You’re on the boundaries of Time, where the present divides the past, and the future circles like eternity.
You think of the transformations wrought by human actions across the ages.
You look back at the abyss of nothingness that defines the yesteryears, the wastages of occasioned by the wars devoid of conscience, the past heinous sins that are today celebrated in glorious national and international holidays, the cowards transformed by History as Heroes because they held the pen and the sword.
You stand on the boundaries of Time where your mortality beckons on your immortality.
You look at the present where history is being manufactured in the Industries of Time. Then you wonder, ‘Has humanity learnt any lessons from all these stored and treasured memories of temporal transformations?’
Then the poetic voice answers, ‘What can they learn from a history of distortion and inversion of truth?’
Even as we stand on the boundaries of Time, real heroes are being hunted down by the existential manipulators, power hungry blind bats, who never cease from weaponising the gullible Littlons among them. The schemes, the intrigues, the tricks, the gaslighting, the shark-like smile when you face them and the sword-like frowns when you turn your back.
Even as we hesitate on the boundaries of Time, wondering if future events have any connections with the past and the present, monuments are being raised for monsters, altars that have no gods liter our cities; for men have become gods unto themselves.
On the boundaries of Time, we experience the disconnect between leaders and their subjects. The louder the cries of the masses, the merrier the bounties of the oligarchs.
On the boundaries of Time, the masses have remained the masses; suffering and smiling, waiting for Godot to descend through Deus ex Machina and save them, praying to the God that enjoys their suffering, hoping on nonexistent hopes, wishing for the change that only happens in dreams.
On the boundaries of Time, I see the future, a monstrous Dystopia, a mermaid with the head of a fish and the tail of a lion, speaking in balablus that curses our existence.
Black bread fills the streets, bitter to taste. The tea water has turned Marahic. Black bread with Marahic water taste like hell on Earth.
The citizens resort to eating vultures and bats. There are no burials because the dead are turned to meat. The niggers go around watching out for their members for the slightest signs of ill health. Then the poor victims are shadowed until they drop helpless to the Earth.
The IMF have won, the World Bank can now rejoice. The future of Africa has come. The future of austerity, hunger and death, brought about by all the creative and ingenious economic methods and wise counsels to stooges that knew neither their left nor their right.
On the boundaries of time, I see a bleak future where the rich can no longer hide from the poor. Both have come out to eat black bread and drink Marahic tea water.
On the boundaries of time, where mortality negotiates with immortality, the conspirators are now at the mercies of the victims. Both are victims of their own existential dramas; one who was silent in the face of oppression and the other who acted without thoughts of the future.
On the boundaries of time, the poetic voice cries, ‘Turn away! Turn away from the dystopia of tomorrow. Start now to build the African Utopia.’
On the boundaries of time, the poetic question is, ‘Will they listen? Will they learn?’
©Eyoh Etim, 2024.