She always seems to roll down London’s streets. Does not matter what time of day, how and when.
“Spare some change please, brotho!”
Always calls you brother.
You are NOT the only person she throws that type of endearment. Seconds later she approaches two chatting women.
“Hello dear sistrers, please spare some change.” The “sistrers” have been caught off guard.
“Please!” She insists, flashing teeth decorated with yellow patches; the tongue densely white, you might wonder if she has been licking chalk.
Then comes a limping, elderly man holding a brown stick.
“Hello Oncle!”
Old fella, does not stop.
“Oncle please, spare some change.”
“It’s … it’s. Too…” Mzee’s mouth stays open like he is chewing something he cannot swallow.
The begging woman seems genuinely amazed.
“Oncle, soooory. Please. Some change.”
Stammering Mzee finishes his sentence. “Too. Ho-ho-hot.”
Yes; we are in the hottest July ever recorded in the UK since 1957, according to Sky News. Summer roars with pollution, pollen and flu, across streets of London.
“Oncle, I have not eaten today. Please spare a pound.”
Uncle’s mouth flutters. Lips quiver. Fingers clutch his brown stick, firmly.
“I can’t br-br-bree…”
You approach the two. Our dear old fella is visibly, relieved; manages to escape.
She stares at you. Heavy fluttering eyelashes. Long, tussled black hair with shades of grey. She could be Indian, Afghani, East European, Irish even Somali.
And despite the roughness of life still carries kilos of beauty. A mother, a wife. Someone’s aunt. Someone’s daughter.
She is wearing a pair of khaki-white shorts, and a T-shirt that was once red but now pink; unwashed. You notice the wrinkles – not of age but weariness and fatigue. Living on the streets, fending off other beggars and urchins. Life for female rough sleepers is not a picnic.
“Brotho, help, please.”
You hand over some coins.
“Thanks, brotho.”
One of her hands, quickly, caresses your shoulder. She flashes a flirting grin, teasing glance, the other hand with long, dark, sooty, un-trimmed fingernails, flies back to her chest, opens a window, slightly, enough for you to glimpse her breast.
“You. Want. Bizzness?”
And herein lies our current global urban reality.
“Come on Brotho. Want. Bizzness?”
You walk on.
Few days later, on a different part of the same vicinity, she is alone, seated on a half hidden staircase of a building, injecting a syringe into her calf.
The huge pretty, white-brown eyes seem to be in flames. Charred lips widen up in stoned ecstasy. Her legs tremble and shake, as the needle boosts her system with chemicals.
“Come here!” She wails.
“I want you now! Nigggggggggger!”
Bless your eyes.
