I JUST WANT YOU TO LIKE ME | ✓

▬ 10: escape to the moon

          I enter Ziri's parents' house without knocking. I call my greeting into the house as I take off my shoes though get no response. The reason for that is easy to identify because Mariame's chiding voice reaches the entrance with no obstacles.

'All day, you're on this phone. For three hours now I watch you scroll on this Vine. Vine, Vine, all day you're doing this.'

I peek into the living room to find Ziri sitting between Mariame's legs on the same pillow I sat on yesterday. His phone screen casts a green light on his face and some Vine plays on repeat though his head is angled back to stare incredulously at his mother. Sucking her teeth, Mariame turns his head to the front so the cornrows she's braiding his hair into don't get skewed and Ziri sees me.

A smile blooms on his face, one that emphasises the wrinkles under his eyes, and he instinctively leans toward me only to be yanked back by his hair. 

Mariame's greying locs are gathered into a ball at the top of her head that sways with every word. 'What if you spent all that time you spend on your phone for somethin productive for your life, for prayin, for cleanin, for your family? You come here and you think it's a hotel. You don't even clean your own room. I don't need to keep your room. I can make an altar in there, bigger than this,' she flicks a wrist at the small Vodun altar under her painting of Black Jesus. Most people would probably consider their proximity sacrilegious but it's perfectly normal in their multi-faith home. 'I can make a swimmin pool in there. Five hours now, you're just scrollin on this Vine.'

His mouth falls open. 'Five hours? Two seconds ago it was three hours.' His voice gets shrill and loud though I see his lips twitch. 'What else could I possibly be doin right now?'

'You could braid the ends yourself.'

'I could braid the whole thing myself. You're the one who insisted on doin it!'

She pulls his hair a little harder than necessary and his hand flies to his scalp.

'Ow-uh! You literally never let me clean because you think I'll kill myself. Honestly, a guy drinks bleach once and people never let it go.'

'Not funny,' Mariame and I say at the same time.

Ignoring our feedback, Ziri makes a big a show of leaving his phone on the sofa table and reaches back for one of the cornrows that's been braided two inches from his scalp to finish it.

'Fine, I'll clean after this. What d'you want me to clean?'

Mariame lifts a hand, her palm flat in the air. 'Nothin. You always do it wrong and I already cleaned everythin yesterday.'

Eyes and mouth wide, he turns to me as if to say I can't win and the laughter I've been trying to contain bubbles out. I sink next to him on the floor, his body inclining naturally toward mine, and pick up a braid to finish the end; I've plaited Iris's hair enough to know how to do it neatly. He's been growing his hair out since it were shaved when he were sixteen and, when plaited, it nearly reaches his waist. Which means braiding it takes a good chunk of time.

For several minutes, we're silent as we focus on his hair. Then Mariame says, 'If I was born in this country, by now, I would own the moon.'

'You can't own the moon.'

'By now, I would own the moon. If I was born in this country, like you. But you are always on this Vine. You know, by the time you are my age, you will have your thumbs operated and your neck — with metal. You will have metal instead of bones like un cyborg. Because you are always on this phone.'