ZWELIBANZI - THE TAXI DRIVER

CHAPTER 01

ZWELIBANZI

Zwelibanzi ,In English it means “the world is vast.” Perhaps my parents chose it with hope, believing I would one day walk a life full of opportunities and wide horizons. But to me, the world has never felt vast ,it has always felt small, caged by loss and responsibility.

I lost both my parents when I was just a boy. In their absence, I was left with my younger sister, who looked to me for protection, and an aunt who tried her best to keep us afloat. Childhood was a luxury I never knew; instead, survival became my daily companion. Somewhere in the silence of those years, my laughter disappeared, and my heart grew cold. People say I hardly smile, that I have the hardest face behind the wheel and maybe they are right.

Now I drive a taxi through the restless veins of the city. Every day, I carry strangers whose lives flicker past me in fragments: laughter, arguments, phone calls, tears. They step in and out, but I remain, bound to the driver’s seat, the engine’s hum echoing the weight I carry inside. To them, I am just another taxi driver. To me, every road is a reminder that no matter how far I go, I am still driving through the shadows of my past .