Waiting in a Coma - from 'Waiting'

Mikey DW & Itumeleng Motsikoe

It’s amazing what goes through your head when you can no longer engage with the

act of living. Initially I was obsessed and consumed by all the time I had wasted

waiting in fear and cowardice and queues and lines: waiting for things to improve and

happiness to find me – waiting for the pain to go away and the old wounds to heal:

waiting for someone who would come and make it all worthwhile: waiting for my son

to be born. I realised that the value of life did not reside in what I had possessed; or

what I thought or what I believed; or even what I aspired to – life’s worth is defined

by the things we do. Throughout our lives, we are made to believe that this endless,

gluttonous consumption and callous destruction are the fuels that fire progress. In a

better life, progress is the victory of peace over war; the sound of carefree laughter

instead of angry dissent – consciousness as opposed to dogma. (PAUSE) Call me

that you will, but always remember that I am so much more than your most all

encompassing perception – more even than my own most fertile imagination could

conjure. I am not just the homeless child that you scorn, or the alcoholic mother or the

criminal father. I am all of this and more. I am you in the mirror; I am the outcast in

your prison – inside your cell of flesh and bone. I am your son and your daughter and

your conscience. I am the object of your scorn and your pity. I am all of this and I am

nothing because that’s what you choose to think! Everyday we teach our children that

they can become anything that they want to be. We tell them that they should dream

big and strive purposefully to achieve their dreams, but then we turn around and with

a smile on our faces, we place them squarely in a tiny little box with a big label: boy,

girl, black, white, Christian, Muslim, Batswana, ama-Xhosa, good, bad, clever, stupid,

Masarwa…