When I was seven, I chewed the ends of my ponytail during class. When teachers called me to answer questions, I munched on my hair, crisp like cornflakes between my teeth, and tasted the answer. Math was sour and spikey like a cactus. Science fizzed and stung like ginger. I bit down my hair and answered everything, trusting its lengthy wisdom.
Mom was a hairdresser, but she couldn’t afford to rent a salon, so women kept coming to our small flat. Every day, when I got home from school, I stepped through a powdery mist of hairspray and kissed Mom on the cheek. She smelled like a wet coconut. On our linoleum, waves of colourful locks: some dyed, some grey, some oily, some dry, all mangled together like a strong, spring current.
The principal harassed Mom with notes about my chewing, but Mom told him if he didn’t want teeth rings and saliva on the school’s desks, he’d leave me and my hair well alone thankyouverymuch.
I knew the women by the taste of their hair lingering in the air of our flat: salty and soft, like peanut butter, sweet and sharp, like cracked candy, cool and fragile, like a glass of iced water. But every woman shared something that was the same, even the women who carried the heaviest steel in their chests: a low, deep hum, a buzz, like sizzling electricity trapped under their skin.
Mom didn’t know this, but every night, when she fell asleep, I’d sneak next to her in her warm bed and slowly taste a lock of silky dark hair behind her ear, checking the spark of her hum with my tongue: tingling and fiery like lightning.
Winner of the Great Festival Flash Off Day, October, 2024
Photo credit: Anastasia Shuraeva on pexels.com
Noémi Writes 