We stand on the edge of the abyss.
We falter on the yawning precipice.

Where do we go from here?


This world that we have known, this unfair, unjust, cruel, harsh, grinding callous world that we have known for so long teeters at the very brink,

for the billions who have known only suffering, oppression, poverty, indifference,

the billions of souls for whom we hardly ever, if at all, spared a thought,

as we glided by the dregs, the chattel, the unwashed multitudes,

gliding by them all, our eyes blinkered, our chariots screened,

never allowing the ugliness we caused to matter to us not a bit,

as long as on puffed-up hubris, on race, religious, caste, tribal, class velveteen sofas we smugly do yet sit.



Where do we go from here? 

The multitudes still teeming,
the anger and pain and injustice still steaming,

the inequality still obscene, blatant and ugly, the 10% still crossing their designer shoes so gallingly smugly,

the shades of colour, of us and of them still on garish display, while to the shrieks from below, the captains of industry do inebriatedly sway.


Where do we go from here?

I wish I could say, I wish I could churn out some feeble rhyme, while on the alms of the rich the poor scatter around for a single dime.

I wish I could pummel out some meagre verse, while tiny hands are outrestched as we rummage through a thousand buck gilded purse.

I wish I had some answers, even were they to be weak and flimsy, at least I would have something to say, weak with whimsy.

I wish I could be more proactive, getting my quill dirty in the mire, while all around me the undead waltz to the same song, same old dance, same rusty choir. 

I wish I could do more than scribble some famished lines, though I certainly could, but then, who would anyone look to for an example of all that apathy defines. 

I wish I could shake off this inaction, this cashmere shawl of indifference, and stand alongside the good folk in the soup kitchens, in the places of at the very least a slice of refuge, sanitising myself from the drunken deluge. 

I wish I could moult this savage skin that spins out yarn after yarn, but that would mean me ceasing to scribble more impotent words, and putting down my mint-infused tea,

but you know this well, my friend, that that would mean I must tear off this blinding privilege,

and no, 

no, 

not at all am I going to open my eyes, 

to really, truly, humanly see.

Afzal Moolla was born in Delhi, India while his parents were in exile, working as political exiles against Apartheid in South Africa. He then travelled wherever his parent’s work took them, spending time in Egypt, Finland, and Iran. Afzal works and lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.

This piece was first published on Afzal Moolla's personal blog.