The alarm goes off at five o'clock in the morning.
'GODAMNIT!' Jacob cursed as he slammed the snooze button on his alarm clock. He'd just slept for an hour and a half. His body didn't want to wake up. Yet he knew very well that these trivial decisions could cost him his livelihood. He knew very well that by noon when he was well sobered up and experiencing the immediacy of his decisions, he would prefer to be on the money side. He
dozed off, back to these dreams; weird dreams, where his Indian bosses were having an orgy to celebrate a successful business quota. Ten minutes seemed like an hour. He was startled again by the snoozed alarm. This time around he jumped out of bed.
When you get up you get going. He thought to himself, the hot shower soothing his black skin.
Black like Obama! The voice in his head kept on singing an Eric Belinger banger. It didn't stop, just went on and on. The steam building up. He occasionally turned down the water when lathering soap on himself, in an attempt to save the ever rising electric build, dragging his lazy self, turning ever slowly to wash the soap off his body. Ideas streaming in the weirdest of forms. Soon, he could barely see himself in the steam. It was another dream. A woke dream. Flashbacks started creeping back in one at a time. It still seemed like a odd. He had ever done away with him like he was some piss of shit. He felt used. Still he felt like it was a beautiful moment; he got to flirt with the owner of a leading entertainment joint in the city's central district.
damn... am good!
Okay dude you're not going to beat the traffic if you keep on fantasizing.
***
Work was seemingly a bad lie this particular day for Jacob.
follow the bee and eat her honey, he recalled. Just what exactly had she meant by honey. She'd said it in a seductive manner. As if she meant something sexual that could be tasted but wasn't honey. Honey was just a pet name according to her luring insinuations.
Damn! He caught himself daydreaming and had to bring back his attention by browsing his smartphone. Keeping up with the Jones' by reposting the most controversial memes. Social media memes were sort of the millennial way to plug into society's blood stream. To experience culture as it evolved by the minute. Ever subtle. Everything was different compared to the previous generation. Technology that didn't exist decades earlier made life a utopia. Jobs that didn't exist were now possible. He wanted to reign the new cryptographic revolution.
'Jacob...! Fikisha hizi documents apo KRA... 'his boss instructed him in Swahili sheng' to run an errand for him at the Kenya Revenue Authority. Being an office messenger was the card society dealt him. He knew very well he had to deal or be dealt with. To sink or swim in this deep capitalistic ocean, with sharks for bosses and fish for employees. He was no big fish. Some people had been working their way up the cooperate ladder for the past thirty years yet he was only three years in. Everyday was a struggle, hoping to get the next meal each day like a carnivore in the Savannah during the dry spell. His salary was just enough to take him to the next salary and with a mountain of student loan debt, his life was not his own. He fundamentally lacked sovereignty over his life and was just a cog in machinery of deep state. A capitalistic state. It baffled him how comfortable everyone else was in these jobs that could end any moment; that weren't at all attractive to work in.
His casual office messenger work didn't give him the lifestyle he desired but hell, it paid the damn bills. The education system never made any sense to him, why would you waste half of your life getting an education just to spend the other half giving all your time and efforts to an employer who gave no shit about your wellbeing and all your hard earned money to your family. Yet he was there working his ass off just to pay his rent and perhaps allowed himself some fun when the tips were enough. Apparently everyone was after money, he was still working a nine to five just get it; he was grinding on what he was fleeing when he decided to drop out of campus, a job. He figured he'd never search for a job because it was slavery; a slavery he was currently suffering from. Yet he was determined to get rich and truly live, not simply survive, but thrive.
He wanted to be a whale in this capitalistic ocean.