Archives for 2012

Reader’s Digest ‘100 Word Story’ Contest

Reader’s Digest South Africa is running a ‘100 Word Story’ contest. The competition is free to enter and open only to South African residents. Stories must be exactly 100 words and submitted by 30 November 2012.

The winner will receive R5,000 and be published in the magazine. The first two runners up will receive R1,000.

Visit http://www.readersdigest.co.za/100-word-story for more information.

Uncultivated seed

Restless minds, fertile bodies.
Blend together in g mesh of flesh.
Sweat drips from him to her.
Creating a wet pool of lust which soon turns to regret.
Desire lasting all of five minutes leaves imbedded in her a seed of hope.
But things created by foolish people through thoughtless acts have no chance of survival.
They are sure to be ripped mercilessly from their roots,
and thrown into trash cans.
Where they lay amongst yesterdays rubbish and remnents of human filth.
A beautiful seed dead, cold, unloved, unwanted and alone.
Unrecognisable in it’s filth covered plastic bag.
All it needed was love to grow, faith to perservere and a body deserving of it.

Trouble

Random rambling

Its rainy and cloudy and I can’t see a thing, I have this half cigarette which I picked up outside of corner tuck shop and trying to enjoy before anyone can see me, chances of anyone coming out in this dark and rain is very slim, but I need to be careful. I know some time when you least looking for trouble it come from all direction throwing you off-guard. So I try to be very careful when I am out for my little adventures, in this case, half burn cigrate picked up from the street. I always know that there are two types of people some who always get in trouble and some who never gets any trouble; I know no one in their right mind wants any trouble, but still some people just get into it all the time. I wonder, if I can knock on their sub-conscious brain and ask what you looking? They will reluctantly answer me “trouble.” Anyway I know my brain never even in when I am at sleep looking for trouble, I know as even in my sleep I am just scheming out to get out of trouble if I get one. So how come I get in trouble more often than all my friends and siblings. I think its law of Karma in some twisted sense, I heard from my aunt, saying my mother and father never got into any trouble when they growing up and they were not simple book warm kids as I see in my class, but somehow manage to stay away from radar. So I think it’s their Karma now attacking on me, I am paying price they should have paid while growing up. I heard a sound and my thought stopped, I looked across the street and in rain I see aunty Medi, what she doing here in this rain, she should not be here, she don’t even have an umbrella, I am weighing my options about going to help her or finish smoking every bit of cigarette I have in my hand. Reluctantly throwing away the cigarette, I walk towards her before she sees me with all the smoke, miraculously hoping in the rain she will not able to figure out I was smoking. She is drenched in mud and doesn’t look well. I ask her what she doing here at this time in this rain; she didn’t look up but seems she recognized my voice, so she asks me to stay quiet. She is trying to hide, what she is hiding and from whom? It’s too much for my brain to think now when I am still feeling sorry about dropping the idea of finishing smoke and coming to help someone who doesn’t really want any. However, I know if I wouldn’t have walk she would have saw me with cigarette and I would have gone for trouble later. So see while my brain was busy keeping me out of trouble I really lost the last bit of fun, which I could have. Oh, I think she is saying something to me; I should rather focus on what she saying than thinking about what my brain thinking.

My friend tease my for my day dreaming. I end up listening only half of their conversation and my brain takes me far away thinking about some word or something I picked up in the first line of their conversation. I feel bit shaken and looked up auntie medi is shaking my hand she is trying to show me something I look at her, not really able to see what she is trying to show, I decide to focus. She is showing me a book, what she is doing with a book, and why she was trying to hide it in first place, who needs a book in township. She thrust the book in my hand, ran back around, and disappeared; now I left with this book in rain. I am hoping she is not trying to tell me to go to school and read my books. if she wants to tell me that she should have told me any time why she came in this rain all the way running and disappeared. I walk along the side of big wall trying to stay away from rain and stopped close to lamp post, I open the book and realize it not a book, it’s a box, oh, and it has a gun. What I was thinking, I am in trouble again, and who will believe that Aunt medi came and gave me this in rain, what should I do? My brain not even trying to scheme me out, it telling me keep the book with the gun, I decide to walk away with book. I can hear police siren in distance and hoping this time it’s not me but someone else be in trouble.

Where were you when I needed you?

Where were you when I needed you?
When confusion was all I saw as a little child
When our family was being torn apart
When life gave me no reason to smile…
Where were you when I needed you to tell me everything’s going to be alright?
Where were you when I needed you to take away my lonely nights?

As a kid there was times I needed a hand to hold
When darkness filled my mind
When darkness was all time sold and my head was filled with lies
I appreciate the toys and money you gave but that couldn’t bring a smile.
You called me useless, stupid and all sorts of names
I’m so sorry that I was made your child
Im sorry that i disappointed you again!
But where you when i needed you, to help me through the rain?

I needed someone to help me with my school work
But yet again alone I tried and tried.
Embarrassed because I couldn’t read in grade three
The joke of the class again I was but the reason they just couldn’t see!
Head filled with lie’s, lie’s was all I could tell
I did not want them to know what I’m going through
Showing how you felt was not so ‘cool’’.

Where were you when I needed you to hear my hearts deepest cry?
You weren’t there when I needed you ?
Now you know why I died inside!

The Evil Within

God sees everything, preached the unmarried Joshua Black with all passion to his church. This congreation constisted of 544 churchmen. Sad, but true, only some 30 worshipers found their way to his Sunday sermons at ten a.m. Pastor Black was asking himself ever so often: And how many of these few people are nothing but hypocrites? Who leads a double life? No one can read another´s thoughts. God only knows what goes on inside of his creatures.

He was sure that Grandma Kowalski, an exceptional and spry 93 yearold, was a god-fearing and therefore did not belong to the fraction of hypocrites. For the preacher, hypocrites were all the people that pretended to be Christians, but whose deeds were not in accord with the Christian belief. They were like wolves in sheep´s clothing. A regular church or sermon and a necklace with a cross did not turn anyone into a Christian at all. For God, what humans do when no one is watching is more important. God is all-knowing, because God is omnipresent.

Pastor Joshua Black came from a bigger town, about 300 miles away from Springfield. There, he first studied three semesters of medicine, until he finally found God and the true belief due to God´s mercy and thus became a dominie. Some one and a half years before, he moved into the village and overtook the church administrative office because his predecessor, Reverend Joe Weaver, went into retirement.

On Christmas more of the churchmen actually showed up and participated in the mass, but one was never ever seen there. As opposed to all other church visitors, his sins were only too obvious. Perry Hobbs moved to Springfield about six months ago and stole peace from the village. He was freshly divorced, and was accused of having nearly beaten his first wife to death. His recent partner, Janet Tanner, was constantly beaten. And not only one time. Everybody in the village knew that he also constantly abused his new partner´s 13 year old daughter. And no one in the village ever interfered or did anything to stop it… yet.

After the mass, the 39 years old servant of the Lord normally first went to the tavern to smear his dried out throat with two or three beers. He loved to hang out with Major Murphy and Sheriff Collister who loved to discuss criminal cases and ficticious crimestories. Collister always confessed to the pastor that, if he were not being a policeman, he would teach this damn swine of a man Hobbs a tough lesson. A very tough lesson, actually. But he only confessed that to the Reverend and the Major, and thus it was a shared secret.

Hobbs was nothing but a thorn in the conservative Major´s flesh as well. This guy was not meant to belong into their honorable community. Additianally, Hobbs´ stepdaughter was his daughter. This secret never became public either. But some years ago, Murphy did actually confess to pastor Black. Janet Tanner was a woman that Major Murphy had an affair with, though he was married at this time.

Perry Hobbs had long not been seen for a morning pint. He had to drink his beer somehwere else, either at home or outside on a park bench, near the historical monument, when the innkeeper Oliver expelled him from the pub. Oliver was really fed up with that gadfy, that provoced the other guests, started fights and never payed his tippe shell. So far, he owed some 2000 dollars to the clubowner for drinks and smashed up inventory. Hobbs, being out of work, could never think of reducing his debts. The enourmous consumation of alcohol and dissatisfaction with his life formed a vicious circle.

On a Monday morning, some five days before Christmas Eve, the number of inhabitants of the village was lowered by one. It was not Grandma Kowalski, the village elder, that left them. A pedestrian found Perry Hobbs lying dead in the creek.

Today, shortly after Christmas

I sit alone at my kitchen table and I´ve just finished my breakfast. I could take one more cup of coffee. There is a knock on my door. I hardly have ever any visitors so early. It will surely be Collister. I was well prepared for that occasion.

I open the door and he is the caller.
“May I?”
“Of course.”
We go to the kitchen and I offer a chair to my guest.
“I have the morning off today and I thought why not stop by the parson, the one who always breakfasts so very alone. And a good opportunity for some further discussion about crimes and criminalist sensory.”
“Coffee?” I ask.
Collister nods, dumb. I take a clean cup and pour hot coffee from the pot and join him at the table.
“It is about Hobbs, right?” I am not really asking that at all – I know that it is about Hobbs.
“Yes, exactly. Perry Hobbs died on Sunday, the 18th of December, at about midnight. Death by drowning.”
“A silly accident,” I say after a short silense.
“That´s about the size of it. But concerning Hobbs´ case, there is something more.”
“Like exactly what?”
The police officer pours some milk into his cup. I hand him a spoon.
“When the corpse was examined, they found …”
“A lot alcohol,” is my fast explanation.
“This would explain an accident, a boozer falling in the creek. No, they found benzodiazepine.”
“Benzodia…?” I ask stupidly as I put my right hand into my pocket and play nervously with the little bottle.
Collister focuses on the cup of coffee with sharp eyes.
“It is a narcotic, an anestethic. You can also find it to be psychotropic. Why did Hobbs take this drug? Who prescribed it for him? A doctor did not in any case. Where did this drug come from?”
“Well … good question.”
“By the way, knockout drops contain benzodiazepine as well. And even stranger, why didn´t we find this pharmaceutical in his place?”
I deliberate on this and look around in the room.
“Well, we can possibly think that he first got drugged and then …”
Collister takes a careful sip.
“Coffee tasting strange?”
“It must be the holy water,” is my answer by keeping a straight face.
“Our Mr. Preacher makes jokes! You should do that in church, and then more will attend the sermon!”
“The sermon is no comedy show and the Bible a serious matter. This holy book is the mirror, how dirty or clean you are in front of the eyes of God. Self delusion does not function in this case at all. The one who does not take the Bible seriously is stupid. It is all about where you will spend eternity – in heaven or hell.”
“I do not believe in any eternity at all, and I do not believe in any God either, not in any that lets evil happen. I do not believe in any God, that has people in the poor countries die from famine either.”
“A way bigger catastrophe is to stand by without acting. There is a study that makes clear that the money of the seven richest people in the world would be enough to abolish all hunger worldwide.”
“I do not believe in any God that has criminals go without punishment.”
“That is wrong!” I react with a sharp voice. “What goes around comes around. We reap what we sow. It is all simply a question of time.”
“I am really not sure about that. I cannot believe in any God that I cannot see, but who never overlooks anything himself. For me and my court, only proof counts. I do believe in right and wrong.”
“And in the fine fragile line between that,” I add.
Collister carefully takes another sip and says: “One who believes in God cannot deny the existence of the devil.”
“Of course not, the devil is real. He is called Satan, or Lucifer, and was long ago the most beautiful angel to be found in all of heaven. After the creation of Adam and Eve, God demanded that all the angels worship humans, but Satan refused to. The humans should worship him, not the other way around. Satan wanted to be like God. He wanted to climb up the skies and sit on the thrown next to the Almighty. But because of his pride and, Satan became a fallen angel. Since then, he projects all his hatred, jealousy and pain onto us humans, because he got driven out and alienated by us from his holiness, and happiness, while being amongst all angels in heaven.”
“Ho-hum,” Collister moaned, being rather tired and bored.
“Angels are spiritual beings. The devil is the father of all lies that attacks our mind. And all our thoughts get influenced by this, which triggers emotions, that again, have nothing but a bad influence on our deeds. Satan tries by all available means to make the human body the object of sin. One can definitely say that Satan is the spirit of deception. Bad people are obsessed by such demons and turn into criminals. By killing felons, you cannot eliminate these forces of evil either. Jesus did exorcise demons. There are legions of fallen angels und if they were visible, they would darken the sun.”
The sheriff looked at me unbelievingly. Unimpressed I kept on talking.
“Someone who loves God obeys his creator. Every human was equipped with free will by God; the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden shows that explicitly. Either you follow what God said, or you keep your fingers away from the forbidden fruits …”
“Oh you don´t,” interrupts me Collister.
“That is right. Or you do something, that God forbids, one sin. Sin is the cause of all evil in this world. All that is allowed or not can be found in the Bible, the word of God. I orientate myself thus, consulting the word of Jesus Christ, the God of life and the resurrection. And only His judgments are just.”
“Eye for an eye …”
“Tooth for a tooth, I know,” I break in. “And with this philosophy, society would only consist of blind people and ones who wear false teeth. That is no justice but revenge. It is written: The revenge is Mine, spoketh the Lord. Eye for an eye, the revenge does not function, Jesus instead demands: Love your enemies! With this love, he does not refer to any feeling, but to a decision on how to treat others. And enemies are people that one finds to be rather unsympathic and one avoids. Love your enemies, that works because the Lord are going to handle it. To take the law into one´s own hands is not allowed.”
“Well, with good cause,” Collister agrees. “I do believe in chain of events by chance.”
“Either you believe in God or everything is mere chance. For me, God is the most sovereign ruler of the universe, the one that has everything under his control and thus never makes any mistakes, He is perfect. And that excludes any coincidences at all, the chaos and the fear in this world are of no coincidence, they have reasons. In our consumer society nowadays, many want to live a materialist and hedonistic oriented life and religious faith is lost. And exactly there, where the people don´t belief in the devil, the demonic power is at its peak. Where there is a lack of religious faith, the superstition grows.
The German poet Friedrich Hebbel once stated: Many believe in nothing, but fear everything. There is little trust, but a ;ot of fear in this world. Rooted in this fear is the lack of any trust for God, as a strong belief in God is freeing and gives hope. You have to please God and not the world. God hates self-delusion and self justice as well as the sinful priorities of this contemporary society. Sin means the separation from God and the payback of sin in the lake of fire and brimstone, called hell.”
“Your predecessor wanted to make me belief, that we all would be guilty.”
“Of course, each human is a sinner, but by the belief in Jesus Christ, the people are freed from their sins. It´s the Blood of Jesus that washes our sins away forever.”
“Hey c´mon, it´s alright now,” interrupts again Collister. “Don´t preach any Gospel here. But back to Hobbs, where was I?”
I think hard. “We talked about the coffee, which tasted of holy water?”
“No, before.”
“That Hobbs got drugged?” I answer.
“Really? And?”
“And… that someone might have arranged his death by drowning,” I whispered. “He got drugged first and then someone forced his head into the creek, for example.”
My guest suddenly starts to yawn.
“Hobbs´ case really did cost me sleep over the last few days.”
“I can imagine …”
Then, Colloster looks deep into my eyes.
“Hobbs was last seen alive on this warm Decemberday around 11 p.m. at the monument.”
“Well, ” I actually scrarch my chin.
Collister leans over the table. “And where exactly was Mr. Reverend at that time? ”
“Here in my apartment, ” I answered. “I was sleeping, I already said so.”
“Hobbs died around midnight. But someone did see you around the creek at that time.”
“Thar is clearly an outright lie!” I affirm and get upset.
Moses was a murderer, he killed an Egyptian. But nevertheless, he was a child of God, a chosen one, who lead the tribe of Israelites out of the Egyptian knightship. With the death of Perry Hobbs, the whole village was again free after half a year, freed from a tyrant. I am under suspicion. One can be sure about my hatred concubinates, how I hate physical violence, But no one could even dare to assume to know how I hated Hobbs and wished him to go to hell. No one could read my thoughts.
“Many in the village are slightly happy, that Hobbs is dead,” explains Collister. But that is nothing new to me.
“And some do have a motive, for example our Mr. Major Murphy,” I disclose to the policeman.
Collister seems to be surprised. For him, this information seems to be new and he wants to know more.
“And what exactly?”
Janet Tanner´s child was his illegitimate daughter. He confessed that to me.
“I am not allowed to say that in public. Seal of Confessional.”
“That is not constructive for my investigation.”
“But what I can say is, that our highly regarded village policeman always wanted to teach Hobbs a lesson. And where exactly was Mr. Collister around midnight?”
Collister remains silent and finishes his coffee. After some short consideration, he continues to speak.
“Alright, I will play it down with the narcotic, just like the doping data at the Tour de France, I am not even interested whether someone acutally buys that.”
“Ok, that means, the case Hobbs will be closed?”
“Yes, exactly, the Hobbs case will be closed. The death of Perry Hobbs was an accident, a perfect storm. Whether someone drugged him before his drowing him in the creek is only known by the murderer.”
“Well, that is not completely accurate.”
Respectfully I fold my hands for a prayer and bend my face with closed eyes heavenwards.
“There would be still someone else … ”

One of Us

You lied
I know you did
Through your eyes
I saw your tears
You tried to hide
I know you did
Behind your smile
I heard your fears

And you died
I know you did
But your pride
Said it was me
So you could feel
You’re better than me

There is a cure
I know there is
For the shame
You project on me
Don’t you know
What’s you is me?

I set you free,
I know I did
Forgiving you
Healing me
I know the truth
You know I do…

That what’s in you…
is in me too!

~Verushka2011~

Wake up in love

Wake up in love

Wipe the sleep from your eyes…
Open the windows to your soul
Open your heart, child of life,
Now – fill it with love

Stretch your arms there’s no ceiling…
Reaching only for light
Stand tall now, child of life,
Stand tall, you have been counted

Breathe deep in love into ever-now…
Fill your lungs with the Divine
The taste of love, dear child of life,
Is exhaling knowing this presence

Feel joy in your energy body…
Savour the vibration of bliss
Loving the all as is, child of life,
Transcending in un-waivering faith

Aligning now with your beginning…
Beginning to experience no end
Eternal to your core, sweet child of life,
Worthy – is how you were born

Greet the new day as greeted…
Returning the love and the light
Smile wide as you can child of life now,
Then catch life smiling right back

Thankful in mind and in spirit…
Creating your day so in love
Appreciating as you go, child of life,
Gifting the day’s Giver… in love.

~Verushka2012~

It’s not easy

It’s not easy you know
Living from your heart
It’s not easy you know
Being who you are

The world has too many thoughts
About how you should act
The world has too many opinions
On who you should be

It’s not easy don’t you know
To stand out from the crowd
It’s not easy don’t you know
To shout ‘I Am’ out loud

They judge you if you do
What is true for you
They judge you if you don’t
Do what it is they do

It’s not easy let me tell you
Living what you believe
It’s not easy let me tell you
Living the dreams you conceive

But life is not worth living
If not living in your truth
Life’s just not worth living
If you’re living out their dreams

We imagine it’s not easy
Living life from the heart
We imagine it’s not easy
Being who we are

But the truth is life is simple
When you’re playing out your part
The truth is life is easy
Only living from your heart.

~Verushka2011~

Text editing: a handbook for students and practitioners

By Kris Van de Poel, Wannie Carstens and John Linnegar (published by ASP Editions, Brussels)

What is a text editor? What does the process of editing texts involve? What level of intervention is required for practitioners to make a text communicate effectively?

Text editing: a handbook for students and practitioners is a first for South Africa and will have an international appeal. It sets out to answer these questions directly and in the amount of detail appropriate to a work that describes the text editor’s complex craft. As the basis for answering the questions, the authors have adopted – and adapted – renowned Dutch linguist Jan Renkema’s text-evaluation model for the text-editing process, the elements of which form a leitmotiv that runs through the 12 chapters of Text editing.

Text editing is a North–South collaboration between two academics in the field of applied linguistics – Professor Kris Van de Poel of the University of Antwerp in Belgium’s Research Unit for Applied Language Studies and Professor Wannie Carstens, professor of Afrikaans linguistics and current director of the School of Languages at North-West University (Potchefstroom campus) – and a professional trainer of text editors and proofreaders in South Africa for more than a decade, John Linnegar, himself a text editor of long standing.

At once thoroughly researched and firmly grounded in modern editing practice, this comprehensive, highly accessible handbook covers many aspects of the text editor’s craft:

For the student of language practice or publishing studies it will prove to be an invaluable source of information about the profile of a text editor

  1. the types and levels of text editing as a process
  2. the many different roles that the text editor can play as a language practitioner
  3. the issues with which the editor has to deal, including plagiarism, copyright, defamation/libel and the question of ethics in editing practice generally the complex and comprehensive process that text editing is.

For the seasoned practitioner

  1. the systematic approach offered by Renkema’s model should prove to be as illuminating as the chapter on resources – with its lists of print and online references regarded as essential aids to the professional – and the extensive bibliography
  2. the new text on producing ebooks and digital media and on English as a lingua franca should open up new vistas to the more progressive or tech-savvy editor.

From the theoretical initial chapters through the nitty-gritty of intervening to improve the content, structure, wording, and presentation of various documents to the pièce de résistance that is the final chapter (where a group of text editors prove their mettle at critiquing and improving a selection of texts), this volume covers the whole gamut of the text editing process.

An English edition of this nature will attract an international readership and the authors have borne in mind the needs of two particular groups: English native-speakers who are likely to have to edit texts written by non-native speakers of English as a second or third language; and text editors who themselves are not native-speaking users of English. These are common phenomena with which text editors in South Africa have to deal regularly.
For the latter group the detailed treatment of the grammatical, syntactic, morphological, spelling and punctuation facets of the editor’s armoury should be particularly helpful.

In addition, the appendices of five brief exposés on a variety of Englishes and the pitfalls and challenges they present to text editors worldwide will be particularly helpful for those editing texts drafted by English non-native speakers.

The result is an expansive text that gives full recognition to the role of the text editor not only as such but also as proofreader, project manager, freelance, and in a wide range of other guises and situations. Editing for digital media and onscreen editing are also given appropriate consideration.
Subtitled A handbook for students and practitioners the editors believe it to be not only an important and useful point of entry into the profession of text editing but also an essential guide to practising editors who perhaps have not had any formal training in their craft. For both groups, the many lists, checklists, tabulated matter and diagrams will prove to be particularly supportive, making this an essential addition to the practitioner’s reference library.

Editor’s notes

Kris Van de Poel of the University of Antwerp (Belgium) Research Unit for Applied Language Studies is an applied linguist in the real sense of the word, always looking for challenges in the area of language in use. During her sojourns in Denmark and Scotland she ran a successful text-editing business called editek which aimed to make intercultural texts say what they were meant to say. Back in Belgium, she has guided translators and linguists along the slippery slopes of effective and professional communication, trying to raise their communicative awareness. Moreover, she has devoted much research time to text editing in academic and professional contexts, training materials for teaching, learning and self-evaluation.

Wannie Carstens, professor of Afrikaans linguistics and current director of the School of Languages at North-West University (Potchefstroom campus) in South Africa, has carried out some pioneering work on normative grammar and text linguistics. In the Text editing team he is the analytical reader and he has the most comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the theoretical and world literature on the topic. He has the unique capacity to absorb, digest and re-digest the literature on the topic in such a way that even the most intricate findings become accessible to an interested audience. His drive in teaching generations of students has ensured a place for qualitative text editing in the minds and professional lives of many of his graduates.

John Linnegar of McGillivray Linnegar Associates based in Cape Town is firmly rooted in the language practice within the publishing industry. Being a sought-after professional trainer of text editors, subeditors, proofreaders, project managers and indexers, John brings his hands-on experience in publishing and his abiding passion for language to Text editing. A strong advocate of professionalisation for practitioners in the field, he is immediate past chairman of the national Professional Editors’ Group and an associate of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders in the United Kingdom. A former schoolteacher, and also an inhouse copy editor/proofreader, subeditor, project manager for books and magazines, and a published author himself, he brings 30 years of experience to his role as co-author of the present volume.

What binds the three authors together is their passionate belief in the need for text editing to have solid foundations, at the same time acknowledging that theory is firmly rooted in practice and that in turn practice can be perfected through teaching and training.

Text editing chapter by chapter:
• Chapter 1 From language practice to model building: the foundations of text editing.
• Chapter 2 Text as a domain of text editing – an applied model.
• Chapter 3 The profile of a text editor.
• Chapter 4 Process and procedure: doing text editing.
• Chapter 5 The text editor and editorial project management.
• Chapters 6 to 10 Text editing in practice: content, structure, wording and presentation.
• Chapter 11 Resources.
• Chapter 12 Text editing in practice: the editors’ voice – a comparative analysis of texts.
• Extensive bibliography.

Conform You Say?

I sit and I wonder, what will this be?
I’m lost and confused and unable to see…
“Live,” she says, “Live – give into your desire.”
Perhaps she thinks she is beyond the words of the squire.
She tells us to “be ourselves, don’t worry what they say,
one day you will see, you will have your say.”
For now we are expected just to walk in your way,
believe all that you do and all that you say.
You criticize and bash all that is real and true,
so I have made my final decision,
I will keep running
from you.

“Come back!” you scream, “you think you’re
better then us?”
“Ha,” she screams, “try run from me, you will
see, dear girl, there’s no other way to be.”
I will not conform, I will not do as they say!
So to that, my friends,
I will relay, “Adu, Adu to you and you and you!”
as they sing in that dreadful song.
Give up on the truth, conform to their lies,
and perhaps one day you may get a ‘nice’ surprise!

Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you, don’t cry when I say,
“I told you it was dangerous but you brushed my warnings away,”
Too late,
it is done –
the action has passed,
however it is not to late
to fix the past.