A FRACTURED LOVE

THE BROWN DUST

 
She watched in fascination as he took some of the brown dust from the snuffbox and poured a small quantity on a white piece of paper. He gently took a pinch with the thumb of his index finger and inhaled it quickly into his nostrils. The rush of it going straight to his head and turning his eyes a liquid red in an instant. Then came the goofy smile, which she lived for; it would light up his eyes and the shadows beneath his lids seemed to disappear. His brows were no longer furrowed and the imaginative weight he always seemed to carry left him. He stood up from the sales chair with a bounce in his step as he regaled her with stories of his youth and life in the village before he came to the city. She loved the brown dust for the joy it brought into his life. Her name became Sisi and not Simisola when he was in the haze of the brown dust.

The brown dust looked like magic to her six-year-old mind. A sniff of it had his brain sharper than it ever was. Three sniffs meant she spent quality time hanging out with him. He would listen to her talk about school, her teachers and tell her about the similarities between both their times. She wished he would take more of the brown dust, if only so she could be in his presence for a little while longer. He was different and normal like other fathers, the version of him with the brown dust was all she knew.

He left her alone at the back of the shop to go get snacks from across the street. The box with the brown dust sat comfortably in the locker where he put the moneybag. She took the key and unlocked it, took out the box and put some of the brown dust on her fingers just as she had watched him do. Her body filled with excitement…the type you get when you are gifted with a new dress. She put the brown dust to her left nostril and inhaled all of it quickly. Pain, sharp and agonizing went to the middle of her brain and spread to her forehead causing the veins there to pop an aggressive color of green. She screamed out as she clutched her head in her tiny hands almost as if the motion could prevent it detaching from the rest of her body. Tears sprung to her eyes and she fell to the floor…knees touching the ground, back bent inwards as she shortly lost sight. The brown dust burned her nostrils, suffocating her throat and for a brief moment, she wondered if this was the end. Death by that which brought happiness upon his face.

He found her in the back, sprawled out on the cold cement floor, crying and struggling to breathe. He put palm oil in her nostrils; salt under her eyelids and some of the oil shoved in her mouth and within a few minutes her vision gradually returned and the exploding pain in her brain reduced to a low thumping sound. They stared at each other; remorse in her eyes angling against the fear and anger mixed in his. It was the last time she ever saw him take the brown dust.