3rd Mans' Diary insert's - A short play.

Welcome note.

“This is not a short story. It's diary inserts, a series of them. The third mans’ diary inserts. Third man is a son to a Zulu man named Mike. The inserts are written in both third and first person. No respect for these writing rules simply because these days; writers rule! It is the year 2015 after all. Contemporary times and shit. So this is how the dice shall roll; three days, one narrator, one author, one third man, one diary, many inserts and many drugs and hugs. It is an emotional trip, apparently. Buckle down, grab some water. Fucking read.”

Day 1 – Thursday; Mundane varsity.

Welcome officially to the third mans’ diary. This diary is about the third mans’ diary inserts. He inserts actual diary inserts into his diary. It’s nothing major, not like the role of a cremator, it’s just inserts. So in essence he is an inserter. The third man is also the first man, the first person. He comes before the second and he is the third. Identity crisis. He feels like a bystander so he is a bystander. It’s really nothing major, the third man knows not what love is. He is more of a hater, a passive hater, hence the bystander. He is a basic man. Only twenty years old. Ask FNB he really is a ‘Stan’. He likes to get high and write, says its what feels right. High, high on fumes. Not just any old perfume fumes but instead abstract “take you to heaven” type of fumes. At night, he climbs on rhyme like an acrobat, nocturnal by nature - his ink slices through papers until dawn - night bat. The third man; high on life and noticeably low on confidence, he is I. He is the author, the pens’ beholder. Welcome.

“If you read better while on cloud nine, grab a high chair and join me in the clouds , it’s better that way“

So it’s Thursday, phuza Thursday and he is thirsty. He finds himself strawling through university, on that class time rush. No enhancers, just sweets. He is on that sugar sugar rush. He is silent for now, hush hush. He looks around, around and around. His eye sight currently slanting towards delusional, over all these nice-ass-mums. Young girls, not actually mums. All around, it’s just nice-ass-bums. Left, right and center; Nice-ass-bums! Its lunch time, he has to eat. He assures he looks neat. He fixes his shirt and tie, he greets a being that refers to him as friend; “high”. He glances at the time, he cannot eat. Rather unfortunate, it's that class time rush. His mind is elsewhere, he doesn’t want to go to this class, everybody; hush hush. He has a can of vandalism in the bag and ten others in another. He catches eye contact with a stranger, his face lights up, thinking about Hillbrow. Dirty place, infamous for darkness among no light, it's nicknamed “the brow”. He takes a seat on the bench.

“If some candy for the nose helps with your focus, read and hush hush; cut the lines and align them, let your nose vacuum up that plate of snowflake, I dare you.”

“The brow”; a dirty dead part of the city. It used to be the pride of the golden city. Now it’s the pride of all the whores and gold diggers and skanky strippers in the city. The dead streets are also infamous for its many vacant walls - that are heaven for vandals that are as thirsty as I – that are all too inviting of the third man and his gallons of litres. He eats five éclairs while the decision to go to class is pending in his head. Five minutes after eating the sweets, an executive decision is made. He is in the brow in 10 minutes. He finds a wall in a park, sets up a station. His paint - like cheap lipstick on a whore, hugs the wall, so well, it looks as if it’s to never come off - ravishes the walls and as it dries its temporary beauty is made evident as the cracks begin to creep up behind the paint.

He stands back to admire his work. He kisses the wall, and the cans, with a kiss much deeper than one given to the wall. A five minute kiss, around the corner where he just painted. The thirst was real.

“Perfume fumes are more deadly. Paint, spray paint is safer; you ever try and get high of fumes? You should, try yourself. I did”

It's Thursday, Phuza Thursday and he is still thirsty. The fumes helped a tad but it only put him in a slower gear. Third man needs it faster. He needs more. Booze, and maybe some kat to confide in. Gain more. Confidence. Status. Feel good, gain a good feeling, that’ll do the trick with the thirst. Coke, coke is anti-thirst, it’ll help him feel better. Make him drink harder, sober him up. Be a man, strong man. That’s what he needs. He is thirsty and a man needs to quench his thirst or else, death. He calls over the man with all the necessities while he is in the dirty brow. Mr with the necessities brings the whole pharmacy, along with the old pharmacy meds that have been banned for years. He has come to heal his thirst.

Day 2 – Saturday; the aftermath

The third man wakes up for the first time after many hours have come and gone. He seems frightened. He has many questions for himself. He has not one of the answers. Why are his shoes and pants still on? Why are there plates on his study table without any food grease markings? His tummy is feeling stuffed as if he just dinned platters with Kings, why? He does a quick time check.

“Fuck me! I remember nothing”

The third man feels almost nothing after he expresses his slight frustration with his memory loss. He has too many concerns to be stressing about a night that came and left without a trace of memory. Too many missed calls, missed parties, missed drugs and extended hugs. Stressing about the past is just not rational for the third man.

“No use crying over spilt milk, once a blank black memory, always a blank black memory. Even Mike’s money could never buy that memory back.”

“Don’t think about it” his brain tells him. Live for the now, death is coming for all of us in any case, at any time, it could be my time. Live for the now, in the moment, fuck reflecting. Reflection session over. He showers, collects the residue pharmacy remains in his clothes from Thursday evening.

“What made you, might just break you. Watch yourself.” The third man walks past a stupid sign at the bus stop. As he reads it, his brain utters the words; “stupid sign.” He walks straight past it. He waits patiently just after the bus for his uber ride to the clubs of the city.

“Rockstar life”

The uber picks him up; the ride is fifteen minutes of pure silence with the driver. The driver deserts him outside the heart of the concrete jungles’ central nightlife. The clubs. He is immediately joined by a crowd - of affiliates, friends is what they call themselves and him- that was awaiting to enter the club. Great festivities are about to take place.

“Your popularity for your constant lack of sobriety will remain your only trophy, grow up!”

“Fuck off with that shit!” one of the affiliates swears at another due to one of them bringing up school work. They are in the club and want no one to even distract them from the main objective; to get wasted beyond self-recognition. “The great club”. A confusing place, it remains full of people most evenings but absolutely no soul, on a daily basis. People come to “see” each other but there is never enough lighting. Girls come to ‘‘dance” and have a good time, in their most uncomfortable, high heels. The local village bicycle type of ladies are guaranteed to always be there for the “champagne sipping and chilling” but end up getting German drunk.

“Its all fake. The Gucci belts, her feelings for you, fake. Well at least if fake isn’t the best description then temporary. I know paper cups that last longer. “

The third man, no differently - to the poll of sinners he has surrounded himself- has come for the champagne sipping and all evening “chilling”. The club is the only place you sweat and “chill” at the same time! The club is a house of contradictions, you do one thing, the outcome is completely different, expect surprising expectations. You buy one bottle; and it comes with a mini fireworks display, a minimum of two “friends” and three delivery girls wrapped in fabric around their genitalia. There is also a non- optional complimentary bonus of two more girls with minimal clothes and manners on, they are from the blue. And as a doggy bag to feast on at home, one of the girls that came with the bottle. A standard procedure in our contemporary world.

“The realest thing about the club is all the money you spend on the fake shit. Now that’s the realest shit”

Talking about some “real shit”. He is full of it. Full of real emotions, real feelings, genuine smiles, an overall real person. Unfortunately real things only ride in their reality, the reality of the club is it’s not real. The happiness is only as long as cocaine high, it dies along with the night. He rushed off to the bathroom, he has had no pharmaceuticals. He needs to get his fix fixed. He has been awake and sober for just over three hours, three hours three long. He makes a trip to the bathroom.

“Cubical, straw, snow. One hit, two hits, three hits. Let it burn… Fuck me!”

He heads to the bar; four more tequilas, four amigos. More; Six tequilas, eight more amigos. More; fourteen tequilas, all the amigos. The whole club loves him. The realest kind of temporary euphoric love you can imagine. The club loves him and the pharmacy in his pocket. They call him the healer, he is the healer because he brings the herbs to calm them down and the snow to revive and inverse any drunken rotten frown. He is the savior. Just like how Jesus forgives and gives second, third, tenth and fiftieth chances. The third man operates as the Jesus of the club; he brings back those that are too far gone with simple innocent old snow white.

“I save people, it’s not a drug. It’s what you make it. That’s my truth.”

He used to be nothing but a lonely stoner - things change - always had the merry-jane to compensate - but somehow they remain the same - the drugs, the commercial hoes – that everyone knows- and the influx of money have made him nothing but a lonely druga. The third man; Always within the masses but forever in his own thoughts. That’s the truth, apparently. Everyone talks to him, he hears and doesn’t listen.

“I don’t like thinking, it’s overrated. I brainstorm, the third man brainstorms”

Some things make him feel uneasy, some topics and certain aspects of his life, they’re bad vibes. He doesn’t like to process all that thought. Thinking is for pussys. If it makes him feel uneasy, he throws it out of his head. No thoughts instead. His future vs current conflicts and how they don’t correlate? Out! Stopping tobacco, recreational marijuana, lean, beer, mushrooms, pussy (Ambiguous), and coke?? It’s just uneasy. Not a thought process that’s welcome here. Not in the third man’s head. Rather the third man eat all the drugs and do self-reflection the next day, or next week, or next year or whatever. His heart is racing with sweet nothing and it’s still losing. He is in the club still, it’s a party but he can feel the back of his nose begin oozing. He leaves the club,- its 5;30 am - says nothing to no-one, takes an uber, the car trip; silent, the drug cocktail trip, an African djembe concert, live in his chest. His heart, sweating and working harder than any other. He ignores it. His eyes are wide open, he is trying his best to not think about the night he just had simply because he cannot remember the night he just had. He lays in his bed, heart still racing as if the coke is still fresh in his taste buds. He starts to think;

“out!”

No negative unnecessary thoughts in this head he tells himself. He throws that though straight out of his head. Apparently.

Day 3 - Sunday. 17;06

He wakes up frightened

“-fuck me!”

Correction, he wakes up angry, he does a quick time check.

“fuck me!”

The third man is frustrated and angry it seems. To his surprise and also as insult to injury; he has both his shoes on, his pants are on and so is his shirt. The shirt is missing most of his buttons and his pants are undone, his belt missing.

“Plates! Fucking plates with fucking traces on them!”

He takes a deep breath. He tidy’s up the “shag shack as most of the people that call him friend would call his apartment. He knows not how it got so dirty. He walks to the shower (nude), stands in front of the shower door, his back to the mirror.

“Remember why you started!”

He takes a breath again.

“Fuck all the bullshit!

Beat

You came to conquer!

Beat beat.

“I promise to myself. Focus. Fuck the drugs and hoes, and their all night lasting naked hugs. I’m better than that! You’re better than that! (He walks into the shower and turns on the cold water) I can do better. Alone. One man. Fuck a weed! That’s a weak man drug! Fucking cocaine, its epic now, without it every day; fucking pain. That’s all it is, all day. Every day. Fucking pain.’’

He masturbates in his shower, cleans up, the shower and his body. Hopefully. The third man then heads out to varsity, with his school bag. To go study. Apparently.

He gets to campus, he walks past a bar. The bar is having a party. Apparently.

“mmmmm…”

Called by no one, he enters the party. He finds affiliates, no words are spoken. They head to the bathroom. They enter a cubical, three of them. The third man opens bag-

“The whole fucking pharmacy!!!” one of the affiliates screams.

“ssshhhhh” they squealed. They line up the lines. Silence is resumed.

“Fuck me! Remember why you started! You said you’d never let this shit get to you. Remember the parents. Never let them down! You made promises to yourself. Keep them. What would Mike say? Or do?”

Beat, beat, beat

“He probably wouldn’t remember, because he remembers nothing. He keeps no promises. I do have morals though. I keep to my promises; everyone knows I keep to my promises.”

“The bullies are in the straw! “The same associate screams out loud. Silence resumes shortly after that.

“Fuck me!”

Silence.

-The end, well at least the end of this chapter, or set of entries. Whatever. It’s over now, things got too real, too honest, too reflective, too quick. I don’t do that. Mr Narrator, the third man and first man don’t do those kinds of things. They’re soft, weak. That’s not how Zulu’s do things. We’re strong.