Big Apple

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New York constantly screeches and screams. Fire trucks and ambulances constantly whip down the street. The massive billboards shout at you to buy soda, phones, bags, cosmetics, cars – subliminally. The men in rickshaws play loud music and speak in thickly accented English. There is no silence in New York. Nothing stands still, everybody is in a constant state of motion as if, if they stopped, they’d turn into a pillar of salt. 

After you have had enough of this bedlam you will leave that lunacy and descend into the earth, into the very belly of the beast: the subway. The subway is a vast and unimaginable network of capillaries feeding the furnace of American hunger with more bodies of breathing New Yorkers. The subway is dirty and grimy, clanky and old. It smells of oil, steel and weariness. And the pizza rat. Look it up.

This miasma is arranged both alphabetically and numerically, an esoteric code, only known to New Yorkers, meant to set them apart from other mortals. The subway is an irony in that if you thought you’d escaped the hysteria of the streets above, you will be met with untold noise below. Of old steel grinding against old steel, like lovers who hate each other, the remnants of their union being passionless sex. You could convulse and die and New Yorkers will step over you to exit. Nobody looks up, never makes eye contact because God forbid should your eyes meet and see their humanity. Nobody talks in the subway. New Yorkers all look at their cellphones, ears plugged with headphones and earphones, blocking out their environment as they listen to other humans or instruments initiated by other humans. The irony therein is that although the trains are old and loud, the humans never say a word, mum as mummies. 

It’s 00:47 am as I write this in Brooklyn. By the way Brooklyn is dirty, but it’s got a charming character. It’s got attitude. I’m staying in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood. The host of the Airbnb is an ageing Russian who has hung drawings of naked women in the living room area. He’s good. He is currently seated next door in a room-turned-studio, burning the midnight oil.  I just returned from watching ‘MJ The Musical’ on Broadway. I’m still trembling slightly from the electricity of a Broadway performance. If you can, watch one show before you die. It’s worth your time and money. 

Anyway, I’m a bit tipsy and hella tired, so I will write more about New York later. About how today we trailed a random man from a train. About Atlanta and about cancer and life and about Aroro.

Allow me sleep, it’s still my happy birthday. Technically. 

I’m sorry, how are you?

Speak soon. 

 

 

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37 Comments
  1. Hello Biko,
    I am fine. In the spirit of birthdays, mine was three days ago. I turned a quarter a century old (or young). I feel so old yet so young.
    I have a friend in New York. Maybe… Err! Sorry! Y’all don’t look each other in the eye over there!
    Have fun! Over here, Nabii is getting a reality check while his Deputy is still yapping recklessly!

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  2. Your birthday ended last month, its now my birthday month. Ama It’s still October in US? Hehe… Enjoy yourself Biko.

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  3. Nice one, yes New York is craaaazy! “everybody is in a constant state of motion as if, if they stopped, they’d turn into a pillar of salt.” Time stops for no one there. Alafu birthday yako ilishapita last month.

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  4. I will behave like the whites here, when they hear you are from Afrika. So Biko you are in Amerika? Aaaah, there is someone I know there. You must know them. Her name is Mukami wa Ndegwa. Their village and ours drink water from the same river. The last time she came home, she couldn’t speak in Kikuyu. She had forgotten what we call a cow in Gikuyu. But when she was chased by dogs of Chege wa Mbogo, those mitinas, she screamt in kikuyu without a spec of English in it, calling her mother and shouting waaai.

    Happy birthday young man. Mine was on 23rd, but I just remembered 2 days later. The same way I keep forgetting buying a green 2016 Porsche cayenne Turbo S with 4 litre V8 engine coughing a whooping 513 horsepower and 750 Nm of torque.

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  5. Oh yes, I couldn’t agree more on broadway, it’s quite something.If you can hop off at Columbus on circle and in the underground market try “Lisa’s Dumplings”, Thank me later!

  6. Concrete jungle where dreams are made of
    Let’s give it up for New York , New York .

    JayZ feat.Alicia Keys.

    We await more on this revered American city

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  7. Short for bday shots i hope.

    “By the way Brooklyn is dirty, but it’s got a charming character. It’s got attitude”… more like Eastleigh :), not ghetto yet and not Karen.

    Glad you’re enjoying NYC.

  8. Welcome to New York Biko! Have you been in the tunnels and there’s traffic? haha…you feel like u can’t breathe. Biko don’t forget to hop on the ship and cross over to statue of liberty,it’s amazing. When you finish with NYC, welcome to Washington state, the real Canaan!

  9. I actually can tell where that Airbnb is… me who the nearest they have been towards anywhere out of this country is Cabanas. Thanks to movies I know my way around NY….
    Enjoy your stay chocolate man.

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  10. For those of us who have not been to NY before, feel like we live there after this read.

    Guys my Nov started on high,the months read is DRUNK..