Sticky

The monsoon has come to our Sahel, and with it, the air has taken on the quality of oppressive weight. It is a strange thing, despite the river and willow bogs, this is ultimately an arid region. Although the monsoons do come annually, the way the air gets heavy is still a shock.

Those I know with straight hair, like Sabina, bemoan how it gets flat and greasy-looking when the weather gets like this. They avoid the outside and rain as much as possible. I think this a bunch of who shot john hair dysmorphia, personally.

"Oh, times is hard," I growl unsympathetically. "My hair gets all kinds of frizzy. It's a miracle I don't have an afro right now."

"I wish I had wavy hair with curls like yours," more than one straight-haired, including Sabina, has said to me.

"No. You don't," I reply, but no one ever listens to me. Fucking women and their fucking vanity.

Even as the atmosphere has become pendulous with an adhesive quality, I remind myself this is not North Carolina, or anywhere out east I've been for that matter. Praises be. When I lived down south, I saw Hostess cupcakes and oreos mold. True story, and there are those in lab coats that insist such things are incapable of decomposition. Bullshit, I was there. It was wet and rot and kudzu and Klansmen burning crosses and hypocritical Elmer Gantry preachers and NASCAR.

Ever wonder why I'm not scared of Hell? Aside from it's mythology and I was once married to a Catholic? Think of where I lived for a few years.

But my Paradise is a little sticky these days. It's for just a bit. A few short weeks when it comes down to brass tacks and bedposts. Even now, meteorological prophecy hints that things might be drying out. At least for a few days. Which is good. See, I tire of the pseudo-fro.