Pavement Stories

The pavement is your inspiration for whatever job you do. It is still the real world, but I won’t blame you, if you think otherwise. It’s because of cellphone addicts that bump into you because they are walking and texting. I move out of the way to avoid collision. After all, what they see in their phones grows crops, feeds the hungry, rocks kids to sleep and tells them stories about the twins: the sun and the moon. Does it?

The pavement is an inspiration for people working in online newspapers. They cannot walk five blocks without getting two story ideas, but they don’t see them because they are texting the editor about a video that is trending. The city councillor who has many followers is baffled when he loses his seat to a woman without a car and a house. She’s renting an apartment. The pavement is an inspiration because it pricks a possibility, you might bring to the staff meeting next Tuesday. The pavement is broken by traffic lights. People cross the light in different ways: texting and walking, pushing a stroller, driving a wheelchair or lovers drunk out of their mind. Mind you, it depends where you are. There are certain neighborhoods when you do not see such a human painting, because residents drive.

Impression. Thanks to the internet, impression seems to be our reason for living, and not impressing parents and kids, but faceless online strangers. People on the pavement are strangers too, but we feel the need to impress them. That is how we miss ‘life.’ That’s how we miss a story idea, a creative idea, a financial idea, you name it.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Blogger Without Borders