The Clock Doesn’t Wait

When I was young, we had a humongous wall clock which would strike a tune at every hour. I never heard the clock ticking. I rushed everywhere and arrived nowhere, convinced myself that there would always be more time. It never announced itself; it simply ticked while I confused movement with meaning.

Decades later, I feel the weight of years I scarcely noticed gathering quietly. The dreams that once shouted with urgency now whisper in a language I must strain to understand. I had an epiphany: the clock never sped up. I simply stopped ignoring it and started hearing every tick and tock.

In all this, I’ve watched many friends and family pass to the other side. For those still walking this earth, their dark hair has surrendered to silver. I have witnessed lovers who promised each other forever only to become strangers before the hour has fully turned. A hospital corridor clock clicked through a long night while life quietly slipped from present into memory. Memories blur and soften, but the clock remains precise and unwavering.

You see, we rage against time, but it is indifferent. We bargain, plead, or sometimes pretend not to hear it. But time does not negotiate. Unlike Dorian Gray, whose portrait absorbed the cost of time, we are doomed to carry ours in plain sight. The mirror, time’s quiet accomplice, equally grants no mercy. When you make the mistake of checking yourself in the mirror, there is no comfort there, only the quiet confirmation of clock hands that never stop moving. Each line you see on your face, and each bone that aches or cracks when you stand or stretch, is the time’s unmistakable signature.

If you are still young and are still wrapped in the illusion of invincibility, here this: the clock does not wait. It offers no extensions to the late bloomer and no grace period for hesitation. It ticks whether you resent its haste or revere its lessons. Life rarely announces its turning points; it simply moves forward while you are still deciding.

Though time is linear, the tragedy is not reaching your final hour. It is arriving there without having truly lived because you allowed fear, distraction or pride to steal the moments meant to matter. Moments of connection. Moments that ask nothing more than your presence. The clock keeps count; we decide what counts.

So, on this day, I stand in front of the mirror not in denial but in acceptance. I bow down and kiss the ring, acknowledging that the clock does not wait. It never has. It never will. Yet time’s indifference is not cruelty, it is simply the condition of life. Within its unyielding rhythm lies something extraordinary, the space to choose. Either to grieve what slips away or cherish what remains. Either to curse the ticking away of time or dance while the music still plays. However, what we cannot keep, we can still honour. Hold a hand without hurry. Notice each breath while it is still yours. Give your day to what really matters.

May your years ahead be measured not merely in time passed, but in moments deeply lived. Like the love boldly given, beauty intentionally noticed or courage quietly practiced. May you dance while the music plays and recognize the melody while it still plays.

The clock doesn’t wait.

Neither should you.

Small Shoulders. Heavy Burdens.

The first Friday the 13th of 2026 has arrived, a date long associated with bad luck among the superstitious. This year brings a rare triple occurrence, as the 13th day of the month falls on a Friday in February, March and November. While the idea that Friday the 13th is unlucky can be dismissed as mere superstition, the day remains culturally significant. Even if its power lies only in what people believe about it, that belief alone makes it noteworthy. And for many, the superstition is still very real.

While many fear a calendar date, for a young girl in Gwembe, 'bad luck' isn't a superstition, it is a permanent resident in her home. 

During my last travel, I encountered a story that still weighs heavily on my heart to this hour. It is the kind of story that stays with you long after you walk away. Like a shadow on a sunny October day. A Friday the 13th horror story.

Mary (not her real name) is a 10-year-old girl living a life no child should ever endure. She lives with her mother, let’s call her Jane, who suffers from epilepsy.

Based on available records and historical timelines, I estimate Jane to be about 27 years old. Mary was born under circumstances Jane cannot bring herself to discuss. Within the community, painful whispers persist. Whispers of abuse, superstition and cruelty. From what were able to piece together, both Mary and her baby sister were likely conceived by men who believed the myth that sleeping with a woman who has epilepsy would bring them wealth or protect them from imagined danger.

Whatever the origins of these beliefs, whether rooted in superstition or fear, their impact is tragically real. Three innocent lives are now bearing the consequences of these harmful and deeply entrenched practices. Mary is not Jane’s only child. There is also Ruth (also not her real name) who is just eight months old, still a baby and entirely dependent on her mother’s care.

When Jane suffers an epileptic episode, the world stops for this family. And in those moments, it is 10-years old Mary who carries out everything. She becomes the caregiver, the decision-maker, the protector. She watches over her mother as her body convulses and sometimes dashes to the healthcare facility to ask for help. Regardless of the hour and that healthcare facility is about 2 Km away from where they live. She soothes and carries along her crying baby sister. She manages fear, hunger, uncertainty and responsibility all at once. Mary has no childhood to remember: no space for play, no room for dreams. Her days are shaped by survival. At an age when she should be learning, laughing and being held, she is instead holding everyone else together.

And the other relatives? Surely someone should be there, after all we respect the extended family system in Zambia. Surely family should matter. Yet no one could give us a clear answer on where other family members are or live.

We documented this heartbreaking reality and reported it to the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services (MCDSS). We are committed to following up with the relevant authorities. Our hope is that this family will be placed on the Social Cash Transfer programme and relocated to an environment where Jane can receive proper medical care, where Ruth can grow safely and where Mary can finally experience what it means to be a child. They need a radical shift in their fortunes like yesterday.

At first glance, this may appear to be an isolated tragedy: one family, one community, one painful story. But stories like Mary’s do not exist in isolation. They ripple outward, touching our society in ways we often choose not to see. When a child is forced to grow up too soon, when superstition replaces humanity and when silence stands in for responsibility, the cost is carried by all of us.

Mary and Ruth are not just victims of circumstance; they are mirrors held up to our collective conscience. If help does not come now, what kind of future awaits them? What kind of adults are we allowing them to become: shaped by fear, neglect and survival instead of care, protection and love?

Mary shouldn't have to spend her whole life 'goodwill hunting' like scavenging for the basic kindness and safety that should be her birthright.

A society is ultimately judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. If we allow children like Mary to carry burdens meant for adults, we are not merely failing one family, we are quietly accepting a future built on abandonment. There is still time to intervene, to protect and to restore what has been taken.

But time, like childhood, does not wait.

Joy Comes in the Morning

When I was young and restless, I had a propensity for driving in the evening whenever I was on a long journey. Some many moons ago, I started from Chama at 16:00hrs, and by 18:30hrs, I was already in Lundazi. Sable Construction Company Limited had just completed work on the Lundazi - Chipata Road. It was a smooth, unadulterated, and unmarked highway.

There I was, cruising at an average speed of 140 km/h.

The air conditioning was set to its lowest, fast-paced music blared at high volume and adrenaline rushed through my veins. I wore the cloak of invincibility from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. A whippersnapper, I felt the need for speed.

At around 20:30hrs, I reached Chipata.

Against my better judgment, decided to pick up four people who were hitchhiking. Sitting in the front passenger seat was an elderly man. Behind was a young couple and another elderly woman.

I later realized that the old man had appointed himself the responsibility of keeping me awake by telling endless stories. He also doubled as my navigator.

“This stretch usually has domestic animals on the road,” he would say.

“There’s a large hump in 500 meters.”

“There’s a dangerous curve in this area.”

He genuinely looked out for me, and for everyone else in that car that night. By extension, he helped in keeping us alive. As a result of his close supervision, we reached Lusaka at around 04:00hrs the following morning. Very late for my Satwant Singh alter ego.  

After dropping off three people, including my assistant driver, the elderly lady remained. Apparently, she didn’t know where she was going; her son was supposed to come and pick her up once we arrived in Lusaka. She was in terra incognita. 

Unfortunately, her phone had run out of battery and we couldn’t call him.

After some frustrating conversation, she asked for her backpack, which I had kept in the boot. She began searching through it, eventually pulling out an old, worn-out A5 exercise book. She flipped through pages filled with scribbles, some in pencil, others in pen. By then, my already thin patience had completely withered.

At last, she found the page she had been looking for and showed me her son’s phone number. The very son she had come to visit.

However, there was yet another problem: his phone number wasn’t going through, and my conscience wouldn’t allow me to leave her anywhere.

In Obotunde Ijimere's The Imprisonment of Obatala, the multifaceted Yoruba deity Eshu makes a profound observation: kindness has never killed anyone but brings a lot of problems.

It was almost 05:00hrs. when I decided to park in front of Radian Stores on Freedom Way.

This decision was as strategic as it was an act of resignation. Strategic because I was assured by the security guards at Radian Stores that I would be safe there; resignation because I truly didn’t know what else to do with my only remaining passenger, who had no idea where she was going.

Sleep eventually set in, only to be interrupted by the hustle and bustle of Lusaka’s morning. I checked my watch, it was almost 07:00hrs, I tried the lady’s son’s phone number again.

And voilà, it rang.

Truly, joy comes in the morning. By 07:30hrs, he had arrived, explaining how he had started panicking when his mother’s phone stopped ringing, fully aware that she knew nothing about Lusaka.

From this experience, I learned a few lessons.

Firstly, there are people sent to look out for you. You may never get the chance to thank them, and often you may not even know their names. These are people who mention your name in corridors of power and influence, who believe in you more than you believe in yourself.

By the same measure, there are people who will dislike you for no reason other than you being yourself. They use frivolous justifications: “I don’t like the way he walks,” they’ll say, or “I don’t like his head or his nose.” Nothing about character, only things you cannot change.

Secondly, don’t be too quick to judge people unless you fully understand their situation and perspective. As humans, we judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions. We must extend to others the same grace we so readily give ourselves.

The old lady’s life experience had taught her to keep important phone numbers in an exercise book. Experience, often held by the elderly, is the antidote to the reckless invincibility that many youths exude today.

Thirdly, humanity thrives on interdependence, and interdependence is a never-ending chain. I cared for the hikers by giving them a ride. The elderly man cared for me, and everyone else, by navigating and keeping me alert. I cared for the old lady by not abandoning her. The security guards at Radian Stores cared for me by providing a sense of safety. The old lady’s son cared for his mother, and his relief completed the circle.

No one is truly independent. Our survival and success depended on a network of mutual responsibility. At various times, we are all the driver, the old man, the old lady and the waiting son. In theory, every single person falls somewhere on the continuum and can fit perfectly into one of the four categories. A functioning society relies on these roles being fulfilled with patience and duty.

In the end, this journey mirrors life itself: moving from the arrogance of solo speed, through the humility of accepting help and bearing responsibility, to the exhaustion of persistent duty, and finally to the redemption that comes with dawn and resolution. It reminds us that speed is not the same as progress, and that while our greatest trials on the road often come from our fellow travelers, so do our greatest lessons and aids. As we step into the new year, slow down when needed, be kinder than required and always assume that the person besides us may be fighting a battle we cannot see. The road ahead should be shared, just as the one behind was.