MY HANDWORK

One day I went to Sleepwell Hair salon located at the junction of Masompe and Mulala roads. “I want a wave,” I told the hairdresser. The lady looked at me with a sunken face and rolled her eyes in frustration. She glared at my shaggy hair spoiled by a rioting pile of dandruff. I could see her disdain but just before she could answer, I heard a grunt of someone clearing her throat. I swung round to see who it would be in a salon where we were just the two of us. The shock awaiting me went beyond words.

   A Mona Lisa portrait had jumped down from its frame. It was hopping about excitedly like a bouncing ball. As if programmed by someone, it started yapping angrily.

   “Humans are so unreasonable,” she paused to take a breath. “Imagine this Leonardo telling people that I am just there to make money out of him…”

   “Tell you my sister,” a voice of a giant woman shook dust off the roof. It started rocking the little salon until Mona asked the woman to lower her decibel levels. It was the Statue of Liberty hauling herself into the fray. “These human beings are so foolish. Eiffel uprooted me from my home in France and gave me away for free-am I that valueless?”

    “That is sad,” Mona Lisa nodded her pencil shaped head trying to console the friend. “It is like we have the same story. I am the most famous but with the weirdest hairstyle. I have dark long hair even without make up, far more gorgeous than this goat fur of a village girl.”

    “Hhhhhhhhh….”a voice rippled from Madam Statue. She was turning her nose in disgust and swirling her shapeless bosom while protecting the lamp. “Imagine sissy! If crying would reverse a situation let me cry. Look at my head; it had beautiful Brazilian coils not this staff looking like horns of a cow.”

  “But what curse brought that strange crown of spikes?” Mona Lisa interjected.

     “Some jerk thought America will one day rule all the seven continents,” Madam Statue answered angrily. “They wanted to use my head as proof that it will happen one day. They think they can ride to glory on my discomfort, we will see.”

   “Oh what a dream! “Mona Lisa wowed in envy. Her tiny country, Italy could not cherish such grandiose designs.

   “What about you?” Statue curled her mouth into a downward bow shape. “I hear Leonardo has been bad mouthing you that you fired him because he rejected your marriage proposal.”

   “Who was Leonardo da Vinci before I came- nothing?” Mona Lisa sighed angrily. “Like a little child, I guided him into all the wisdom he is boasting about. I am the one who was mixing colours and even coaching him on how to hold a brush with his hands that shook like a leaf in autumn. Why would I ask him for anything when after all this he shaved off all my curves as if I didn’t have any?”

   “Sad to say this Mona,” Madam Statue roared in incredulous laughter. “Did you really have curves, Mona that would turn a heart like Leonardo’s?”

    “I had, beautiful undulating curves, very classic. Naomi Campbell would drop a jaw in bewilderment,” Mona threw her chin upwards in a proud defiance. “He was not my type.”

    “Oh really! I wonder what Leonardo da Vinci did to your curves,” Madam Statue said derisively. The way she twisted her face indicated some incredulity eating into her system like an acid.

     “He hid them because they were more exciting than his wife’s,” Mona Lisa suggested. “I am told her behind was as flat as a planed plank.”

       “Typical human selfishness,” Madam Statue slammed a fist on the window pane. It roared and shattered into fragments. “Look at me, I stay in America, the richest country not a banana republic, but I have been impoverished to a point of  wearing a dress made of copper, a cheap metal as if I am a slave.”

    “Oh! Sorry my sissy,” Again Mona burst up. “If I was strong I would form a union to fight for our rights and get full share of our copyrights.”

   “Now that nose may discourage people from voting for you in such a union….,”Madam Statue made a chance error.

     “Leonardo’s plot to wreck my life,” Mona Lisa shook her head vigorously. “In fact, my nose was so angelic that Princess Diana would die of envy. But this pig did a surgery and grafted a long ridge reaching the forehead. No wonder people flock here in thousands just to poke funny at me.”

    Suddenly a book shelf rattled the air waves. It was Bourne Identity throwing off his bed sheets. He stretched himself and yawned loudly. “Guys I am moved by your debate,” he flipped his legs walking straight into the morning breeze. “But they don’t square up with mine. See I picked Ludlum from the gutter, a broken man. Patiently, I cleaned him up and put some money into his pocket. And what do I get? lies about my two boys Jason and Carlos being criminals  giving the impression that I am a woefully bad mother.”   

      Mona turned her eyes wide,” Identity, but isn’t Carlos a criminal leading a group of world super murderess called the Trilateral Commission?”

      “Those are damned lies Ludlum’s dirt mind spewed out,” Identity was now shouting, flipping his thousand legs and indeterminate arms rapidly. “My boys are innocent. Ludlum hoped to make a fortune by turning the whole world against them.”

      “Very ungrateful man,” Mona Lisa shook her head vigorously showing motherly concern.

       “Imagine, I picked him from a tiny single roomed cabin at Cayle University,” Identity said. “My elder brother Matlock Paper told me about his problems. I felt pity on him and decided to pluck him like a fruit from the tree of abject poverty. “

      Mona Lisa hugged herself with laughter at the similarity in events; “I suckled Leonardo and nursed him until he was able to stand on his feet. What do I get for all these efforts? He turns me into the most talked about woman. In fact not woman but half woman and then dresses me in a robe of disgrace by the way he squeezed all the flesh from my body. I now look like a famine victim from Yemen-so thin.”

       “Madam Statue, why have you been limping lately?” Identity asked turning the attention from Mona Lisa. He was still intrigued by the woman’s immense body size.

       “Abraham Lincoln soldered a broken chain to my foot,” Madam Statue said angrily. “It is still painful, that is why I can’t walk properly.”

      “But why did he do such a thing to his friend?”Mona Lisa asked with wide eyes of horror.

       “He wanted to cheat the world that slavery had ended,” Madam Statue’s face now became grave like someone facing a real catastrophe.

     “What about your arm, why is it stretched out Madam Statue?” Identity asked. “Sorry, I am just intrigued because you must be tired from all this pointing you are doing.”

    ”I am pointing where I want to go –home,” Madam Statue explained. Her eyes carried a far off look. “I have hope that one day I will go back home.”

   “But aren’t you comfortable here, Madam?” Mona asked.”With all the sunshine, fresh air .Some of us are always locked up. It makes me feel imprisoned as if I murdered someone. “

   “This situation gives me no comfort at all my sister,” Madam Statue responded spreading her chest out for emphasis. “Here I have no security. I can be stolen any time and worse still people watch me when I am bathing, there is no privacy. I am the largest woman but the most disrespected.”

   “But maybe it is because of that torch you are waving about endlessly like a mad woman,” Mona was looking at her friend with awe. “What is it for anyway? It makes you look funny.”

   “I’m showing all the people the source of their problems,” Madam Statue twisted her eyes trying to remember something. “And you Mona why do you look pale these days like a malaria patient?”

    “Leonardo stole my lotion,” Mona answered. “He gave it to my sister Genivra da Benci .He just left a little dull shade that makes me look like a leper.”

     “So you have a sister?” Identity asked wondering whether some opportunity could be stolen to try something with the younger sister.

   “Yes. But let’s not talk about that little bitch,” Mona Lisa was quick to steer the discussion away from her sister. The ugly face she put up indicated some internal pain. Identity could not leave that kind of bait dangling…A sister to a woman with the looks of Mona Lisa should have great curves to confuse any man and fill him with dangerous thoughts.

   “But Why?”He flipped several eye brows. “Maybe someone can help.”

   “She has eyes of a Chinese,” Mona Lisa answered with little grace. “I hate these squint eyed animals, especially with this corona virus they are spewing into the world….”

   “What is that?”Statue screamed like a small girl. She tried to flee in fear but her dress tripped her into a great crash. But she quickly stood up and brushed herself to remove bits of grass.

    A whirlwind swopped down on the salon. Presently thirty zombies strutted into the salon. Their leader was beaming a blood curdling smile like a butcher smiling to a cow. He spoke to reassure the others; “guys don’t be alarmed. My name is Thriller….”

   Quickly Statue rushed to pump Thriller’s hands; “Yes! Yes! Thriller you are in the right company. Guys our friend from the music world is welcome, isn’t he?”He was speaking excitedly like he had scored a first date.

   Madam Statue clanked her chains and smashed the tablets containing the declaration of independence to signify acceptance. “Tell us Thriller how are things down there?”She howled excitedly.

   “I am fine except that every time I practice how to talk humans start twisting their bodies like snakes,” Thriller started his complaints. “I don’t like the way they shake their hips laughing at my vocals. My voice is not too bad, is it?”

   “It is called dancing,” Mona was saying. “Human beings dance when they hear nice songs. They can force you to yap all night to keep them entertained.” All the members present clicked their tongues in disgust.

  “These humans are lazy .I see them gazing at me as if I am strange,” Madam Statue came in. “Thousands come to gaze at me every day especially new comers. I hate it but usually I just ignore them to avoid quarrelling.”

   “Thriller, why are you wearing rags?”Identity broke his long silence. The rags disgusted him in a frightening way. “They make you look ghoulish.”

   “Hey! Don’t you know about the rapture?”Thriller grimaced in surprise.

  “What about it?”Identity held on. “What does the rapture have to do with wearing those evil looking rags?”

   “Michael Jackson told us that the rags would be transformed into angelic bodies when the rapture ceremony starts…”Thriller said proudly.

  “What nonsense?”Mona Lisa screamed her rejection. “It makes you look like a bunch of blood killers from the cemetery. To resemble humans, all despicable killers who have been killing every baby I get.”

   “Why do they torment you like that?”Thriller was now shocked but happy to draw attention away from himself. “That is very cruel.”

     “They like calling my babies forgeries,” Mona Lisa said. “Why don’t they call their own children forgeries?”

   “Talking of murderous humans,” Thriller twisted his evil looking face to look directly at me. “I have a small plan...”

   I did not wait to find out what plans the fellow in rags had in mind. I dashed out of the salon with half my head plaited.