#traveltuesday – William Chasterson

After thoroughly satisfying his curiosity regarding the dying spider MM remembers his assigned task. He walks on through an obstacle course of abandoned cars. Some of them have been turned upside down or on their side and most of them have stray dogs living under them. Metaphysical Man pauses to observe a dog struggling to enter one of the rusted shelters. He ponders over the symbolism of the scene. The dog’s ears are raw and bleeding from scratching insect bites. Yet he opens the wounds even more by scraping against the bottom of the car. Apropos of his situation the beast struggles to enter an unfit location in order to flee from an even more hostile environment. The superhero notes the muddy ground and rusty roof of the shelter and considers just how hostile the environment would have to be in order to make this bacteria trap appear as the safer option. Metaphysical Man continues down the road and spots a government building. He reads the title written on the front of the edifice. “Ministry of Sanitation and Social Wellbeing.” He laughs inwardly at the obvious irony.

When Metaphysical Man, Atro City’s resident superhero and trendsetter is inadvertently sucked into an alternate world by a mysterious super villain he’s forced to overcome his only weakness; reality. Read more at http://smashwords.com/books/view/540303#amreading #amwriting

I want to think OM from HarsH ReaLiTy for giving me an opportunity to share a day in the life of William Chasterson in Central Africa.

Your probably asking, “William what the heck is ‘Daily life in…'” Well let me explain. It’s your opportunity to showcase where you’re from. Show us your hometown. Click here for details on how you can participate.

I’ve been doing volunteer work in Central Africa for almost two years now. It would be remiss of me not to mention a particular aspect of daily life here, and that’s police brutality. This is especially on my mind in light of recent events. First I’ll mention something that happened to me the other day. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts I rent an apartment connected to a bar which features loud revelries until the break of dawn. Here’s a picture of the front of my house on a typical morning after such an event.

Anyways the other day the loud music was overshadowed by shouting and noisy activity surrounding the house. I ran to the back window and overheard a man threatening to kill someone over being accused of lying. Though he was worked up his neighbors managed to wrestle him away from his victim. The shouting continued however and carried into the front of the house where the entire neighborhood seemed to be gathered. We turned off all the lights and discreetly peeked out the window as we heard a physical confrontation. People were yelling, “You are murderers!” The police showed up and we heard more shouting, threats and the cocking of arms. I called my friend who’s sister is a police and she advised us not to leave the house. If someone knocks on the door we were to call her brother. Eventually the situation calmed and the police arrested someone after giving him a thorough beat down. The next morning I heard that my friend was in the hospital. The same night he was offering us advice on avoiding a violent confrontation he was attacked by the police and beaten unconscious. He’s a taxi driver so he innocently picked up a female passenger who hailed him. All at once another car wildly swerved out of nowhere and started chasing them. At this point the girl nonchalantly mentions that it’s her jealous boyfriend that is chasing her. My friend wants to do the right thing so he drives to a check point figuring the girl will be safe in the presence of the police. The girl gets out and walks towards the police while the pursuers jump out of their car and begin assaulting my friend. There are four men who beat him while the girl’s boyfriend who by the way is armed takes the lead. The police/soldiers at the checkpoint stand by idly while my friend is mercilessly beaten unconscious. Apparently the girl’s boyfriend was some sort of high ranking officer which makes him above the law. My friend was told that the aggressor was locked up and the other men fled the scene. But most likely no one was arrested.