Shiny Suits and Cellular Phones

It seems to me that my country folk have learnt to stand up and raise their voices for all the wrong reasons, again like the incident with the conductor, the officer and the bespectacled woman, this incident happened when my pockets had no money to spare. No extra money to give over, but like everyone around me, I wage a silent rebellion. Broken on the inside, and smiling on the incident. Again like on that other day I paid a dollar and got in with a smile.

There was one amongst us, he who chose to rise against the oppression of the sweat covered man and his clutch pressing fellow. Having gone 200 metres in contemplative silence which involved taking my phone out and sliding it up and down so my fellow passengers could see what an impressive little gadget my HTC was (I am telling you the brand dear reader because for so long I had relied on the charity of my father who chose to loan me his utility phones but never to buy them for you-once again I am showing the world that I am coming up).


I digress however.


Amongst us was one scion of human rights, and he declared in a loud, albeit scraggly voice, that he had not paid a dollar, but instead he and his cronies-a little old lady with a baby and a pale face youngster had in fact only paid $0.50c each, oh yes he did.


Shocked and amused at this utter disregard of the man with the fare, I turned to face he-who-had-spoken, only to see an unimpressive fellow with his nostrils flaring every time he finished a sentence, unimpressed I turned to face the front,


“Pay or get off,” the conductor insisted.


“I will do no such thing you are violating my constitutional rights,” to which the other unimpressive fellow added, “I am coming from work.” A statement which to me seemed to have no relevance in the ongoing discussions, but back and forth they went until the fellow who had started the furore, shouted “take me back to the bus station!” by this time I had happily started chiming in...In a voice low enough for me to hear, “it is not fair,” “an abomination this is,” “curses to you and the bus.”


Nevertheless, the driver turned his rickety one-dollar undeserving bus to take the errant passengers back. No sooner had the bus turned that the little unimpressive fellow in the back started demanding, “I want to get off now, let me off, I want to get off!” Unimpressed by this little unimpressive fellow the driver ignored him, however we had to stop at an intersection, and that little unimpressive fellow having decided that he had had enough went out through the window, amidst outraged bellowing from the conductor


“You will crack my window!” ‘”Desist I say, desist!”


Out he went like a little jack in the box!


All throughout this, a very impressive gentleman with a shiny suit and two phones, much more impressive than mine, for he held a Blackberry and a slick looking LG which he kept switching from hand to hand, like me I suppose, he did this to show our fellow passengers, how much he had come up.


He with a look of irritation and a loud impressive voice boomed to the driver, ‘stop the bus, I want to have a talk with this miscreant.’


‘You,’ he pointed to the miscreant, ‘come out now’



He unfolded his shiny suit framed body to his full impressive height, so impressive was it that I had to crane my neck to see his little head perched on narrow littler shoulders.


“Up to no good ey?”


“Not gonna pay the fair ey?”


“You think you are a hot shot ey?” On an on he went, hackling the little fellow whilst my fellow passengers cheered and sniggered.


I to say the least, was appalled. He, the little unimpressive fellow, was merely standing up for himself. It seems somewhere along the line, Zimbabweans lost the plot completely. The oppressors go about in shiny suits, impressive heights and two phones each. Whilst the rest of us languish in cheery doom!