First of the month on a Monday, as hopeful as any other. Been like that for a while now. Can't remember when it wasn't, just that it was different before this infinite present. Maybe.

There are workers on the roof of my parent's house. Men in blue overalls, builders by trade. Professionals? Maybe.

Nevertheless doubtful.

A lack of confidence is commonplace. Probably why their shouted conversations are what wakes me and not a partner or pet or other element of a different life not pursued. An adult but not really.

Soon after getting half-dressed, it's the sound of email notifications that bothers me.

Work.

Maybe.

Always available but it never helps things run smoothly. Half thought-out requests of unverbalized desires from more educated and moneyed individuals. The price of their free lives paid in irritation and passive-aggressive 'thank yous' and 'best wishes' from an exchange that could have been a one-minute phone call. Though I so often can't make-out what is said. Lines are bad, communication is difficult, agreeing eases the exchange but never helps understanding. Luckily none of it is real. Not really.

The phone goes down for breakfast, the disruption stays. The workmen speak in bellows. It's irritating but familiar — the feeling that is.

—

The foreman knocks on the kitchen door. He asks for water and a Panado. He speaks well, charming even. I wonder if it's an imitation of the person who taught him English or if his mastery of the language is so great that he can fully express an aspect of himself through it. I give him what he wants and the number of a doctor who won't prescribe him rat poison for the crime of being Zimbabwean.

He says he'll go but wants to finish the job. I ask him not to overstrain himself.

He doesn't respond.

My phone buzzes, it's a friend distracting me from the importance of washing up. Memes and nothings are responded to with contractions and colloquialisms and contractions of colloquialisms. All ironic of course.

I want to crawl into bed and tuck myself between the mattress and frame to search for a child who went exploring there over a decade ago. I know he isn't there, but I want to look anyway.

Daydreams of time travel are shattered by screaming, my mother's. She's joined by shouting and urgency.

—

The foreman fell from a ladder. He didn't lose his footing; he lost his balance and the gash in his head is the least of his problems.

Broken English from the workers and broken sentences from my mother, no one knows what to do with the writhing hulk of a man frothing at the mouth.

I do.

Pushing him to his side I wrestle him down and hold him throughout his seizure. I'm scared his blood will get on me, but I put it somewhere else and speak softly.

"It's okay."
"It's okay."
"shhh."

His workers repeat my words in a different language.

The man's eyes bulge uncomprehending.

A loud voice I don't often hear demands an ambulance to be summoned. I hold the foreman waiting for a response. I think a child watched too many movies and expected too much for a foreign man who fell off a ladder.

—

Between my mother and I we determine that no one but the broken man on the ground knows how to drive.

A worker and I carry him into my mother's car, and I race to the Gen.

They accept him and the worker at emergency, but I am told to go through the main entrance. I ask the worker, Goodwill is his name, for his number.

He says he doesn't know it and that he'll find me later.

I reach my designated point of entry and the stain of a man baring it.

Fat security guards always have a God complex.

I try to explain the situation, but he doesn't hear me. Cocking his head forward, a wordless demand for me to repeat myself. I don't know if God exists, but I doubt he reeks of cigarettes.

He mumbles a reply to the tune of:

"Get fucked."

The voice that earlier demanded an ambulance now claws at the back of my throat begging to be heard. Instead, I stare pure hatred through his upturned face and retreat, scared that if I communicate my distaste for his existence, I may take physical steps to rectify the imbalance created.

—

Relegated outside, surrounded by the sick, injured and those concerned for them.

By habit I offer to help an old lady in a wheelchair. She waves me off and with a hand motion makes out a request for a cigarette. I tell her I don't smoke and she looks at me in a way that can only be described as pitying.

She then spent the next hour sitting on the side of the road waiting for someone or maybe for something to happen. Anything.

I know because I was the same.

A man with a fresh cast around what used to be a leg observed my pacing from one side of grime to other with rapt attention. A woman managed all of two seconds on the phone with a loved one before falling apart behind an ATM, not a word spoken. I think someone died. A group of men arrive and are turned away by an uncaring God who speaks in half annunciations and trailed off sentences.

Mottled skin and distended bellies, missing limbs and brave smiles and nothing.

I don't know what to do but wait.

That's familiar at least.

—

Late morning proceeds into early afternoon as Goodwill waves me over from outside the Hospital. Finally.

"Where were you I was looking for you."

There's relief on his face, perhaps good news.

"That fat pig wouldn't let me in... How's your boss?"

The young man lets me know that they haven't seen him yet and that they can only do so with a copy of his ID.

I educate him on a variety of expletives and ask for the number of one of the other workers, presumably still at my home.

He doesn't know their numbers.

He doesn't know their names.

He doesn't know.

I phone my mother.

The best we can find in his belongings is a driver's license.

It will have to do.

I send him back in with a picture of the forged document and my number.

"Call me as soon as you know what is happening."

He nods like he understands and ventures back in.

Hours pass.

Shifts change.

A new fat guard takes over the watch and allows my entry. The urge to spit at his feet while I passed remaining present.

The inside is no less dilapidated, but the crowds of dying are now joined by young and beautiful faces.

I stink of sweat and frustration. I fit in with most present but still approach one of the medical students.

She directs me to emergency. I look away as I thank her.

—

I find Goodwill sitting with the foreman, his head stitched and disfigured with swelling.

"I've been waiting for hours, why didn't you call me?"

His phone died and he has no airtime.

He can't tell me what's wrong with the foreman either.

Maybe it was a stroke or epilepsy or some other symptom of lifestyle disease.

What's certain is that he doesn't speak well anymore.

I fish in my wallet and hand Goodwill a couple hundreds.

"Take him home, I can't stay here, I have things to do."

He accepts the cash and grasps my hand offering blessings and thanks. He said that I was an angel lending a helping hand in a terrible time of need.

He had spoken well but misread the situation.

I had no will to correct him.

Ultimately saying nothing.