Sunday evening and I step out of the house to see off some lady friends who had come over to dinner at my place.The usual chit chat as happens with ladies gets us standing at the bus stop a while as we exchange final stories about our kids, life, stuff ladies talk about.
Right across where we stand is a car packed. We do not notice it until a young girl comes out of it.She looks unhurried as she proceeds to wait outside the car. What happens next manages to stop us talking about stuff and change our focus. Next steps out an old man. I mean, he is old enough to be the girls grandfather. He has a word with a watchman and walks right across the road to a chemist. We can only guess what he is gone to purchase. On his way to the chemist he passes right where my three friends and I are standing. He is old with falling hair.
We decide to watch the unfolding scenario for a while. The old guy spends a while at the chemist and his lady friend calls him on her mobile. Perhaps she feels he is taking too long there. But he is old and all his actions are slow. After a while he steps out, accompanies his lady friend across the road to some rooms right right above a pub.
As we stand there trying to let it all sink in, we notice 3 even younger girls. These surely must be primary school kids. They are dressed up in ways to appear older than they really are. They walk right past where we stand and a little way up the road a car stops. The three girls stop to talk to the occupants and that goes on for a while. Eventually, one of them get into the car and the other two walk on.
We are all silent now. Trying to come to terms with what is happening right before our eyes. Just then a motorbike passes by. Atop are a young guy and girl. We are shocked to see what is happening even as they ride past us. He has his hands all over her and she does not seem to mind.
Eventually we have to leave. Not many words are exchanged between us as we bid each other goodbye. I walk back to my house. I cannot begin to comprehend what I have just seen. Why would a young girl get involved with such an old man? Even if for cash, how can anything happen between them? How does she live with herself after tonight? What is that old man thinking? Just how far are people willing to go for cash?
It is a pathetic scenario, the way we have gone in our morals as a society. It begs an urgent call for change if we have to save a generation that seems so bent on self destruct that they do not seem to think about tomorrow. But even as I think of those gullible young girls, I wonder, who are those mature men who go sleeping around with them? Do they have kids of their own? If so, how would they feel if something like that happened to their own?
It is scary when we live in a society that it is every man for himself and God for us all. We need to be able to speak out about the moral decay in our society because none of us is safe in the scenario. This is where our own kids are growing up, who knows who they look up to?
I think about this long school holiday. Some kids have just cleared form four and feel like the own the world. They will litter the streets doing all sorts of crazy stuff. I have seen them drunk, smoking God-knows-what as they walk around late at night from some crazed up hangouts. They engage in all sorts of stuff without the knowledge of their parents. Sometimes parents can do little even when they know of these activities. It seems to me that our young people have taken their parents and society hostage. They do all they wan to do as we stand aside and watch, helpless to take any action.
