IF HAIRS COULD TALK

 

“You know, I get nervous by the sight of unkempt hair”

“And why’s that?”

“Well, it makes me imagine the worst of the man or woman in question.”

“But you can’t always have clean cut or well-made hair. It’s hard work and who has time for such beauty strife. Or why do you think Beyonce sang that beauty hurts?”

“I’m not talking about beauty. Rather I mean responsibility. Bad hair must surely birth a bad day. Look, I hate seeing my wife without her hair done or at least covered. I blame it on Medusa. Should have never seen that movie, The Clash of the Titans.”

“Hahaha, that’s just cracking! Now you blame your sick theory on a movie? Buddy, your wife must be tolerating a whole lot of shit from you. Cut her some slack and leave her hair alone. If you continue shaving yours all the time, you’d be bald before you’re even 40, man.”

I’ve been thinking. A thousand tongues there would be if our hairs could talk. Imagine, a million heads would have a zillion tongues and more! The worst part of it is, they’d grow back even after you cut them off over and over and over again.”

“Like, if hairs could talk, we’d all be dead. Dead by voices - loud, subtle, husky, smooth... Would the tongues of hair agree at all?”

“Nahhh... They’d be like the tower of Babel. There’d be more than 7,117 languages in the world. God’d definitely end the world with that.”

“Maybe the world was created from tongues of hair. I mean, why do we have so many languages?”

“Not as important as “why do people keep bad hair?”

“Are we still on this matter? Drink slowly, man. You’re getting higher than the clouds. By the way, how is Mabel doing? Been a while I’ve seen her.”

“I blame it on you footing the bill tonight. Free drinks are like free sex so let me drink in peace. And yes, she’s home. Watching Netflix with a glass of orange juice by her side, a tired red robe on, legs crossed on my table with that hair... that hair divided into three rolls that seem to punch me, with edges looking like defeated warriors for the past two months! That’s how Mabel is.”

“Hahahah! But you caused it and she’s your wife no matter how old her rolls that punch may look like. Weren’t you the one who said you wanted a housewife? Man, find her a job and you’d see the difference.”

“She does not need a job, James. She needs a new husband, with lots of hair.”

“Don’t say things like that. Marriage is not always rosy - scrap that - never rosy. You must work things out by communicating. What did you even learn in Law school, only how to argue?”

“You’re not getting the drill, Counsellor... Perhaps I need to spell it out for you. I have seen so many bad hair days that I can’t stand the sight of her anymore. The hair has screamed at me several times that it’s here to stay. It says it with smelly mouth and one time I tried to touch it, how slimy a skin it had that I exited its territory for another. Bella’s hair calls me these days gracefully - those long, dark curls that smell like a perfume shop, wiggling effortlessly to the gestures of their owner. I just have to answer!”

“Wait, did you just say Bella? The same Bella that has been with so many guys back in school that she can’t even count herself. Are you crazy or what!”

 “Don’t care if you’ve been in her bed or she in yours. I just want to be happy.”

“How’d you even cross paths again?”

“It was at the city mall a month ago. Was supposed to go shopping with my housewife but she turned me down: go on G, I don’t feel up to it right now. I’d stay here and think of what to make for dinner. Bella has changed so much, man. I think she got a face lift and a butt job. Here’s a picture we took together so you don’t wear the hat of a Thomas. I looked like Jonny Bravo when she walked towards me, trying to show my biceps and all, lol. I felt starved and she understood.”

“Oh, wow! She does look different. But she’s still not as pretty as Mable. You’re picking up bronze and dropping your gold.”

“Preach on. Tomorrow, Mabel will receive the divorce papers.”

“You’re drunk. It’s time to take you home, my friend.”

“Yeah, yeah, you sound like my dead dad right now.”

“He sure would be ashamed of you, having insomnia in his grave.”

“On the contrary. I don’t hit my wife, don’t stay out all night, don’t shy away from my bills, don’t drink like I want to commit suicide…I’m sure I’ll rest easy when I die.”

“At the moment, you’re walking in his footsteps my friend, you are getting there slowly.”

“I think I hear your hair talking. It wants to be happy like me!”

“Enough of this madness. It’s almost midnight. We’re leaving right this minute, Gabriel. You’ve got someone waiting for you back home. How strange, even angels need help.”

“Get your hands off me. I’m not going anywhere! You love her, don’t you?”

“Love who?”

Just stop pretending. You think I don’t know?”

“Know what? You are beginning to irritate me.”

“And I’ve been irritated by your freaking pretence all these years. Every time I caught you looking at Mabel. You think I didn’t see you on my wedding day? You practically were drooling when she walked into the church. You couldn’t even hide your darn feelings! And you stand there pretending as if I am the worst man on earth for getting tired of a woman who my best friend apparently is in love with. To hell with you, James!”

“At this point, I think you’ve gone insane. You know Mabel and I are good friends. Remember I introduced her to you.”

“Oh yes, I do. It was a fine Sunday evening. You rang to meet you at a bar on King’s Avenue. Come prepared for hookup, you whispered. I felt hopeful. It had been a month since I had sex. Hookup sounded cool. I was almost going to cancel when I heard an angry thunder shouting in the skies. But the rain subsided in no time, and I jumped into the road like a teenager in love. When I saw Mabel, I felt I had been wasting my time all the while, with those secondhand ladies. The sun had nothing on her and that confidence, I wanted all of it for myself. When I think of it now, it baffles me how things have suddenly changed.”

“Exactly! You don’t even deserve someone like her. You don’t deserve anything good because all you do is take and then dump as if people were clothes. First it was Beatrice – Oh she can’t even cook well. Then it was Abigail - Oh I can’t stand her pride. And Gina – Oh she does not even know the meaning of appraisal. Judith – Oh her thinking is too barbaric for me… Should I go on? Because there sure are a whole lot of ladies you have thrown away like rags for one flimsy reason or the other.”

“Ahhh… So someone has been counting my blessings and naming them one by one. Waiter! Bring more Whisky please, this is going to be a long, long, long night. My wallet’s in my back pocket. I’m paying from here on out; it’d be a taboo for a cheater to foot my bill. I said it, but no one believed me. Hairs do talk and yours have been yelling for a long time now, but I was comforting myself under the guise of it’s just in your imagination, Gabriel. That black bushy forest you call your trademark.”

“Now it’s my hair’s turn? Oh, wow. At least I’m not the one slowly going bald. Your hair’s so dumb it can’t even tell you the truth about yourself, man. Yes, more drinks! Let’s trash this out like the men that we are.”

“What, you think you’re a man? Nahh… You’re a boy who doesn’t know how to fish. Didn’t your father ever teach you? Certainly not. Or else, you won’t be so unemployed, counting how many fish someone else has caught.”

“Don’t you dare mention my father, you fool!”

“Or else?”

“You’ll see another side of me that I’ve been trying to tame all these years.”

“You mean that creepy side that checks my ex-wife to be on social media? I saw you when I walked in here. Or the side that lies about being in a relationship with a lady no one has ever met? Or the side that is willing to travel a thousand miles just to attend his best friend’s wife’s 30^th birthday party? Ah, I truly feel higher than the clouds but my soul burns like a wild flame. I hate you so much.”

“Yes, I love Mabel. Hate me more! I remember that day vividly, you freak. You left the party for two good hours just to go warm the bed of another clown. Mabel came to me, suspecting, and there I was, a lying Judas trying to cover you up. She didn’t buy it. I kissed her, and guess what, she kissed me back. God, she looked so beautiful in that short red dress, but vulnerable.”

“Shut your smelly stinking mouth you beast. You, gold digger. You bastard!”

“Don’t you touch me, man. Hey get your hands off…”

“I’ll kill you. I’ll give your bones to my dogs as dinner, you bassttt.”

“Hey, hey, I’m warning you. I’m warrr…”

“Ahh… I think my tooth’s out. I think, I can’t… I can’t feel my gum.”

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… You shouldn’t have brought this up, man. Look, they may call the cops. We’d better leave now.”

“Piss off! You betrayed me.”

“And you’ve been betraying your wife for the past three years. She deserves better.”

“And you are better than me?”

“You don’t even love her anymore. You never did! So, what’s all this betrayal anthem all about?”

“Everyone knows they don’t go about kissing their friend’s wife.”

“Excuse me, Sirs. You’ll have to leave now, please.”

“It’s no problem at all, we’re on our way out. Sorry for the chaos.”

“Not leaving just yet. Hey, take this for kissing my wife! Don’t you ever call me. And you can have her, you both are meant for each other, bloody hairs!”

“Sir, wait, wait, it’s best to call a taxi. Sir!”

“Gabriel! Hey! Wait…”

 Don’t Forget to Be Honest!