can: Do these people even understand that this is no longer about me? Do they realise that no black child will see value in education, for as long as the educated seem to be more miserable than the thugs out there? I worked hard to get myself a house. I even called it the House of Truth, in honest belief that one day there would be justice in this land. For all I know, the House of Truth will be razed to the ground tomorrow. Where is the justice in that?

My sleep is equivalent to a blink these days. I am haunted by my reality, my own existence and the happenings around me. I’ve got to intoxicate myself in order to get a little sleep. My ulcers are getting worse. I start every morning with a little regmakertjie, just to numb my ulcerous stomach.

Right now I feel a sickly despair that even the most potent bottle of brandy cannot wash away. I have been thinking lately; the luxury of a mild flood of conscience swept over me. I looked at Stompie, Kid, Stan and other young men around me. They all at one time or another had visions: to escape their environment; to overcome their context.

Lord, it struck me, what a treasury of talent I have here in front of me. Must they bury their lives along with mine, under a load of Sophiatown bottles? Isn't that exactly what the apartheid regime wants us to do? I say it was conscience that struck me because I know many of them look up to me, my way of life; they repeat my despair and its defences behind my back.

It seems like getting drunk is a purposeful destruction of the deep pain of our lives. You wake up sober the next day, only to realise that the horror of being black in South Africa is still there.