Theo Palarie: Falling From Olympus (#Wattys2018)

8. Training Day

Today is Monday, and the city could literally be freezing over. Cold winds are circling downtown, lashing mercilessly at the skin on our noses. So I keep my hands out of harm by slipping them in their pockets as I take my steps through disciplined traffic. Admittedly milking it as I stumble into warm exhaust fumes left behind by passing busses. The buildings continue to reducing themselves into simple walls, some spruced with graffiti, and my feet dribble around my fellow pedestrians who seem as determined on reaching their sheltering destinations.

I'm wearing a not-so fashionable rain mac and a dark pair of jeans today. It's the most plain I've been in a while. I even traded my satchel for a backpack, thinking no one would pay me attention as I hug the walls in a scurry to catch the next taxi to Gold Reef City. Home to one of the most frightening rollercoasters (the Anaconda) and Endurocorp's Retail Academy.

It doesn't take long hailing a minibus from the curb. They're abundant and just as wreckless, ramping onto the highway to a climb of vantage. From above, the city's verticality makes Jo'burg appear less complicated the higher and further I travel. Even shaming the tasteless architects who thought of making corporate buildings so flat and symmetrical.

I sit staring out the window, as the songs shuffle in my earphones, until the yellow helix tracks of the 'Anaconda' snake and curl through their air-rights to suggest an idea. As rash as it might be, I consider handing my resume at the amusement park at beside us. I then think of Final Destination and how it didn't end so well for that one guy.

And, so much for that. It's like the idea just reinstated my decision in selling clothes. I like being around clothes —that part is certain. Let's be clear on that. I know what like but it's the people that come for them that I'm not keen on. "Hell is other people" according to Jean-Paul Sartre and I agree. Plus, handling a lion's share of human personalities —all while operating heavy machinery— sounds like it's had it's run on a warning label before. But as I settle on my decision, I can hear irony, and all the other voices in my head, ganging up to laugh at me for the rest of the trip.

I know it's time to disembark, when the laughter jumps in volume. I'm infront of a typical Pakistani-owned minimart, across from Endurocorp Retail Academy, and it's 8AM. I'm breathing clouds of steam through my nostrils, my fingertips hurt from the cold, the heaviness in my stomach hasn't settled on my decision to attend and already, I'm thinking of turning back and going home. And if I do, I know how the play by play will unfurl as if I hand-wrote the hermit autobiography.

I'm certain that after entering the apartment, I'll flip one-eighty and morph into a complete shut-in. I won't move a muscle in the shallow imprint of my black hand-me-down futon. I'll barely lift a hand to close the curtains at easy reach, and I will slowly sink into a rescuing sleep that I'll never want to wake from. Regretting why I didn't stick it out or at least try harder.

Seems like I'm damned if I do. And I'll be damned if I didn't.

I guess it too late for me to turn back. So I submit to destiny by entering the premises. Endurocorp's Retail Academy is like any other college campus. A peach brick, single level building with two feet of grass, a cafeteria and dedicated lecture rooms spanning into two wings. I was here for K.C. Parker's training, nearly a full year ago, but then I had jitters of excitement. Today feels scary and deterring, but I make the familiar passing through the glass doors, meeting the stillness which accompanies being early.

Stick to the wall, and you'll find that the corridor circles a roofless, all-brick courtyard that looks crafted for alien abductions. There's basically a giant gapping butthole in the roof. And beneath the naked sky, sit there brick benches, in orange tint variations, beside flower beds nurturing broadleaved plants. There are also bins, with ashtray tops, and folding chairs mounted to the walls beneath the inner skirts of circular corridor.