Potholes in 'Whatever Happened to Rick Astley?'

Raisedon Baya discusses the story 'Potholes' from Bryony Rheam's short story collection Whatever Happened to Rick Astley?, which was being discussed by the Bulawayo Book Club.

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"Potholes"

I'm a sucker for political satire. I sometimes see it where it's not there. So please forgive me for seeing Potholes as some kind of political piece. Subtle but there. I don't know if there is anything called "covert satire" but in this piece I see a writer taking a short dig at politicians and the government. 

The futility of one man's, Gibson Sibanda's, attempt to solve a national problem is sad if not laughable.  Everyday we laugh at our problems and at ourselves. It's nothing new. The potholes are not only in Napier road but everywhere, as we later find out in the story. "He went first to Ilanda and then to Famona and finally settled on Pauling Road in Suburbs."

The dig is more pronounced when suddenly the city council wakes up to quickly fix the road because the the Vice President has bought a house in the neighbourhood. They quickly fixed the road so that the VP of the country would drive safely, and unbothered, to his new house. Here is a government of the people that has been captured and now panders to the whim of politicians. Politicians' lives have become more important than the ordinary people that the government claims to serve. Somehow priorities have been turned upside down. The servant has become the master. 

Potholes are a sign of roads gone bad. Unattended to. Unrepaired. And a danger to motorists. Potholes could also be a metaphor of something horrible gone wrong with our politics. Something that needs fixing immediately. And not by one person. 

Whether or not the author intended the piece to be a  political satire or not, the story effectively highlights the absurdity and injustice of a system that prioritises the needs of the powerful over those of the general population.

The story is also a typical example of "there is complexity in simplicity." It looks and reads so simple but on a closer look its depth is outstanding.  Potholes is just but of the 16 stories in Bryony Rheam's outstanding collection aptly titled Whatever Happened to Rick Astley?