A/N: I should really be working on my other fanfics.
SHADES OF FAYZ
ONE
ALBERT: POVERTY
~What people don't understand is that no matter how much power and money you have, poverty is endgame~
Shivering, Albert wrapped a plaid blanket over the old woman's shoulders. She clutched at it, smiling gratefully up at him. Albert placed a hand on her head and nodded down at her, before moving onto the group of children, malnutrition bloating their bellies and their brown eyes concave with starvation.
It was all so familiar to Albert, everything from the cracked lips and voices that were softer than feathers as they thanked in a language that Albert, even after five years, could not always decipher. It was like reliving a past from the perspective of God, or some other higher power.
This time things were altered - Albert's eyes creased at the sides and seemed to smile. His lips didn't move. Albert smiled with his eyes now, a newish development but one of which he was quite fond. This time, he thought; I can do something about it. This time, I have The Power.
In the heat of the African sun, Albert wished for shorts and a T-shirt – although he knew he would regret wearing them after mosquitos decided to feast off him. Albert nearly took a sip from a flask of water strapped to his belt; he was thirsty.
So thirsty… like a heat-wave was burning up his throat. Living in a hot country did that, Albert a realised pretty early on. Especially living in hot country with few resources.
So Albert nearly drank - clean water, a luxury that not many could afford in the poverty-ridden slums of Malawi – but instead forced his lips apart in an effort to make his teeth grin reassuringly and a passed the metal container to a woman attempting to breast-feed her child. It was horrible to watch, the child screamed in hunger, but would not suck. With eyes devoid of anything but anguish and tears, the mother took a quick sip, placed her palm of Albert's and stalked off into the blackness of a straw-hut.
Once again, Albert had to stop himself from drinking. It was easier to resist than it once would have been, Albert had experience true dehydration before – more than once actually – and it was nothing like this, this was almost a picnic.
Almost: because it didn't matter that he could resist the need for water to almost an inhumane level, he still thirsted and in the heat it was as unbearable to him as any other man.
But he bore the prerequisite and gave out thick slices of maize bread, not the most adventurous of meals, but filling and containing nutrients, vitamins and minerals that it would do for an evening meal.
"Zikomo kwambiri, Verlosser," the people whispered in hushed voices. Albert nodded, accepting the thanks and the title.
"Zikomo," he replied in their tongue. The effect was instantaneous, relaxing at the familiar language, the Malawians edged closer to the construction, curiosity shadowing their blunt features. Albert wished he could explain, but the words were gone. As was their African-English translator. Gone – probably to the land of dreams.
It was going to be a water pump, linked up to the newly build dam and full of fresh, clean water. Albert's eyes glimmered with pride, he was very far from ignoring his African heritage, after ten years of running a successful industry he was back helping people in need. Albert didn't know which part of Africa his Grandmother had come from; she never spoke about her life before America, or his Grandfather.
It didn't matter to Albert; to him, family was a thing of the past – his work with the people of the hot, mysterious, dangerous continent was all that counted for him.
A small child with scars running up, down and across her naked body scuttled towards him, she babbled so fast that it was impossible for Albert to understand a word she said, but her wide eyes conveyed her desired message.
He stood; grabbing a tunic from the depleting pile of clothes and some sandals, the girls took the soft cotton fabric, but refused the shoes. Her feet were cracked and dry and hardened from the tough ground, she didn't need her feet soles protected. Albert followed the girl; she reached his hip and carried about the same amount of fat on her whole body as he did on a single leg.
He followed her away from the village centre, almost to the edge of the community itself. Passing the elderly members of the town who were struggling to hobble in the direction of the, Albert handed out cylindrical flasks and bread to murmured thanks in Lilongwe. He wanted to tell them not to go to the meeting; it was of no use to them yet. It would just waste their energy – energy of which they had precious little left. But Albert did not possess the necessary words to make his point and had no time to mime.
The little girl he was following tugged on his shirt, pulling Albert along with the strength of a gnat, but Albert followed, unresisting. She led him to the outskirts of the village where the mud-and-stick huts were in sparser numbers and the marshland swamped at the edges of a trickling river. Albert swiped at the buzzing insects, now grateful that he was wearing the protocol long trousers and shirt.
When there were only three only the thatch huts to go, the girl diverted into a small and circular house with mud-brick walls. It took Albert a minute for his eyes to adjust to the smoggy darkness and when they did, he wished they hadn't.
The girl, who had brought him to her home, was furled into a languorous embrace by two arms, thinner than toothpicks. Attached to the arms was a woman and Albert had to blink away a wave of tears that threatened to suddenly surfeit. He breathed in deeply, and choked on the rank smell of excrement. It was a sick, diarrheic smell and Albert felt faeces slop against his ankles.
Something wet slapped against his face, Albert peeled it away from his eyes – uncomfortable with anything obscuring his vision after his brief blind period back in the FAYZ - and chucked it towards his left without looking. He didn't want to know what it was. A wailing noise, weak with starvation and something else that took a little longer for Albert to recognize and once he did, wished that he hadn't.
The undertone of a rasping dryness echoed through the weeping, joined by another voice and another, looking around, Albert saw three pairs of sunken eyes staring back at him sleepily from a cot.
Cholera swamped the place… it was there, in smell and in poisoned, rotting body. Albert passed the last of the maize bread to a groping figure curled up on the crib.
There was a cry of pain from the mother; her nude body shook as her eyes watered. Her body gave a jerk and she writhed in obvious agony, onto the floor. Albert gingerly covered her with a threadbare blanket.
He didn't have Power over this… and even as Albert murmured softly in Malawian, he knew that the depths of poverty were endless. Layer upon layer of paucity covered the world. And there was nothing anyone could do.
What Albert had once been, what he had once done, would be forgotten, he would be forgotten. But deficiency was everlasting. What people don't understand is that no matter how much money or power you have, poverty is endgame.
And endgame always has the last laugh.