Delving deep into this abyss of sordidness fondly referred to as Joburg, I poke its grime laden bowels inducing a throbbing ulcer. Jozi being a marauding beast that it is snarls at us while trying to make an honest living, even a feat wholesome as sleep turns to be plagued by 9-5 horror – we babble with eyes closed; stringing incoherently the dialect of drudges. I darn swear my feet tripped over a string that lamented Malombo’s ghoulish anguish when stepping out of a space cab steered by a tribal bandit!
The daily pilgrimage to Joburg’s underbelly harbours industrial toil at the hands of a bungalow-minded force; mothers and fathers are quarantined temporarily unearthing fool’s gold for a masked master. The temperament is of the wounded as they swing picks into an unwilling surface.
The allure of this realm is widely spoken of, every bit the blatant fib like the supposed boom of commissioner street, which we know isn’t so since none of the wealth filters to the grassroots. Fully punting down this point makes one aware that no man trudging these streets is immune to the madness that ensues on a daily. Gotham and Metropolis are but terrains clad with lavenders and daffodils when compared to this neck of the woods for no square jawed dimwit in tights can quell the menace plaguing Quartz street or even attempt to quiet the sickening rant of Noord street revelers- shit is insane!
Painted with a somewhat broody quill was Phaswane Mpe’s Welcome to our Hillbrow, where the canvas was subject to the inner city’s vile blues. Ailing to the pit of gut the beast that is man, having had his ties with kin severed; a plight owed to a growth devoid spirit and carnal behavior that is seen as hip in this city. Keen is a weeded man’s third eye when roving around veggie grids tended to by hasty merchants who when the days curtain draws to a close pocket meager earnings, it be during these trying times that I feel Joburg should be bludgeoned with a rusty sickle. I am after all entitled to spit cursing phlegm at its paves for PURPLE lives in a city stewing in gag inducing slime!

Man Purple is a Journalism student at Boston Media House and innacitycommunity’s chief writer

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