t you realize you are nothing, worse than a cockroch. Do you know who am I? I am God government. I construct what you perceive as reality. I am with Stalin, he encourages that we shoot people on the head, to add to the statistics, that’s his stuff, “kill more people to add to the statistics”. You know he be saying, “Put them into gas chambers to increase the statistics”. No sorry, that’s the work of the Germans, the Soviets don’t do gas chambers but you get the point don’t you? We kill just for the fun of it. It’s a reflex. I might shoot you right now just to prove a point. Don’t piss me off. Obey. I am God government, your lord, your savior.
The interrogaters did a lot in terms of experimentation and inducing psychosis. Isolation was key as people where cast in ratchet blackholes. Darkness was an important consideration when inducing depression. The lights cells were rationed. They were playing mind games, women were given men shoes, size 11 and 12. They conducted their interrogation at night because they realized the prisoners had less resistance, some were starved, some beaten, others starved of sleep for weeks, it was tough. A lot ended signing their 10 years, it was better than 25 years or worse death. To be shot at the back of your head and cease to exist like a moment. All these charges were fabricated, the Archiepelago is now your home get used to it. The good news is nearly 28000 people are executed monthly. The cells are small and 50 people are fitted in a 10 capacitor. The cells are so small that there’s no ventilation, so the prisoners would take off their shirts, because their skins were always touching and sweating, developing eczema was the norm. The Archiepelago had more than 20 million prisoners, it was a world on its own.
Ever since I experienced my mortality, things have changed for me. While I did use death as intellectual concept to push me in daily endeavors, experiencing it was different. They had my life in their hands, that’s powerful. I hear about people being robbed and killed every time in Gomora, I am bombarded by police vans and forensic teams on a constant. I know that evil lurks in the shadow of every human being. I know evil exists. My mind keeps on playing the interaction like “what if”. What if I had too many drinks and I couldn’t regulate my emotions? What if I wasn’t attuned to their mannerisms and intercepted their thought process? What if they just yearned for blood? What if they had shot me and took all my belongings while I was on the ground bleeding to death? What about my loved ones and my family? What about my prospects and dreams? What happens in an alternate dimension? I’ve got no one to blame but myself. What would I have said to God? His given me all these blessings and talents and I was passive and comfortable like Camus on “The Stranger”? A drifter, under the hypnotic rhythm of the devil. I took life for granted. The horror of that interaction, I’d rather go to Hell. I would be too ashamed to answer to God. I would die for a second time from all the shame. At least in hell, my ruminations would torture me for eternity, that’s a better alternative, that’s what I deserve. I never would have forgiven myself. But I am lucky I have a second chance. With that I decided to read Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archiepelago”. The moment demanded that. It is the most difficult book I have ever read. I am a better human being because of it. I highly recommend it. The book is about the accounts that happened to people during the Totalitarian regimes in the 20th century in Soviet, Russia. It explores the business of prison, what happened in prison, the conditions, what happened in concentration camps, torture and death. Death is everywhere in the book, it occupies most pages in all volumes and sections. I learned not to take life for granted. I learned life is difficult. I learned true suffering. I learned that I am lucky. Momento mori. The term “Archiepelago” means a group of Islands and the sea surrounding them. In this case a group of prison islands.
You didn’t have to do much to be arrested in this time, literally, you didn’t have to do ANYTHING! There was a prisoner imprisonment quota and you are just a number. Your freedom would be just taken away from you. You didn’t have a choice or a voice. The KGB (military police) would just show up at night while you were sleeping and drag you into their vans while you were still disorientated. It was better at night, you are not strong-willed, you are confused. You didn’t have rights. If you don’t want to be dragged and tossed aside like a salad and preferred going to the van unharrased, better. A submissive sheep is a find for a wolf. I mean it’s all just a misunderstanding right? Let me just corporate and surely they will let me go right? WRONG! Everyone was being arrested. Women, men, children, everyone. Your confused protests like “Me? What did I do?” didn’t help, they would just tell you “Get in the van”. Everyone got arrested for NOTHING. You would go to the shops and you would be arrested. You would be out on the street and be arrested. You were arrested in every single way. The KGB had soldiers who pretended to be civilians, so they can blend in and arrest you. They had no warrants. The arrests just happened anytime, in the morning, afternoon and nights. You were better off making a scene and fighting than to listen to their demands. One person who was arrested in the afternoon, made such a scene by fighting, protesting, making people aware that he was being taken against his will that the KGB stopped and let him go. It was a small win that didn’t last very long. They came back for him late night. A woman who was arrested for not asking permission to go to court was put into a cell with men who raped her and made her a cell prostitute. They took her stylish shoes and blouse. To be arrested, you didn’t have to be a German spy, or a collaborator in treason, you just had to be human and alive. Your fate was decided before arrest. Josef Stalin just wanted statistics, that’s all you are a stat. Stallin repossessed land from his farmers, made them labor for it and arrested and killed them if they took a grain of rice. The result? Millions of Soviets dying of hunger. Stalin ran his organization with an Iron first that he gave one of his cabinet members 10 years for being the first to stop clapping after a standing ovation of 12 minutes. Everyone was scared of stopping, they just clapped and clapped. Moral of the story? Don’t be the first to stop clapping or you will get a 10 year sentence. No one but Stalin is safe.
The Gulag Archiepelago was a nightmare, what they did to the prisoners is pure evil, bad, a crime to humanity. You would think that because death makes us all equals that we should have humanity but not in this life. This life is about hierarchies and the person on top dictates what happens in your life. And because you are insignificant to him, a mere number, your destiny is a concentration camp, hard labor, death, a lengthy prison spell or you might be use for an experiment like BF Skinners lab rats. Once arrested, interrogaters would force the prisoners to accept fabricated charges. All the charges were made up like fairy dust. They would torture you, until you gave in. Their maxim being “A human being is weak, a human being gives in”. As a means of interrogation and torture. They used deprival of sleep, they had a blinding 200 watts bulb that was always on to keep you awake at all times and so they could always monitor you. The guards took shifts and breaks while you were awake. Some prisoners were awake for 2 straight weeks. They used self-isolation until you went mad or died. They used hunger, giving you nothing to eat or drink for weeks on end. It would be so dire that your tougue would swell. They squeezed heads with Iron rigs and vices like a Scorsese movie. They would put prisoners in special rooms, raising the temperature in effect cooking them like a stew. They put prisoners in small cells restricting movement of any kind. No space to sit, or to spread your legs or arms, you were just vertical. They put you on beds that were infested with bedbugs and bloodsuckers. They put you in a cell with a mad person for years. They stepped on your balls, this they did by getting you naked on your back while two offers stretched your legs and sat on either on, while the third officer stepped on your balls. They grated your skin. They beat you to a pulp. The doctors were the torturers and interrogaters, they worked together to not create a humane condition. The prisoners turned into cannibals to survive. Men were reduced to animals. All this to get you to admit what you didn’t do, something you don’t know. They used your family against you, promising to not do anything to them if you confessed and signed the papers but it was all a lie, they tortured them anyways. Families were separated to different distant camps so that they would never see each other again. After you were sentenced 10 years for nothing because “sentence for nothing at all is 10 years”, you went into your first cell. A filthy dirty, small cell with no windows – welcome to your new life.
We had three official games against Norkem High in our first season and we lost all three. The first game was a Friendly and it’s understandable because we were starting out and didn’t know the boys all that well. We had more than 50 boys who wanted to be in the team so it was difficult for me and Kay. To be fair though we had the game under control, we were better than Norkem in terms of game play and individual players, we just didn’t have a good goalkeeper. Our goalkeeper (Sakhe) drank us that day. On the touchline, Kay was telling me about some kid who was a goalkeeper who came to training the previous week who was a great goalkeeper. We both agreed that we needed to convince him to come back asap. But that was a plan for tomorrow, right now we were trailing Norkem. We managed to come back and made the game 4-4, but in the last moment of the game Sakhe conceded a stupid goal. Final score 5-4, but we consoled the boys and told them it’s a draw. It wasn’t Sakhes fault that we lost, in truth our defense was weak and Sakhe just carried the burden because he was the last man. Everybody liked Sakhe, he had enthusiasm and his energy was positive, he was always laughing and he loved soccer. He also attended every practice session, his will was just to get better and he did. In the end he became a very good goalkeeper. The Sir. Pierre game was the easiest game ever. We dominated the game and led the game 3-0. How the game finished 3-3, I don’t know. It still puzzles me. Literally Sir. Pierre attacked 3 times and they scored 3 times. They scored the most stupid goals ever. True we substituted a couple of players to give others game time and to inspect other players, but the changes were strategic. Sakhe is the reason we drew that game, he made two horrendous mistakes. I think he was just nervous, he fumbled and missed the ball. After the second error, Mr. Dzumba lost his mind and went over my head to substitute Sakhe. Anything and anyone was better than Sakhe! But his replacement Freedom, was worse than Sakhe. A couple of minutes later, Freedom made the biggest error of the game, his error was worse, the dumbest goal you will ever see in your life, everything was under control and the ball came to him, it wasn’t a shot, just a misplaced pass from the other team, all he had to do was just to control the ball with his legs, he missed it, no first touch whatsoever, the ball went beneath his elevated foot. Just like that the game finished 3-3. Me and Kay were devastated. Later that night FC Barcelona got eliminated out of the Champions League semi-finals by a bus parking Chelsea at the Nou Camp. Messi missed a penalty that could have taken us to the finals – it was a bad day. We finished 3rd that season.
The next year and the boys were now U15’s. By now we knew our team. This year we were stronger, we had a new goalkeeper and several new players who strengthened our defense and midfield. This was the year, I didn’t think we’d lose. We were strong. First game was against Germiston and the game was evenly contested. The game was tactical and physical. 2-2 the game finished, it was a fair result. Mr. Pitseng was the new U14 coach for the new Grade 8s and they lost 5-0 to Germiston. The morale of the boys was low and some boys stopped coming to training. We won our next game, while the U14s lost their second consecutive 5-0 game, this time at home. It was bad. The U14s had exactly 13 players in their whole team. They had no confidence, the morale was low and a couple of players in that 13 were considering quitting. I talked to Kay that it was better if we took over, he agreed. This was better for the school and the boys. Mr. Pitseng just didn’t have the time to coach these boys. I talked to Mr. Pitseng and he was relieved, he was happy to give me the team. He gave me all the boys papers and information. He gave me the keys to his classroom and offered his support if we ever needed it. Now me and Kay were coaching two teams. Me and Kay agreed that the U15’s were now in free flow. They had a routine, the players knew each other, the chemistry was great, we had instilled a work ethic and they were motivated. They were okay, they didn’t need much coaching. All they needed was supervision and I monitored that. The big challenge now was with the new U14 team. They had no confidence and from an initial 13 from the previous match day, there were now 8 boys. Me and Kay saw the challenge and we knew it would be a difficult task. We started rebuilding the team. We recruited back the players who had showed an interest on breaks. The numbers in training started improving. Kay recruited Sakhe from the U15 team, it was legal, Sakhes birthday was in December and he was now a better goalkeeper, he had experience. It was much needed for him too, the U15 team had a new goalkeeper and he (Sakhe) was destined to be on the bench. We called Sakhe to the U14 team because we liked him. From 8 players, we now had 24 players. The morale was good. Me and Kay handled the two teams exceptionally well. The first win for the U14s was so great, they were so happy, we were happy and Mr. Pitseng was also elated. The U15’s were now a winning machine. That season with the U15’s we finished the season undefeated. It wasn’t enough to win the league though, we finished second to Germiston High. They won a game more while we drew, it was a fair result but the writing was on the wall, this U15 side was destined to dominate the district and they did. Germiston, while they won the league were defeated by Norkem, we beat Norkem 3-1 at their own school. We outmatched them everywhere. The following two seasons we dominated the district in convincing fashion, finishing both seasons undefeated – the last loss was when they were U14s. Me and Kay did great. Our new U14 team was also coming on good, we won several games and drew 2-2 against Norkem, it was a good result considering we had administrative problems, some players couldn’t play. From a hopeless situation, we led the boys to a third place finish. Both our teams, U14 & U15’s did great and for our efforts me and Kay got medals, our silver trophy was shared with the whole school on morning assembly. It was a great year.
Kay was a perfect partner, absolutely perfect. Truthfully, no one was better Kay, he was a straight “A” student and had social and emotional intelligence. Kay sat on the first table on the first row with Senzile and other winners in Physics class. Trust me when I say “no one was better than Kay” – everybody knew that Kay was the best. I respected Kay. He was a winner, diligent, professional, motivated, knowledgeable, intelligent, focused, enthused and totally committed to the course – of course, the greatest soccer team that Rhodesfield Technical has ever seen was started by me & Kay; That’s obvious, that is something that was already written by the stars. Thank you Mr. Dzumba for giving me a chance, I am eternally grateful.
I have been winning so much, I am beginning to lose sense of reality. Everyday is a blur, making money comes as easy as breathing.
I remember when I used to have dreams of owning it all now it’s just memories relegated into the deep abyss of time. I am the embodiment of all my dreams. I did it, I am the man.
I was hungry. I sent some kid playing on the street to buy me a Kota, except that we don’t call it that here in Gomora, it’s “Sly wat-wat” but we just call it Sly. And it’s 2-3 slices of bread instead of the quarter bread. Inside the sandwich are your usual Kasi champions: Chips, Polony, Archar Special, Cheese, Vienna, Russian, Egg. I gave this kid R20 bucks. A couple of minutes later, he came back with my sly and change. I was worried, why did I have change? I requested him to stay a bit while I searched the contents of this Sly. As I feared no Chesse, no Egg and catastrophically no Russian. Just Chips, Polony, Special & Archar. I told him to keep it and gave him the R8 change as well. It’s your lucky day kid, enjoy! I can’t live life without no Cheese. That’s not what I see when I look in the mirror. At least have some Cheese nigga, damn, that’s the bare minimum. I went to 5th Avenue, Johnbrant, “Ko Chef”, I bought “Dj Black Coffee”. It had Chips, Polony, Special, Cheese, Archar, Russian & Egg. “That’s more like it”, I thought. You have to eat like a real man. Don’t settle for a meal with no cheese.
I need to stop being so irresistible, these devil women are bewitching me. Weird things are happening, just today I woke up with my foot swollen. It’s heavy and painful and I can’t even explain it to the doctor. I can’t make even sense of it myself. What happened? He asks. “You just woke up and had a painful swollen foot? That doesn’t make sense. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth. What really happened?” he continued. Ordinarily penicillin will do, but today he doesn’t know what to prescribe. Devil woman! I detect foul play. God exists and Juju magic is on the other side of the spectrum. All I know is that all this happened hours before her birthday. Coincidence? I don’t think so! What I know is that she’s obsessed. What I know is that she’s crazy. What I know is that this isn’t beneath her. She had access to my belongings for a while and the darks arts are a growing science. The messed up thing about this is that she told me she would, make me suffer, make me wish I’d had never met her. “You’ll be sorry”, she attested. I took her comments lightly, now what do I do? Do I lay charges? Is this a legitimate case? Mr. Policeman please help, this Devil woman is bewitching me.
antakalipa 