Hair Business

You felt the wind in your hair as you walked to school that morning. It was the last day of school, a Revelation and a Genesis. Your white shirt was not tucked into your perfectly ironed trousers and your sleeves were folded. This was what it felt like... graduation. You also did not have the school's green and white tie on your neck as you walked into the school gates. It was the first time in all your years at John Patrick's memorial school, that you looked so casual. 

You felt the wind in your hair again and dug your slender fingers through it. You were the only boy in the school with long hair, and although the teachers all voted against making you the senior prefect because of it, your perfect grades had earned you the spot.. and something else, someone else.

Your hair had never been cut since birth... because though your mother was now of blessed memory, you still remembered how often she told you of her experience at the hospital where you were born. The Angel of the Lord had appeared to her, she said, and told her to never cut of a strand of hair from your innocent head. She had told this story to the principal too, Six years ago, when she enrolled you into John Patrick's as a fresh student. It had been difficult, blending in. The teachers did not like you and the air you carried about.. but you survived it. You passed every subject and sat at the top of the class for years, until your mother died, and things changed.

When your mother died, the world stood still. You remember it often, your father's quiet sobs and your older sister's wails. It was cancer that ate her till she died, slowly, gingerly, you imagined, just the way your father drank his peppersoup. You had spent days with her in the hospital, praying for her and awaiting her recovery.. but that morning, when you she smiled and you could see darkness dance in her eyes, you knew it was time.

Things changed drastically for a couple of months. Your father shouted at you more often and your sister converted. You weren't sure what exactly she converted to though, because she left the Anglican Church and cut her hair. She stopped wearing trousers and called them sinful, and burned all her jewelry. You didn't quite understand it, but there was a void inside of her that she needed to fill.

As you walked into the school premises that morning, you felt the eyes of every student Pierce into you. You were used to it, the stares, but today was different and you knew why. Today your hair was not braided in it's usual way. Today you let your thick hair lose. Like a forest, a dark forest with oiled trees. Your hair was not the typical Nigerian hair, because your mother was biracial. It was soft, curly, thick, black, beautiful.

You smiled as you saw your Betty walk towards you. You wondered if you would ever see her again, after today. She looked different too, her hair was not threaded, it was relaxed and curled. She didn't have her uniforms on today. An off-the-shoulder top graced her upper body and a midi skirt, tight at the waist-line, covered her thin legs. As you watched her elegant walk, you wondered too, if she looked different for you, as you looked different for her.

"China, look at your hair!" She exclaimed. She loved it, she loved how it accentuated your perfectly oval face.

"Look at yours!" "I have never seen you look more glorious" you added, In a whisper.

The high school dance was not your thing. So while everyone else danced, you sat outside and took final glances at the school that made you, that molded you. Betty sat beside you, smoothening you hair. You knew what she was thinking about, but you didn't want to think about it, you didn't want to allow yourself think it. You had had the first fight of your life inside these walls, you had fought for your Betty. In the very seat where you now sat with Betty, you had first felt lips that weren't yours. 
A lot had happened in six years. Some of it you knew you would always remember, and some of it you didn't want to. In six years you had began to grow hair in places that only you could see. And now, as Betty ran fingers through the hair on your head, you let your hands feel the new strands that stood on your chin. You had grown in six years, You had grown a lot.