Muxtionary

Chapter 3: Abata!

They never really got AI right. It turns out they didn't need to. In 2020 an industrious entrepreneur decided that instead of trying to deconstruct the human mind, he would maximize use of the wasted mental capacity of the carbon variety -- the billions of people living in slums and shanty towns across the globe. He created what he dubbed the world's first human data center. Unlike the server farms and data centers that existed before, the computing power in these complexes was second to the real asset, the human brains and bodies that they employed. For less than five US dollars per worker, per day, he used the massive number of humans eager for work to operate simple computer programs. The program asked them to perform simple tasks, like open doors, construct houses, and run errands. In the early part of the twenty-first, there was an online multi-player game called Second Life. People still familiar would liken that experience with this one, only everything these Avatars did, happened for real thousands of miles away in offices and boardrooms across the Atlantic Ocean in North America.

It was where outsourcing met machines.

The interface was linked to rather inexpensive robots on the North American continent. They were as cheap to build and maintain as a car, but unlike the smart models produced in Asia (the one's that did use A.I.) these machines were cold. They had no logic other than a small bios kernel that allowed them to be configured, programmed or upgraded. The 'logic' all came from across the ocean. A brown face sitting at a kiosk ready for their every command.

Documents were delivered, buildings demolished, smiles were formed, clients sexually pleasured...all from a few keystrokes made in a hot rooms in the shanty corners of countries with names most people couldn't spellout on paper. The new colonialism isn't about land or industrial resources, it was about the brain.

You could accomplish many of the same tasks with other androids, the ones actually powered by A.I. logic chips, but it wasn't the same. Some actions, apparently, can't be quantified...not easily. The cradling of a child, a tender hand-stroke at just the right moment, the decision to kill or apprehend a suspect. As these humanoid machines began to integrate deeper into society, a strange thing happened. It became apparent that the humanness of the early century was something people preferred. Who cared if the T Model Ford Droid could do Annabelle's homework in 3.4 seconds..,the human powered models were real people, who could talk about more than just what you had them programmed to. They could do Annabelle's homework, or they couldn't. It didn't matter because if the child was sick, they would cradle her, they would scold her for sneaking drugs into the house, they would chase off boys. They could boldly go where no machine had ever gone before. They were real people -- surrogates. They took a liking to things. They thought like we do. They thought.

In Gulu, there was such a human data center. A Ugandan entrepreneur, Jacob Obote, had set it up earlier this year and had made his mint in the mobile telco boom only a few years prior, now eager to bring his human data centers to Uganda. For good reason. Just one of these centers might employ up to 10,000 people. Ninety-eight percent of the avatars would do menial tasks - routine cleaning at an office, traffic direction, manual labor. It wasn't glamorous work, but because it was largely visual, using simple motions, even the most illiterate people (computer or otherwise) could find work in such a way. The higher paying jobs, controlling the androids that babysat, prepared food, danced or 'serviced' the occasional lonely bachelor, were reserved for the elite; people who underwent very intense (and very expensive) ethical and technical training.

This was the job the jobless whispered about and even the employed, dreamt about. Everyone wanted to be hired to work as an avatar.

* * *

My eyes darted over the azoic landscape out of the back window of the coach. It was a tight fit, this one. Coaches are made to carry about 30 people comfortably, 38 if they're all from the village where the work is hard, food is sparse and people are rail thin. In the city it's not uncommon to see nearly 60 stuffed into them. On this horrifically hot afternoon I had the pleasure of being passenger 61.

When we finally approached Gulu I was exhausted. With every corner there was the fear that the coach would tip over and slide down a ravine, or the axel would break and we'd flip down a ravine or the road would end and we'd drive right off the edge --- into a ravine. If a 2,000 foot fall didn't kill us, there was always the threat of a hijacking by the resistance army that lives here. What they are resisting, I don't think anyone even remembers. That's the way it's been and that's the way it will continue to be.

On the way into town we passed along a long abandon railway. I thought about the stories my parents had told me of their home and the rail system there and decided I couldn't tell which would be worse - an oversold coach or an oversold train car. Several young brown faces ran alongside the vehicle as we approached the coach station.

"Seebo! Seebo! Money for me! Pins for me! Food for my sister!" they were shouting until they saw no white faces on board and they branched off and went back to kicking around a football they had fashioned together out of plastic bags, their bare feet slapping the red dust into the air as they ran.

It took another few minutes but after the woman had all exited and the coachmen had untied all the luggage from the top of the vehicle for the men, I was able to sneak through the front door. I tossed a few shillings to the driver and walked away from the chaos of identifying baggage and collecting items that had come loose during the trip. I've made the mistake of traveling with lots of luggage before so now I travel light, with a small rucksack that stays on my person at all times. If nothing else it saves time.

In the distance I saw my contact and his family waving towards me, excitedly. I smiled and picked up my pace. To the left I noticed a small group of dusty teen aged boys staring at me while shushing each other. They'd recognized my patches and they knew I'd come here carrying the type of knowledge that made men here rich. I could see the fantasy in their eyes as they watched me go.

***

"He needs a job," the man said to me. The way he carried his 'o' was as African as it gets. Abruptly cut, but shaped with the whole mouth. "He wants to find work…as an abata."

This was a very African thing too, the word had been deconstructed and phonetically reconstructed by tongues that have trouble pronouncing their v's and r's. It came back in another form, completely stripped of all context and meaning. It no longer sounded like a word. To me, it sounded like a noise.

Abata. The sound a tin can makes when it hits the concrete.

Abata-Abata! An old sneaker in the dryer.

Ab-ata-Ab-ata! A night owl's wings as it swoops across the moonlit sky.

I smiled and shook his hand warmly, "Ehhhh, an Avatar, seebo? It takes much training to make a good one."

"Yes, his marks are good and he is very bright, the brightest of all his school mates."

"One day it may happen," I said as I knelt down to speak with his son. He was no more than eight or nine, good health, and shy as are many kids around this age. "…when he's older," I continued. But even if he were, I'm not here to recurit. I'm here to help. How is here?" I often phrase my sentences in the way they speak to each other.

"Ahh, you see, you techno-philes, it's always work with you. You have to slow down and enjoy."

"But if we weren't where would your business be?" We laughed together.

David Enye ran a small non-government organization here in Gulu, a training center for refugees and otherwise disenfranchised people. It was a fledgling operation but remarkably effective for the region. They taught soft skills and computer literacy - typing, faxing, note taking - that sort of thing. He himself had been trained in the better schools of Nairobi some time ago. His son would follow in his footsteps, I was sure of it. Part of my assignment was to visit groups like his and offer my expertise, find more efficient use of resources and so forth. Some areas needed it more than others which is why it was a pleasure to visit with Enye, his was one of the groups that didn't need much help at all.

What they were troubled with was a vicious computer virus that was shutting down some of their machines. If nothing else it's a bit ironic that a place that's often the birth of deadly human contagions had also become the birth place of many rampant computer viruses. The proximity and frequent traffic to and from Jacob Obote's data center were of concern to many. He didn't want an outbreak shutting down his industry. My job would be to secure the computers in the region, diagnose the viruses (who might have created them), educate people about how to avoid them and then head over to Obote's to see if any of his center's data had been compromised.

It sounds straight forward enough but in a way unlike any other place on the planet, this place, this continent, has a way of complicating things. But it wouldn't be Africa if there weren't a bit of wonder.

Chapter 2: Hoppers

Society has always dragged this continent along like it was broken wing on the side of this great bird, Earth. About a decade ago the First Nations collectively decided to amputate. For good reason, things were deteriorating faster than they were improving. In 2012, after they’d flattened all their forests, Mozambique was sold off by it’s government to become a prison state for China’s convicts. Part of a beautification process to get rid of their heathens (by heathens I assume they mean poor). Soon the North American Union followed suit, as did the Europeans. A land worth sending the worlds worst too. The people living there were all but forced out in lieu of these towering new expensive prisons and this country has become one of the wealthier countries in sub-Saharan Africa as the result. Billions of dollars a year from foreign governments just to keep the lights on in prisons thousands of miles away, in a country most of them have never seen. Free meals for life, a cool place to sleep, a decent connection. These prisoners are the envy of the region. It’s too ironic, then, that even this prison is above the reach of the local people. When they commit crimes they go somewhere else, this prison is for First-World offenders only. I know what life is like there. It’s only this job that got me released.

My parents, conceived me in early 1999 in Mumbai. They talk about the night often, often failing to omit the parts that make me want to wretch like how father had locked himself out of his flat, so they got it on in the shelter of his auto-rickshaw. Her father was so furious at the man who had defiled and impregnated his virgin daughter that they fled the country, eloping in the one place where they knew he’d never bother them, Nairobi. It was there that he opened his restaurant The Sultan Pepper which he still owns today. I was born shortly after the opening of the restaurant, which is why I’ve never been back. My parents had no desire to return. So I am Kenyan. I learned to walk, I soiled many diapers, I scraped my knees, I kissed a few girls….and then a few more...it wasn’t long before I discovered a love for computers.

I became a walking contradiction; I worked for a Cyber Terrorism Squad by day and I used what I learned to hack better than the criminals that I apprehended at night. I was a burglar of sorts, pilfering mainframes and databases for banking information, stealing money from corporations that were too big to notice what amounted to petty theft. It was a way of life for a lot of us. We stole from the rich to become the rich. If I had been any less of a cyber-thief I’d have ended up in the local prison and eventually dead, but since I became known as a world class hacker they sent me to ‘Mo. I spent the next five years in that prison. I’d still be there if it weren’t for, again, my skills as a hacker.

A developmental group had come to the prisons looking for engineers, mechanics, programmers and architects. People with aptitude and a certain intuitiveness for things high-tech. As an internationally sanctioned program, they were able to work out a deal that let white collar criminals out on parole while doing work that benefited society. If you completed your sentence with them you could apply for release on good-behavior. They offered everyone an alternative to living in ‘Mo for the rest of their lives. We could earn our freedom by becoming teachers for those that the last fifty years seemed to steamroll over in the blink of an eye. We’d get our passports back and we’d be free to travel within continental Africa. In other words, they’d let us leave one prison so that we could make a bigger one our playground. We were given electronic kit and visas that allowed us roam freely, from assignment to assignment, until our chore-time was served. At that point we’d get extracted and sent back to wherever we’d come from and we’d be reinstated as citizens. Space travel was the only thing that remained off limits. Only scientists and the filthy rich and their families lived on the orbital station, which had a population of less than 5,000. Felons couldn’t leave the planet, which meant that even when we could leave this landmass, we’d still just be trading one continental prison for a planetary one.

And so, I volunteered to become a teacher of technology; a digital man on this depressingly analog continent, on his way to Gulu to teach villagers the difference between a mobile and a tablet. In some cases… a rock.

My cab driver was a Chinaman (most of them are these days). My chinese isn’t so good but it’s getting better. After the Chinese government began subsidizing it’s entrepreneurial citizens bids to conquer the African market, there was huge boom in the sino-expatriate population. The “African land grab” was back on, this time from the Asians who came from China, Korea, Japan, India, Taiwan, all over. But that five year subsidy had more Chinese coming here than all the rest combined. I assume this one is here for the same reasons, or perhaps he’s the relative of a contractor. I don’t ask, Cabbies have a way of stretching conversations out longer than they need to be. There’s a pigeon dialect called Swahinese (swan + ha + ease), an amalgamation of English, various Bantu languages like Swahili and Mandarin. I picked up quite a few new words in prison. Mainly the Chinese, speak it to cope with the plethora of languages spoken south of the Sahara. They just start throwing out words and hope the locals can catch at least one out of every three.

“Yo wa Chinese very good,” he says to me over his shoulder.

“Gǎn xiè, bwana. Better than your English!”

The quick car is an American invention. From deep in the labs of GM. It looks something like a smart car with wheels but it uses a combination of compressed air and magnetism to fly between ten and eight feet off the ground. It can only sustain such altitudes for a few minutes at a time, which takes a wicked toll on fuel. They’re meant to be two seater vehicles, three, tops. It’s what a glorified auto-rickshaw, designed by MIT students; perfect for cabbies and bachelors but bad for everyone else. The locals call them hopahs (hoppers) because of the way they take to the air for short distances. They used to think boda-boda were dangerous but hopper traffic is like ten people on the road firing sling shots in the same general direction and trying not to have the stones hit each other. Considering the fact that many of the drivers are often drunk and you start to see the problem. There’s been at least a hundred cases of them coming down on top of pedestrians and cyclist as well. Still, it’s fastest way to get anywhere in a teeming urban center like this.

The cars and their hybrid engines weren’t cheap when they debuted in the first world, but they proved so dangerous that they were promptly banded and sent to places like this. Again, nothing but the worst for us! I’ve heard that in New York and in London they use fourth generation quick cars that have fusion engines and higher powered magnets. All the cities, I’m told, are lined with neodymium rods. The rods help stabilize the flight of the vehicles, also providing a natural order to traffic. Vertical neodymiums allow for their vehicles to get as high as 100 ft. Half the vehicles in those cities don’t even touch the ground any more. It’s beneath them I suppose.

The shīfu zhàn on the other hand is full of all types of vehicles, mostly traditional taxis, share taxis (motatus), coaches, and quick cars. But you also see the occasional sky-cycle and other such exotic things. I assure you, the story of how each of those vehicles ends up here, is much more interesting than mine. Some come through the black market, stolen in Europe, smuggled through Spain, brought to Africa via submarine and driven on massive trucks all across Africa. In prison I met one of the men who managed such an operation. He told me that the ingenious part was the submarines, there are so many pirates and warships terrorizing the shores that no one thinks to look below the waters. “Of course,” he told me, “If my mariners were ever caught by European or American Naval radar, they’d be blown out of the water immediately. It’s a high risk job but it’s also incredibly lucrative, I made millions in only a years time.” He went on to tell me that they sold mostly to the Egyptian, Moroccan and Nigerian governments. The vehicles then somehow trickled down, through a system of distribution I didn’t bother paying attention to, into the hands of the wananchi in countries all over Africa. It was a fascinating story, really.

Many are cast-offs from the first world, especially from Japan. The Japanese basically pay African importers to take their junk automobiles. Space is so limited there that it’s cheaper to pay the cargo and refurbishment fees for African manufacturers and resellers than to buy landfill space. Plus, for them it’s just another way to sustain their businesses by clearing out their warehouses, selling off back-stocked parts.

A sharp turn distracts me from my thoughts, jolting me as the driver makes a sharp turn to dodge a particularly tall payload on a truck. They don’t get that high above traffic, the quick cars, it amazes me that there aren’t even more fatalities. They’re far from the most graceful man-made inventions to take to the air. I think they might get their name because of how quickly people get sick in them.

“We are near,” the driver says pressing his horn down at the other hoppers whizzing past us. “You pay now. Fare 7,000 shilling.”

Runners, as they are known, are people who take special hires, knowing they can’t afford them. When they arrive at their destination it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they got their name by taking off as soon as they can. I’ve heard stories of some leaping out of the cars while they’re still in there, rather risking a broken leg or sprained ankle from the ten foot fall than arrest or vigilante justice from a furious cabbie. I hand over the fare looking over his shoulder. Outside, just a few feet below, the taxi park was alive with the fervor of a thousand men hustling their services. I’m not offended by his demanding, in a city this large, and poverty this high, I’m sure most of his passengers turn out to be runners.

I should explain the way it all works for any of you who haven’t been to Africa in the past forty years or so because it hasn’t changed much:

MOTATU (SHARE HIRE)

You gather with the crowd of other people waiting for a lift, hovering near the entrance of the park -- it’s not really wise to go inside, lest you want to get robbed. You wait for a vehicle to either pass by, with what’s called a hanger leaning out the window, screaming out the direction of where his vehicle is headed and how much cheaper his fare is than every other driver in the city. If the place where the driver is head is anywhere near you want to go, then you just hop in.

TAXIS AND QUICK CARS (SPECIAL HIRES)

You hover near the same entrance but as an empty vehicle leaves, you simply wave your arms to flag it down. You’ll often get quite a few guys approaching you directly, but these are usually the scammers who are no longer trusted by even the other cabbies, thus, they can’t stage their vehicles in the park anymore. Faring with them is always a gamble…

AUTO-RICKSHAW, BODA BODA AND SKY-CYCLE

All the danger of the quick car with none of the protection or bulk. Still, if you’re this daring just wait by the entrance, they’ll swarm you in seconds.

COACH

There are only a few coach hires, but the ones that are available tend to be crowded, expensive and slow. The advantage is they go directly to their destination with few stops along the way. Whereas motatu’s stop every fifteen minutes for any idiot on the side of the road, these guys just keep going. They tend to be better kept and they smell nicer than the share hires. These come by on a fixed schedule and stop three places in town. The shīfu zhàn, somewhere near the nicer hotels and a more affluent suburban area. Simply wait at the stop and these will come right to you. Although the ride is nicer, the perceived wealth of the passengers makes them targets for frequent hijackings and hold-ups. Sometimes the thieves take the luggage and go, sometimes it’s far worse.

“G’day, sir.” I tell the cabbie as the vehicle lowers to the ground and the door whizzes open. He nods, not really hearing me at all, his mind has already moved ahead to his next challenge for the day, the next person, the next location and the next potential runner. The thin layer of red dust that covers the ground is stirred by the rising quick car, as I step down to the pavement. My mind too had moved ahead, to Gulu.

Chapter 1: Shīfu Zhàn

Some people lead linear lives that rationally advance from point to point. Others crash into unexpected, terrifying, and random happening like hurried bodies heading towards the metro. Some people live in the real world. The rest of us live in Africa.

Mux - (n) short for multiplexer, a device that detects two or more input signals and outputs them as a single result

In 2008 the word ‘mux’ came to refer to anything related to complex technologies. In 2010 it came to refer to people like me. A pun on the mission to spread the use and understanding of technology, derived from the the word ‘missionary’. Historically, missionaries were people whose work it was to convert people who did not share their faith. They were people like Dr. David Livingstone, Francisco de Vitoria and Juan Diego. They put their faith into the world like an air borne vector and infected millions. If I could stop things like mass disease and death by simply ‘believing’, I wouldn’t be here right now. I got the tougher job, I should say.

The turn of the century brought many things to the world. An omnipresent internet, clean tech, human-machine interfaces, stem cells, mobile devices...iTunes. A great deal of achievement in a short period of time. I suppose this description isn’t doing any of it justice… to say the 21st century advanced human achievement is like saying Antebellum ‘advanced’ civil rights in America...like saying light speed is ‘quick’ and gravity is ‘everywhere’. That is, the expressions don’t say anything at all. It doesn’t say enough. At least nothing you can quantify, and everything is quantifiable.

The average human brain weighs approximately 3 pounds. It takes two seconds for a cheetah to reach 45 miles per hour from standing. The moon is perpetually stealing the Earth’s centrifugal force, causing the planet to slow it’s rotation by roughly 1.5 milliseconds every century. Everything is quantifiable. It took five hundred years for the United States of America to build a world empire. If you’re lucky enough to be in the hypercenter of nuclear blast, you’ll be vaporized before the electrical signals from your sense organs can reach your brain.

I said before that in 2010 the word ‘mux’ came to refer to us. By that I mean me. What one would call a muxtionary. A teacher. I bring fire to cavemen and computers to communes. It’s my job. We turn witch doctors into alchemists and alchemists into physicists. Intellectual evolution quantified. It’s not that it’s easy, it’s not that people here want it. It’s because here we’re standing on the edge of the word and, for us, the earth is flat. I’m just here to keep a few less people from walking over...

* * *

“...this is way the world ends, not with a bang...” There was a vagrant mumbling to himself in the archway of building as I walked by. As he spoke, wafts of washbin gin and body odor trailed behind, tugging for my attention.

“...but a whimper,” I finished in my head. I could teach him a thing or two about the end of the world, I thought as I walked by. I looked out of the corner of my eye back at the bearded, destitute man wondering why he was reciting T.S. Elliot poems for change. He must have been a professor or something in better times. The street was lined with others like him. Something like how my parents described India at the turn of the century. People wiping their asses with their hands and flinging it off in the distance, hands clawing at your feet accompanied by the most pathetic voice you’d ever heard begging for work or for coins, the smell of a million unwashed bodies, a veil over the entire city.

A thousand shitty, dirty, begging hands.

I can’t say for sure, I’ve never been to India...probably never will but they’re on the other-side of things, now. A better side. Vibrant culture, rich nation, hyper-industrialized, advanced... Two of the largest international businesses in the world have moved their headquarters to Mumbai. It’s not first-world yet but they’ve made remarkable progress. I’d like to visit soon, maybe on assignment but it’s out of my range for a vacation spot. I’d never get in any more, a passport with stamps from anywhere outside of the Western hemisphere and you end up on a waiting list so long, your grandchildren will still be in line. Unfortunately my parents had me here and when it comes to passports, conception doesn’t count.

When you ‘re living in the worlds toilet, it’s like that. They think anyone living here will have an agenda (probably because we aught to). First world countries punish us before we can punish them by keeping us out.

My next job is taking me to more remote regions than I’m used to. A tiny village outside of Gulu in Uganda. Where people live like it’s still 1492 and the ‘new world’ has yet to become the series of unfortunate regrets it was just waiting to turn into. One discovery I’m betting the West wished they could un-find as soon as Livingstone got himself mortally ill from malaria and shitting. It’s gotten better but this whole region needs help...even if they’d just as soon jump off that edge we’re standing on because they don’t know any better.

As I walked out of my hotel building, past the vagrant and onto the overcrowded street I push my arm in the air. Two very quick gestures, as passing people bump into me, let the cabbies know that I want their business. This time of morning, the city is just waking up but the cabbies been up for hours scavenging. The streets are only just beginning to breathe. Thousands of people pushing past each other in every direction, going nowhere doing absolutely nothing, going absolutely nowhere. By noon the population will double and it’ll be difficult enough to even walk, but the mid-day jam will effectively stop the day for anyone in a vehicle. That will be followed the lunch-time jam, which will result in traffic so thick, only the quick cars will move and that’s only because they can go over it all. Evening jam is the worse, walking is a bad idea because by then the streets are filled with the excrement and waste of the thousand people who are fortunate enough to not be stuck right where you are any more. It’s also the cooler part of the day and the mosquitos come out only to find they’re beaten and outnumbered by the swarms of beggars.

This is the state of poverty -- people restless, ignorant and helpless to their own biology. They walk and beg because they haven’t got a clue what fucking else to do with their time. Stand and burn or sit and burn, makes no difference to the fury of the sun. Just over the horizon that bright red god is peaking over the edge of the earth. Only nine hundred hours and already 36 degrees centigrade.

Most of the people out this time of day are laborers in the heart of the city. Building up the new this, tearing down the new that. Apes have better work than they do, these days. A good portion are indeed also destitute; pickpockets, muggers, drug dealers, whores, bookies, wanderers, zealots. They make the city come alive with their drunken jokes and incoherent exaggerations of the lives they could have had...if they’d been born elsewhere. At least six each day will claim they’re related to Obama. The rest I can only assume are like me. Digital men walking through a depressingly analog world where they don’t belong. It might be the business man with the unfortunate assignment of wooing a particularly nostalgic client, or the tourist who’s ended up in the worst part of town, or (too much like me) other muxtionaries here only to find their way to nearest bus they can afford.

Whatever the case, the city is for losers. No one here is worth your time. They’re either in transit or they’re stuck here living each day one coin away starvation, two streets over from aids and only a few layers of clothing away from whatever the insects and elements have to offer.

Shuddering at the thought I pick up my pace.

“Africa doesn’t have any beautiful cities,” a friend once told me.

“Rome is over two thousand years old and it still looks like angels lactated the marble they used to sculpt the whole place! Nairobi, on the other hand is like all the worst parts of a 1970’s kung-fu flick, minus the Asians, minus the martial arts, minus the mystery, and minus anything people actually want to watch. And then they let Macroslop and all the big tech companies in to vomit billboards everywhere. How else can I say it? Don’t go, friend. It’s half-way between disgusting and rotting flesh. You’re better off here.”

And this of the place he once called home.

I didn’t even bother bringing up the trip to my mates. I made my peace with it all when I signed up.

TECHNOLOGY EXPERTS WANTED

TRAVEL THE WORLD

ALL EXPENSES

The ad came into my life as I told you before; I crashed into it. And I was terrified. Five years had made me cautious but this was a reckless feeling; the first thing I’d actually wanted to do in such a long time that it wasn’t an enjoyable revelation. You read somethings...and it’s like they’ve been there all along, in the back of your mind, the faint glow around a neurotransmitter in your brain that’s been waiting to fire for years. It was deciding the only thing you’ve ever wanted to do was be a hacker after chasing them your entire life as an officer of the law; Cyber Terrorism Division. It was realizing you’ve made a mistake after the world’s already crucified you for it. It was regret. I wanted to get out now because it occurred to me that I had never thought it was a possibility. It’s hard to explain something like this.

I leaned forward as the quick car hovered down in front of me, the driver hanging out the window expecting.

“Where you go, sir ?”

“Shīfu Zhàn,” I told him flashing a bank note in his face. In his tongue it means ‘driver station’, I was going to the taxi park where all the cabs and buses gather. There was a hiss, the sound of a piston triggering a gyro that pivoted a latch. The door to the vehicle slide along the rails of the undercarriage and opened. I looked back at the vagrant who was now just a few yards away. If T.S. Elliot knew how silly his words would sound coming out of the mouth of a drunk, homeless Kenyan in the year 2030; as humanity teetered on the verge of the actual end, he might have changed his poem. But then again, the world is always ending for us, isn’t it? On the eighth day god gave everyone madding anxiety.

“This is how the world ends,” I smiled getting in the cab, “Not with a bang, with that guy. The philosophizing bum!”

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