Mad Man

Blessings Hara, Zambia

Mapalo walks languidly along the small path that winds like a snake all the way to the market, he realizes the sun indeed has another strength, has another power. Its light is well known, yes, for wielding the power to bring day but what Mapalo realizes this afternoon is that it also has the power to conjure a smell. The sun has a smell. A smell that morphs and bends, taking up that of whatever is in its environment, celestially from above just like a shapeshifter.

Sometimes the sun will smell like red roses, sometimes like freshly mowed grass, sometimes like body odor and sweat, sometimes like nothing at all. This afternoon, the sun smells like complete rubbish because from up there where it shines and shimmers like the earth’s mirror, it is roasting a gigantic heap of garbage that lies a few metres down the road along which Mapalo is coursing.

The rancid smell of rotting rat corpses, fuzzing beef gravy and fermenting fruit, amongst a horde of many other perilous scents, all push away from the heap of garbage like birds due to the sun’s heat, fluttering and wafting into the air, taking flight. The hill, as Mapalo liked to call the garbage heap, always nauseated him whenever he passed by. He fears it will happen again at this moment. But his greatest fear at this time is not the rancid smell of the hill but of something greater, something more rancid.

The hill now has a king, a mad man who has recently appeared these past few days and has set up residence atop the pile of rubbish. As Mapalo continues slowly down the road, approaching the hill, he notices that the mad man is already quite busy. He is dressed in barely anything except for a brown, stained t-shirt that has been torn down to only strips over a long span of time. His shorts show a part of his left buttock and they barely grab onto his waist as they are way over his fitting size.

Mapalo watches with a blend of disgust, disdain, fear and pity as he walks past the mad man. It's difficult for him to look away from this mad man atop his hill because Mapalo’s curiosity has always been his master. The mad man doesn’t notice him as he continues to play with a bruised, shriveled up banana peel. He makes it dance around with its strands bouncing about like an octopus’s tentacles. This makes him laugh aloud. He seems the happiest man in the world. Mad men are the happiest men in the world.

Just as Mapalo is about to penetrate out of the mad man’s territory, the mad man notices him and shouts, “You!” Mapalo holds a lurch in his chest and pauses as he stares at the mad man out of fear. The mad man then continues, “Are you Mapalo? Are you the mad man?” It puzzles Mapalo that the mad man claims that Mapalo, not him, is instead the mad man. It also strongly disturbs Mapalo that this random man knows his name. After seeming to snap out of a trance, Mapalo immediately dashes away from the hill and its king, heading all the way to the market.

(Are you Mapalo? Are you the mad man?)

Madness has a smell. A smell that bends and morphs into the environment that lies within the minds of only those who inhabit it. A smell you will never behold because it can only be smelt by those who inhabit madness itself. The mad man, the happiest man on earth, might have smelt that smell on Mapalo. The mad man was a great puzzle to Mapalo. Are you Mapalo? Are you the mad man? These words still ring in his mind even hours after he returns home.

That night he again spends its entirety awake, eyes wide open, staring into the deep darkness of his room whose lights he has switched off. Over eight hours, he watches as his room’s walls slowly fade away from a black as pure as charcoal’s soot on his kitchen’s walls to a brown the colour of their original wall paint. Sunlight is slowly and softly beginning to pierce his window at dawn. This is not the first time.

He arises out of bed while fingering a large scar that runs down his arm like a river amidst a wide patch of land. He washes his hair and his face and heads out of the house.

(Are you Mapalo? Are you the mad man?)

When Mapalo was told that Schizophrenia is hereditary in his family, he was not seriously devastated nor felt threatened. He felt it was merely a speculation just like everything else that runs out a doctor’s mouth. But with time, the smallest of things ticked him off into a spiral of anxiety.

When he would talk to himself subconsciously, when he would find something way funnier than anyone else — when his laughs would last longer than those of his peers, when he would sometimes feel he had just seen something with his peripheral vision, he felt they were reminders of a destiny laid out for him, served to him like a mother’s meal, an undeniable offer. But above all things, his insomnia was one of his greatest worries, his ability to not sleep for three days straight, whether voluntarily or not.

(Are you Mapalo? Are you the mad man?)

Sleep is a way to explore a different world. Sleep, just like madness, is a gateway to another world. A world that lies only behind closed eyes — closed consciousness, in the same way madness is a gateway to a world that lies only behind closed sanity. For Mapalo the world behind closed eyes felt not thrilling at all, too bland, too boring for a yearning mind like his. For him, sleep had the least entertaining of the three worlds, he preferred to stay awake and take on the first world that showed before open eyes during the day.

For him, day meant day and night meant day as well. He chose not to sleep, to not leave this first world of open eyes even though this world was the most ordinary and experienced of them all and hence could be the least exciting at times. Mapalo now felt he inevitably coursed towards a third world, a greater world, a world that lies only behind closed sanity. Madness is a world. A world that would now still fascinate and entertain even with open eyes. He felt he slowly coursed towards the world of the mad man. The world of the king of the hill.

(Are you Mapalo? Are you the mad man?)

***

Your eyes are wide open. You are staring into the deep darkness of your room whose lights you have switched off. You watch as your room’s walls slowly fade away from a black as pure as charcoal’s soot on your kitchen’s walls to a brown the colour of their original wall paint. Sunlight slowly and softly begins to pierce your window at dawn. This is not your first time. You arise out of bed while fingering a large scar that runs down your arm like a river amidst a wide patch of land. You wash your hair and your face and head out.

When you head out, it’s afternoon and your scar still itches in the blazing and smelly sun. You walk languidly along the small path that winds like a snake all the way to the market, you realize the sun indeed has another strength, has another power. You realize that indeed the sun also has the power to conjure a smell. You realize the sun has a smell. A smell that morphs and bends, taking up that of whatever is in your environment, celestially from above just like a shapeshifter. This afternoon, the sun smells like rubbish. You follow this smell all the way to the top of the hill, the wailing pile of garbage where you have just started going to play these past few days. You seat atop all the rubbish, proudly, happier than you have ever been. You sit atop it with regality just like a king. The king of the hill. You pull up your sagging shorts and scratch your left buttock which peeps through them. You finger the strips of cloth lying across your chest. They were once your t-shirt. Are you Mapalo? Are you the mad man?

Blessings Hara is a Zambian A-Level student in Johannesburg, South Africa. He prefers to be classified as a multipotentialite as he loves so many things of which one of them is creative writing. He's a big music fan too.