The Stories I Tell...

  I lost a friend like keys on the sofa Those are the opening lyrics of a song by Finneas that haunted me for a while a few months back. The first verse paints a picture we're familiar with: losing your keys, your wallet, time, or a bad bet. It usually starts with having confidence in the knowledge that you know where the keys are or you have time or you'd win the best. A Confidence that quickly vanishes in a puff of smoke when you realise that you aren't in control. Then you ask yourself, ' How did this happen ?' One day you're looking at photos and it hits you that you haven't spoken to Paul or Jennifer in forever and that it would be totally weird to do so now. You've lost a friend. This is a story about how I lost a friend...for a bit anyway. It is highly condensed but you'll get the gist. In this story, I'll call my friend Drake. Lol. It begins with a party-that-wasn't-a-party. I had been experiencing a bit of Impostor's Syndrome aro...

  I don't talk to strangers. What I mean is, I don't have unnecessary conversations with service people. If I have an appointment with a doctor, I don't need his bedside manner. I don't need enquiries about my welfare from the market woman at the stall where I always buy my semo or idle chit chat with my barber as he cuts my hair. Even on a bus, I don't join in on the familiar chorus of how bad this country is getting. I don't think I'm better than people. I'm just not good at verbal communication, so I write instead. I'm better at it. I eavesdrop on the conversations of people around me and reinvent them as fiction. That's how I became an international best-selling author.  A year has passed since I last published a novel. That's why I decided to go out to find fresh ideas. Public transportation is usually ripe with stories to transform into captivating tales.  As I waited on a street in my city, I spotted a keke. It was empty except for the...