BEAUTY PROBLEMS episode 9

        Take me in your arms and release me not,
         To fairyland and sugar candy mounts of yonder,
          Take my soft palm in yours and forbid me not,
           Let all the hallowed beauties gaze in wonder…

“ Rila?” , Tracy knocked on the door. Rita had been going through her morning motions-call it a ritual of reciting a few verses of “Selected Poems by Matsiko Godwin”,

“Yes dear, she answered as she sauntered towards the door, turned the key and handle before letting her friend in. She was yet to take a shower but it was a Saturday so there was no hurry.

She slid the curtain to the left and squinted at the bright rays bouncing off the dressing mirror. Maggie turned to the wall and continued her light steady breathing.

“ Kontango, Kontango, papa kontango..yuwa leegi..yo legi..”, the Askari attempted the chorus of “Go down low by Sheba and Pallaso “ and was unbothered that her syllables were no close to the original in melody or meaning.

For the high notes, her mouth kept open and the singing went on in her head but certainly no sound!

A passerby muttered to herself, “ You sure should keep your day job”, The Askari did not hear, not that she would have understood the sarcasm either; the sharp bristles held together by black rubber near her hand kept a steady swooshing motion as the dust, paper wrappers and water bottles collected toward the hostel entrance.

Mrs. Kaheneso spent half the night tossing and turning in one of the couches. Her reddened eyes drenched a pool of wetness under her head and she rolled and turned in her tears wondering if she would ever cry again.

She would dose off and see a host of campus girls chasing her with sharp nails that would turn into knives that aimed for her heart. She would scream and mean to run but her legs constantly betrayed her and remained transfixed on the ground.

As the girls closed in, they laughed ghastly hyena laughter and she saw bloodthirsty canines overlapping the lower lip all the way to the chin.

In the bedroom, her husband tired and relieved of the previous night’s tension, undressed nonchalantly, lifted the duvet, rolled under it and slept like a baby till sunrise. ‪

#‎To‬ be continued
$TOH

BEAUTY PROBLEMS episode 8

He drove the car into the garage, closed the door and headed upstairs to the living room. He dropped the car keys on the tray by the door and loosened his tie in a haphazard motion as he headed to the bedroom.

“Hi honey?”, He said.

“Hi my foot, where are you coming from?”, She shouted as she stood up from the bed to face him but he continued to fumble with his shirt buttons albeit now slower. His face labored to conjure up a more endearing welcome to perhaps elude the escapade reeling in.

“Eh, madam…mpora mpora…”, He said eventually, trying his best to ignore the staccatos punctuating the one sentence his livid wife had so far afforded.

“Where are you from?”, she insisted, turning his chin straight above her forehead. “It is late in the night and a married man is just walking in on a woman who has no idea where he was..?”, he was not sure what the question was but he did not need to provide an answer for she continued, “Am I a flower or a security guard in this house, to just to open the door for you?”

“This is my house and I can do the dickens what I want. If that is too much for you, I doubt you have forgotten the route that brought you. It is women like you who are the disgrace to society. We do you a favor and marry you and suddenly you are rambling rules and regulations…., if I were you, I would get those wrinkled claws off this handsome face and mind my immaterial business”.

By this time the words were rolling off his tongue like a type writer.

“Ingrate…”, he let the last word hang midair to the desired effect-a dagger straight to her right ventricle. She let go of his chin in recoil and wells of dew clouded her eyes like a wounded dove that was too afraid to cry. She slowly walked out of the room as he kicked off his shoes and sat on the bed to remove the stockings.

Rita left Sombe Supermarket and headed to her room minutes before her roommate did. As she was removing the earphones and rolling them in her hand, Maggie walked in with the hood still flapping onto her forehead and ducked under the covers without even bothering to undress or notice her still-awake roommate. Rita thought the better of her initial desire to greet Maggie or indulge in any form of communication.

She texted Tracy that she was back, switched off the light and joined in on a Disney fanfare.

$TOH

BEAUTY PROBLEMS episode 7

She grabbed a bathrobe and headed for the door. She had dreamily ordered room service from a menu she could hardly decipher, let alone make a culinary attempt at its recipes. She closed the door, pushed the spiced yellow slices of potato fries around the plate with a fork clasped by just two fingers and occasionally nibbled at the tasteless French fries and cucumber.

She was glad to have already submitted her coursework assignment and that he had paid her upfront. She was unlikely going to get another client for the night but the previous one she had kind of liked-almost awkwardly attached. She offloaded a slow mo slap that heated up and Usain Bolted to her cheek at the sprint gap almost depressing the shiny dimple but certainly melting off the remains of Victoria Secrets’ foundation.

Fantasy aside, a girl had to survive!

She had half a mind not to touch the bathroom tap and she wiped it aggressively with disinfectant and emptied the tin onto the tiles, washed it down with splashes of maximally heated water before she could use the facilities. Moments later, she checked out of the room, pulled the hood to her forehead and flagged down a passing boda boda.

He had managed to ease the rapturous tension that had welled up that evening and dulled at the snap of a manicured middle finger and thumb. Generosity had visited him more liberally on this particular occasion and he would have been the more glad except that all his money had ended up in the drawer of a ominous creature by the hostel gate, Colline Hotel and now this “not good looking-bird in sheets her father could never think of buying”, he let this off with a distasteful snigger to an audience of one.

The blue jaguar let off a clear friendly waste of unleaded as it mowed over the soft mud and tar up and down the hill towards Seeta. Tracy walked through the gate a pair of strings hanging from her ears like a climbing stem on a tree that could gladly use the extra energy for itself.

$TOH

BEAUTY PROBLEMS episode 6

She watched him pick up a white towel from the carpet, wrap it around himself and head to the bathroom. She pulled a loose sheet and covered her chest with it. Through the slight opening of the bathroom door she could hear slow steady trickles of warm water fall onto his body, bounce off to the wall and onto the shiny tiles and through the hair stopper to the underground. Mist formed on the inside of the bathroom door and so did his form vanish in the cloud of white.

A stubborn tear rolled down her plump cheek, ignored the shiny dimple and headed for the soft mattress. She pulled the sheet to her face well aware that the chill was more resolved than the porous piece of cloth.

He thought about the past few minutes. The passion had been instinctive but far from mind encapsulating. It was never taught in geography class that volcanoes let off their strength in an embarrassing anticlimax. He came out of the bathroom and quietly got back into his clothes. He glanced at the bed and knew she was pretending to be asleep. Back in the car he drove off into the night. Off the radio, a high-pitched auto tuned voice melodized Akon’s first song. Both of them would have related.

She felt the empty space next to her, replaced it with a smiling plump shape of fur and sobbed to Hawaii.

$TOH

BEAUTY PROBLEMS (episode 5)

“So this guy ..kale bi guy bimanyira, mbu…kyoka..hmmn, he thinks because he’s hot and rich and simanyi wot he can just walk up to me and…” Rita started

“First tell me babe, how did you meet, was it on campus or somewhere else?”, Tracy cut in.

“Met?, be serious, have you heard me talk about him before?”, Tracy shook her head if for anything to let her friend skip to the more juicy aspects of the conversation. “ me I was just in the common room and I saw the guy coming in and start jazzing me, kale of course my heart was beating fast, coz the guy is tall and u know…bur, I didn’t want to show him that I was that easy, you know” Rita said.

“ So yo playing hard to get, with a dude like that? Com ooon”, Tracy rolled her eyes and waved some hand formation to whom it may concern. “ May be you’ve met somewhere and you just don’t remember".

Tracy stood up from the bed, headed to the dressing mirror and started re aligning her plaits. “ Nope, it just happened… kinda too good to be true, you know how guys be “. Rita spoke with a laid back confidence that nerve pressed Tracy.

“ What if you never see him again, you could at least have been nice, you know, just casual” Tracy said, as she browsed through her phone then reached for the photo app, tilted the gadget slightly angled from the chin until the replica was flattering enough, pout and click.

“ Bur you chick and selfies?”, Rita said turning to admire the photo that Tracy was grid-editing through.

“ Owaye, Sinz’eyalet’enakku”, the other said with a slight ring of cynicism.

They laughed at no particular joke.

In the parking lot, Goldie waved down the windows for some air then raised them again before pressing the auto button. He was not really waiting on anyone but just taking his time to leave. What was the hurry? He glanced at the lit windows some floors up and knew Rita to be in one of those rooms. Off the car radio, John Legend continued to croon in fantasy.

$TOH