POETIC LICENCE: RABBIE SERUMULA

I HAVE seen the leashes you put on your 5-year-olds.

How they scream uncontrollably when they desire, or don’t agree with something.

The wrath you unleash upon them in the cookies and sweets aisle.

We have different levels of calm. We cannot be expected to direct our rage the same.

But we are not talking about how many lashes they ducked, or how many landed in that aisle and activated their tear ducts.

That alone is another discussion.

We are talking about how well we trust them with a container of goodies in the same room.

Surely our bundles of joy can’t be up for that task?

In the same vein, how do we trust them in our absence with a mask?

A thing they have recently started to despise.

A thing they know needs to be removed when eating, sleeping, bathing, playing alone in the garden.

A thing that is only needed because “my parents say so”, essentially.

A thing that goes off when parents are not looking, eventually.

Sometimes even when they are.

Is that not a burden too heavy to carry? I have seen their age mates in Congo, standing shorter than the AK47S they wielded.

They have grown to become beasts of no nation;

With hands like babies. Yet can strangle. With petite fingers that can pull triggers too.

The hands on our bundles of joy are also capable.

Capable of a more mundane task of lowering a mask.

This is what they are hot-wired to do; removing an obstruction from their mug.

How well can we trust them to disobey nature?

Is letting our children go back now to grade R maybe a means to an end?

They could learn survival.

Leaders of a new world where a fever and a cough, unsanitised hands to the face are no playground things.

Where merry doesn’t go round, neither sway about on a tango swing seat.

Nor does merry elevate on the other side of a see-saw. Or grapples at monkey bars.

There’s no monkey business about Covid-19, a devastator in a world we are sending them to.

How close to you should it come?

Yes – you may have to go to work and there isn’t a soul to look after the centre of your universe.

Yes – tables need food. You need to bring it there.

But how dare you work from home, yet send your child to a war zone?

A war zone that has prepared over

1.5 million graves for Covid-related deaths.

Can they be trusted with a container of goodies in the same room?

But perhaps they are destined to be rulers of this new world.

To become the first breed of faceless humans.

A human who looks closer into each other’s eyes, and non-verbal communication shoots straight to the soul.

It’s not like there is any other facial feature to see.

But perhaps this is the end of media standards of beauty. The end of vanity. Of racism.

All that will matter is the colour of their eyes.

It is much better than comparing that of their skin.

They could be better than us. Those that make it.

Is it worth it?