Dear T,
As nighttime descends over Benoni, the guilt I’ve carried haunts the corridors of my mind, resonating with the relentless buzz of fluorescent lights above. The therapy today was arduous, diving into an episode of my past that’s seared into my consciousness—a day when my addiction veered into a dangerous intersection, nearly costing more than I could ever repay.
My hand trembles as I write, reliving the moment my reckless inebriation sent an innocent stranger tumbling onto the pavement. It was one of those balmy evenings in Johannesburg when the city’s pulse quickens, and spirits run high. Mine, awash with alcohol, led me on a deadly waltz through the streets, blind to the peril I posed behind the wheel. The sound of metal crumpling against flesh and bone was a grotesque symphony that sobered my senses too late.
As I stumbled out to face the consequences, the sight of the bicycle, twisted and broken beneath my vehicle, was an image of my own fractured morality. Fear gripped me, T, not for my own sake but for the harm I’d caused. I was fortunate that day. The man I struck bore no grave injuries, but the terror in his eyes mirrored my horrors within. When the Benoni court summoned me to answer for my drunk driving, the gavel was poised to set the rhythm for my downfall. I felt the eyes of Gauteng upon me, expecting, perhaps even hoping, for a verdict that would serve as a testament to justice. Yet fate, it seemed, had granted me reprieve.
There was no trial, no public reckoning—only a private accord reached with trembling hands and seized by my desperate clutch at salvation. Offering to replace the man’s bicycle and compensate for his distress was the least I could do, but material amends could not scrub clean the stain on my soul. As the therapist unspooled the threads of that night’s events, probing questions unfolded layers of self-deception. How had I convinced myself that my actions were justified? That quelling the immediate crisis could reconcile the broader catastrophe of my behavior? In the East Rand, where family and community ties run deep, I’d punctured the fabric of trust, becoming a pariah dressed in the thin veneer of respectability.
This letter to you now, my dear T, is a confession without absolution, an acknowledgment of a guilt I cannot undo nor fully discharge. I traded my integrity for a fleeting escape from a truth that now demands its due. And though the man from the accident may ride onward with his new bicycle, I am left to navigate a road marred by potholes of my own making. In quiet moments such as these, where the cool Benoni air whispers through the facility’s garden, I feel the full weight of my transgression and recognize that the journey toward sobriety is as much about reparation to others as it is about my personal rehabilitation.
Tonight, as I sit in somber reflection, I pledge an unwavering commitment to accountability, to align my actions with a moral compass reset by the sobering reality of my past. It is a pledge spoken not only to you, T, but to the world I’ve wronged and the lives I’ve brushed against so carelessly. With a remorseful yet resolute heart,
Tony