Heinrich curled his bone-and-skin frame under the bridge and peacefully snoozed. The rain-blocking spot he called home was cosy, and he nicknamed the cardboard boxes duvet covers. Each week, he bought new blankets by collecting cartons of cornflakes. His pillows were Crocket’s shoeboxes. 

The boy weighed 20kg and attended school because of the stew soup, which was part of the school feeding programme before it was suspended. Since then, Heinrich zulas around and only writes the examinations. Under the bridge, he relied on flashing headlights from vrooming cars as light bulbs for his readings. 

Today, he was reading a book titled, ‘Water Under the Bridge’. In fact, only the cover pages and the spine were still intact, but he playacted reading so that the ‘kick-and-whip’ officers would not handcuff him. Inside the blank cover pages, he scribbled his ‘Zula-to-survive’ tactics in pencil. 

The jutted ribs boy bites his flaky lips and prayed that a Samaritan would publish his manuscript. Now and then, he scratched his scruffy hair and titled his book, ‘From Nobody to Somebody’. 

During rush hours, the hooting drivers waved at him for reading religiously. 

The wall-size screen above his head displayed crispy drumsticks and kept him salivating over fried chicken.  Heinrich hated the overhead screen for showing a tearful glass of bubbling drink and sobbing alongside the advertisement. 

Soon, the streets were clear of cars, and he slept with his face against the wall. He slammed shut his dazzled eyes and avoided the full-beamed cars. The boy was halfway asleep when he dreamed that jingling coins had fallen from a speeding van. Immediately, Heinrich skipped into the tarred road, but there were no golden or silver coins. 

He spotted strewn bottle caps in the middle of the road. “Bottle caps, not coins,” cursed Heinrich, furrowing his eyebrows. The whispering wind begged him to play with the bottle caps. Somehow, he crawled and picked the caps. 

There were drops of Fanta grape inside the caps, which he sipped. Then he chewed the plastic liners as if they were sweetened gums. Before he could chew the last liner, he flipped it over, and it read, “Congrats, you’ve won N$40 000.” 

Seconds before the morning sun kisses the bridge, he dashed towards the Coke-Cola depot and claimed his prize. Little did he know that the CCTV cameras over the bridge had been filming him for a real-life drama on NBC 6.