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We have an incomprehensible relationship. We are writers. We tell tales, fabricate stories. We pick up the pen and form letters into words: in English, in French, in Spanish. We speak Spanish with a French accent. We spend hours slaving over narrations of Africa, of capital punishment, of the theory of relativity, and of me. We type away into the early hours of morning, recording our lives on the computer. Sometimes we fight over the computer. Sometimes we fight over our writing. He informs me I write the words of a teenager, which I find justifiable considering I am. I scream back that his writing will never be from the heart, not while he can display his latest piece so publicly around the house, allowing it to sleep on the dining room table. I pick up this piece, flip through the pages. The phrase, "walking dead whores of Africa" bites me. He speaks of our home in the Ivory Coast, of our street nicknamed Rue Des Serpents. He tells me of our "serpents," the young girls working the gate to our cul-de-sac. I read of our houseboy, of his friend, Katerina, the Queen of Africa, of my blond hair. He loved Africa; I hated it. At times I believe that I despised it so intensely just so when I grew older I could spend hours arguing with him. He wants to go back. When I was in third grade he did. I hated him for it. He brought back for me a bronze chess set and I loved him again. Mistakes are easily forgotten at age nine. I turn back to the first page of his account of our first year in Africa, typed in black Times New Roman font. Our houseboy appears to be the focus of his narrative. We know the boy is dead. He was murdered: murdered by the prostitutes, by his wife, by his own need. They all die of AIDs in the end.
Approximate Word count = 1309
Approximate Pages = 5.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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