The Cultural Cant of Itchy Palms

Please coach me on how many ‘clectic cultures are ’caroused’ by itchy palms. I would have placed it with the pilfering proclivity, but, in Ghana, it promises deluge-Dollars and endless Euros. To put the passé theory on trial, would you say that the S.O.L in straitened slums do not catch cacoethes in the palm? Or try asking the Makola mendicant how many times an itch has crystallised in cash for them. So, I came to the realisation, this monsoon morning, that an itchy palm means ... there’s an itch in your palm; nothing more!

Mad-House Justice

There’s a wretched squaw in epic need of mental health care, vegetating on the ‘sacred’ street below the Supreme Court building. In the smouldering daystar, in the drenching downpour, and even when the legion is lagging home, she’s ’plinthed’ on the parched pavement with her napless, dirt-caked, gamy body. One long month has crept by; nobody tries to help, for it is someone else’s job. When I was leaving the courts today, she was fast asleep – or freshly deceased – in the afternoon rain.

Emmanuella – The Guinness Song

Last night at the office, long after working hours, Alpha Lion and Tiger 2 were spiel-sparring in the hackneyed ring of flying fuel prices, emboldened ex-girlfriends and pedantic politics. Tiger 2 was scoring Hiplife tracks via his phone mp3 player, as he’s wont to do, and dancing the Caveman Stomp. When “Emmanuella” began to melodise, Alpha Lion’s face fluoresced, and he delivered a dum-dum, “this song go go plus Guinness paa oh”. Ever since we grappled with gathering our guffawing bodies off the shiny office floor, I’ve been in travails trying to find a link between the song and the stout... beyond the reason that it is Alpha Lion’s preferred alcohol, of course.

Routine Reminders

Everything prompts a melancholy memory of you! Shall I jig up a jumble sale in my house? Or shall I float a flea market in my heart?

The Women Ask Too

Saturday evening; a tall, elegant police woman at the security checkpoint. Black military boots, blue-black uniform – hugging her gym-going long legs, torso-tight, topmost button open. She reminds me of the woman-in-uniform idolatry. She saunters towards me, as if we’re both expecting something to happen. She asks me why I’m “chilling” alone. I know she’s seducing for money, but I decline to infer. I flash a serpent’s smile and wink, and gesture the passenger seat, if she really wants to “chill”. She waves me on. She didn’t smile the whole time. She reminds me, also, of the women-at-the-war-front debate, although this situation had a little milk poured over it.

Yellow Slipper in the Street

Moseying along the Spintex Road, past the bumpy link called Flower Pot, I gained on a banana-coloured flip-flop poised on the cusp of the street. Street vendors huddled together in market-conversation on the dusty shoulder, as other observers eyed the separated Siamese (the slipper) as if it was a shrine, or the magical mules of a saint. An excited ambulance had just jetted past five minutes earlier. I think that a car had scythed the lone yellow slipper from its twin and their wearer.

Business School Doctor

I’ve first-sighted this curious case of a daytime doctor, night-time malcontent who’s disbursed a decade of his life in med school; the nearest two years stitching up broken bodies. Now, he’s so foully frustrated by his failure to clip a suture in the hollow at the pit of his pocket. He’s elected to refract his career path to business school, and then become a billion-buck banker. I find this haplessly heartbreaking.