"Extract from an Insane Anonymous Meeting" -- zvipoc

If you’d asked me what I learnt last term when I was a senior in high school, I would have told you that I’d learnt that time in lessons went by much faster if you talked to a friend. Perhaps I would have told you that  I learnt that the best place to sit in class is right at the back, to the left of the classroom and as close to a window as possible. There was always something more interesting outside than in a trigonometry lesson. I definitely would have told you that I’d learnt to spend as much time at school as possible because home meant parents and parents weren’t as much fun as the boys at school. No. No they weren’t. Parents meant forced homework and forced family dinners and forced chores and forced talks and forced everything else. No. I preferred to be at school with Bobby.

Hello everyone. My name’s Emma Gloss and I’m insane. I had a baby at the age of nineteen, exactly a year and a half ago today. We named her Sky. I had just started university then and I was doing an accounting course that I quite enjoyed. Sky’s father travelled frequently and sometimes my parents couldn’t take her so I often took her to school with me. I would make sure she was sufficiently fed, that she had on a fresh diaper and that the window was slightly open to allow for some fresh air so I could leave her in the backseat of my car. I mean, we’ve all had to at some point, haven’t we? Lessons were only thirty minutes long so I’d always found her just as happy as I’d left her. The year went on, the material got more and more complicated, lessons had to go on longer and longer and I continued to leave my daughter in the car. I mean, what would a few more minutes hurt?

August the twenty-first, just after midday, I left for school as usual. I was running a little late on the day but I made sure that Sky had everything she needed before I left. What mother wouldn’t? That time, however, just that one time, I didn’t open the window. The next thing I knew, I was in a hospital listening to a doctor explain how my daughter had got heat stroke and died.

The words “crazy” and “insane” started flying around a few months after Sky’s funeral. It had started with the windows. All of a sudden I felt the need, almost like a craving to open every window in range of my gaze. I wouldn’t let it be closed. I wouldn’t let Sky die. Not again. Not my baby.

My obsession with windows quickly expanded to car doors and then fridge doors and then church doors and then any door at all. I began to run around the neighbourhood every morning at 5:45 am to open all the neighbours’ doors. It was the same time every morning, like clockwork. A few weeks after that habit began, I couldn’t sleep at all knowing somebody’s door or window was shut, so I’d run. I’d leave my home and run to wherever I thought a door or a window would be closed. I started to think I could hear Sky crying from behind the closed doors. At first, Sky only called from around the neighbourhood, and then more and more each day, I found myself running further and further until my body gave out and I had to be admitted to hospital .After a careful psychiatric evaluation I found myself in Kupenga Mental Institution.

So a quick fast forward to the present and a repeat of the question about what I learnt last term at the Mental Institutions School for The Insane.

Last term I learnt not to look at my roommate because every time I did, she drew secret government codes on the wall and then licked them off. Doctors didn’t like having to pump crayon from a sixty year old’s stomach. Last term I also learnt that it wasn’t alright to miss my daughter the way I did, that it wasn’t alright to feel guilty or killing her the way I did, that it wasn’t alright to love Sky the way I had. Last term I learnt that there were accepted methods of grief and acceptable ways to handle loss. I learnt we don’t always have the freedom to choose. Last term I learnt to leave people’s doors and windows closed, even when I  heard my baby die behind them.

zvipoc

"Out of the Bubble" -- Langa-Rose

When I read the “out of the” part of the title I immediately concluded that the phrase would end in “box” but alas, my dreams were shattered and my heart dropped. My world turned to grey and the sun no longer shone. My head hung low and I could not bring myself to face the world any longer. All my aspirations for the future dashed to pieces by the absence of that three letter word.

Putting my deep depression aside,  the funny thing is that once you’re told to think or write out of the box your mind instinctively recedes even further into the comforting darkness of the very same box and all of the possible ideas you could have had are trapped. They are trapped like a beautiful butterfly in the cupped hands of an infant. Strange thing the mind is, huh?

Anyway, out of the bubble…the usual thing comes to mind about society having to open its eyes to the many horrors that exist and take place every day, every minute and every second. I think about the constant instruction to step out of our sheltered existences and face reality. I agree totally but this is one of those tasks that are easier said than done. Wouldn’t you prefer to remain in the vacuum-like safety of your bubble than face the frightening statistics of child deaths from starvation?

 Langa-Rose

"The Legend of the Pox" -- #R.T.S.

Mary lay in her bed, feeling as itchy as ever. She had the chicken pox and she was not feeling too great. Not only because her skin was covered in huge, pus-filled pimples but because she felt alienated.

“Julie!” She shouted.

“Yes, Mary?” Her sister answered, rushing into Mary’s room.

“Where did the chicken pox come from?” She asked as though she was angry at the source of the disease.

Julie smiled, grabbed a cushion and sat on a chair next to Mary’s bed. “Well Mary, it’s a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, giggling.

“Alright then. Back in the day, way before grandma’s grandma was even born,” she began, “there was a farmer who owned a large farm with all different types of farm animals: cows, pigs, horses, ducks as well as sheep. But his best thing was a large barn filled with chickens of different types. The farmer fed them all the time, looked after them more than all the other animals. They were his favourite. He even washed them with expensive shampoo.

One day the farmer received terrible news, he was bankrupt which means that he had no money because he had spent all of it on his chickens. He couldn’t look after all the animals and he had to sell some of them so that he could keep the farm. He sold his pigs, cows, horses, ducks and his woolly sheep but he kept his favourite animals – the chickens. The only problem was that he couldn’t look after his chickens as well as he had before. Without all the grooming, the chickens started to fall ill. All their feathers began to fall off and soon the farmer had a large barn full of featherless chickens.

The chickens weren’t too happy about this situation. Without their feathers, they felt cold easily and they also weren’t protected from mosquitoes and other insects. The chickens didn’t understand that the farmer didn’t have money to look after them; they thought he forgot to look after them so they hatched a plan to get back at the farmer,” they both giggled at the pun, “so that he’d remember to look after them. They went to the chicken witch doctor and told him to curse the farmer with chicken skin instead of his normal human skin. 

The witch doctor did what he could and the farmer was cursed.

The next morning, the farmer woke up with gross white and red pimples all over his body. He went to the doctor but the doctor was unable to help. All the doctor did was to name the skin rash ‘Chicken Pox’ because the farmer looked like he had chicken skin on him. The farmer was never healed but the doctor caught the pox and it spread all over the world. The disease was passed on to children, their children and down to their great grand-children, right down to us. Now, the curse has grown weaker so not everyone gets the pox. That’s where the chicken pox came from. The end.”

Mary lay still, looking at Julie with a dazed look. “What does ‘bankrupt’ mean?”

#R.T.S.

"What we learnt first term" -- a collection of writers

What I learnt last term

Last term, I learnt that people tell the truth when they say that sixth form is hard. I never believed it. I mean, five subjects can’t be that bad, but I was wrong. Last term, I learnt that I do more homework for those five subjects than I ever did for the ten I had last year, and I had Geo last year. That says something!

I learnt that my bag can be heavier when I only have three subjects, plus a free period, than it was when I had five subjects and eight periods in one day. Last year, I learnt that sixth form is hard.

Sibo

Last term, was an interesting term indeed. I did a lot of things, learnt a lot of things, the highlight being athletics. At Aths, you cannot afford to slack, neither should you be seen being too ambitious. This is because, if you slack, you won’t do well in your event and might even be replaced, but if you are too ambitious, people will think you are campaigning to be captain. This reminded me of schoolwork. When you slack at it, you achieve nothing but bad grades, but when you work hard and actually pass, people think you want to be a teacher’s pet. Moral of the story is, YOU CAN NEVER PLEASE PEOPLE, SO JUST DO YOU!! J

Tarisai Dahwa

Last term I learnt to reexamine my choices, choices I had made about my future. It was as if the forty year plan I had laid out for my life in a somewhat gridded fashion had been covered up in a coat of thick black paint, blinding me what once made me feel so secure and challenging me to explore several great opportunities. I learnt to plan, not by using the little I thought I knew, but by anticipating the much I knew I could achieve.

Hilina Da Costa Gomez

Last term I learnt that things change with time, including people. I learnt that my view of world and what is around me had suddenly shifted, definitely for the better. Last term I learnt that there were certain things and people I could no longer waste my time on and I had to realize what is truly important. I learnt that life was how I choose it to be and fate was not the path chosen for us but rather the path we choose for ourselves (megamind).

I learnt that it had become literally impossible to do homework in form time since form- time time had been taken away .I learnt that free periods were actually study periods, we had been lied to. I learnt that it was very possible to get a band six mark (0-5) for a literature essay .I learnt that there was far more to school than just school and I loved it!

The Lorax

  

A new year usually means growth, going into a new form or year however, last term I learnt that going into L6 at Arundel felt like completely restarting high school; new uniform, new subjects, new timetable and new responsibilities, all these new things making me look like I’m in form one again. Last term I learnt that I should appreciate every minute whether it be doing homework, sport or spending time with family and friends. It is important to do all those things with one hundred per cent effort and love because you might not be able to do those things for a long time.

Matipa Mutoti

I learnt to always have a good weave because people are always looking at that I learnt to do homework on time and to always be honest with teachers, because they know when you are lying and they will get the truth out of you in the end 

Yoncé

AS is real. I never understood when people said, ‘’ A level is the hardest level of education”. Now the picture is clear. I learnt how to plan my life, how to manage my time wisely and that a ten minute break should always be ten minutes, in fact start planning to leave the area after five minutes. I learnt about the people who are important to me and the people I can live without. I also learnt that all homework must be done, if it is not done you shall find yourself in a predicament.

Nicole Moyo

I learnt that absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder. I learnt how to look as if I’m actually thinking in my Thinking Skills lessons. I learnt the importance of friendship. I learnt how to focus my energy on the things that really matter. I learnt that everybody makes mistakes. I learnt that the small voice inside my head is not actually as small as I thought. Last term, I learnt a lot.

Langa-Rose

Usually learning has a lot to do with education and stuff which is why I am expected to write about that. But that has always been my life and hence would not be worth my freewrite. So last term I learnt more than just the usual. I learnt things that have changed me, helped me to grow. I learnt things I would never learn in a Chemistry or physics lesson. I learnt more than I get from a text book or novel. Last term I learnt a lesson....

Butterfly

New lessons, old lessons, ones I’m still learning:

I learnt that people are complicated and love is hard.

I learnt that there are many important things in life but you need to figure out and focus on what is most important for you. Or things can get very messy.

I learnt that people can be cruel and mean one day, but then, so beautiful and human the next.

I learnt that safe places are almost impossible to create.

I learnt that what you see is sometimes not what you get. Accepting and living with that is not east.

I learnt that space is healthy and being alone can be healing.

I learnt that the sky looks more beautiful the higher you climb.

I learnt God holds it all together.

Miss Bell

"Write in the voice of a child" -- Fiffiem

When I grow up I want to be a doctor.

The dream that we all have when we are growing up. Perhaps it’s because we are born in hospitals and it seems natural to want to be a doctor.

When I grow up I want to be just like her.

Every child has their own personal hero, if only they knew how hard it is to have someone looking up to you.

My life is not fair…

Hold it right there what are you going on about? 

Well all you have to do is wake up go to pre-school  come back, play and sleep. I have bills to pay- homework, a job to keep- being a student and worst of all my stressful  life to deal with.

Fiffiem

"The Mall" -- Matipa Mutoti

The mall – a place for shopping and activities. A place of excitement for a child getting a new pair of shoes and a dreaded place for a husband who has to hold his wife’s shopping bags.

I, however, see the mall as a cultural and social centre. A place specifically designed for us, as humans, to interact with each other and to see how diverse we are – yet similar in many ways. One would not notice this without an agenda at the mall but simply as a fly on the wall.

Entering the mall is entering a different world. The white, fluorescent lights attack my eyes causing brief blindness. Eventually, my eyes pick up the hints of yellow, brown, black, silver and the granite on the pillars. The cool air forms mountainous bumps on my once warm skin. I can smell the ammonia in the cleaning detergents used on the already clean tile floor as I stake out a place where I can become invisible. I find this place just in front of the Apple store.

I stand against pillar with my palms at my side. I move my fingers feeling each granite tile and groove where another tile begins or ends. My back begins to cool as the tiles absorb my heat – I become comfortable.

I look up to my left. I observe the sign of the iconic bitten apple illuminated by white, fluorescent lights looking even brighter against the black background easily grabbing shoppers’ attention. The clear, glass walls allow anyone outside the store to see those inside the all white store. I easily notice two people in the pool of white; a teenage girl wistfully looking at the latest MacBook Air as her mother looks at the iPhone 5C with the same expression on her face. I notice that even though I am not the same race or nationality as they are, I am still able to empathise with their desire.

Boom! The sound of metal dropping to the floor grabs my attention. My eyes follow the sound to the oak wood furnished Parrot’s Cafe to the left of the Apple Store. The waiter who dropped the tray looks relieved that there was nothing on the tray – or any customers around to see - and hurriedly walks away. The warm, brown furnishings give the cafe a relaxing, homely feeling in contrast to the mostly steel and aluminium Parrot’s Express Counter across.

The Express Counter serves a variety of food to cater for many nations and cultures. Beep, beep, beep. The microwave door of the Express Counter opens and seconds later, diffusion causes me smell a warm, blueberry muffin – my favourite. The smell hits the back of my throat giving me the illusion that I can taste the muffin.

“Dankie.” I hear an Afrikaans man that the cashier in his native tongue.

Closing my eyes, I become conscious of the different indigenous languages spoken in the multi-lingual South Africa. I can also hear a French family speaking their language with the same fluency I aspire to speak with one day. I smile to myself, feeling patriotic, as I hear a man speak Shona to the receiver of the conversation.

I open my eyes again and after my eyes adjust to the white light, I make out a glowing  globe moulded from several strips of metal going over, under and across each other a distance away from me but still captivating. The interior designers who put the metal artwork in that spot knew that the mall would be place where cultures meet and mix; from the emotion, food and language. Almost like an airport without the running around.

Matipa Mutoti