Lords & Ladies of the M'Verse: An Ooorah Anthology

Day 11 - WilliamJJackson's A Palate for Stardust

A Palate for Stardust

by WilliamJJackson

2161 - Africa

Ake molded heads to the beat of the rain. Morning to dusk, Monday to Thursday, once he slinked long dusky fingers into Clevia Sculptor Gloves, imagination embraced the reins. Rain begat a rhythm he could work with, the steady pitter patter of water from an ever pregnant ocean, birthed into the loving arms of Father Sky, so that he might drizzle it in even tones on the domed marble roof of Red Letters Barber Shop. Ake stood in the moment behind the chair, time nebulous, liquid copper of the gloves glistening under the white beams of stored sun from yesterday's heat wave. He had portly Sula in the chair, a regular, the cubed printer engulfing his voluminous head, work almost complete. Ake pulled it off the split second the spherical machine voiced it had done its work, a stiff tug revealing Sula had gone from a middle-aged Nigerian with receding hair, to younger looking alpha male boasting a tapestry of tight, youthful black curls. His mane, genome copied and chain built by the printer, a twelve minute job.

Khartoum, in the heart of Sudan, knew young Ake's name. New Xing Bridgeway, a transparent, four-way titanium marvel spanning across the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Middle East, southeast Asia and Europe, connected the globe via sonic trams, and those riders stopped in Sudan, for Ake. Individuality was what the barber of Khartoum, fresh and cocky at twenty four, offered to Africa and the world.

Now, for the art.

The downpour spoke to Ake, a language beat into the mixture of far off waters merging into the reddish brown solidity of the Sudanese land. Knowing Sula was to see his wife tonight, a special occasion, that rain filled the air and a dream of Kush rebuilt with gleaming metal inspired Ake's digits. The gloves allowed for laser trimming, straightening, electromagnetic mastery of every curl with a touch or swipe. Ake dreamed in follicles, of yesterday woven into tomorrow. He loved it since childhood, when his grandfather took him to get his first shave nine blocks from where he now worked. Hair made life. Hair made people look twice. Great styles got great women, forged empires and eternal imagery on hieroglyphs. Ake molded Sula's strands like a skilled woman of old weaving baskets from green straw, making things beautiful in the world. As he stamped ancient imagery onto a modern scalp, they spoke.

"What? Young man like you, not interested in going to Mars? We need good brothers like you out there!"

Ake glanced at the center of the shop's circular interior. In the core, away from the door and the two half moons of barber chairs, the public view droned on. Three-dimensional images from around the world, solid holography, ex-Gen coloration, the best, showing another triangular starship ferrying another dozen Earthlings to colonize the latest bot-built tunnel city on the Red Planet. Toadies, a mockery of a cult, protested the launch in the background. "Meh. What's there? Dirt. More dirt. Sudan has just as much, only closer. You can't breathe the air there."

Wub, the barber closest to him, laughed behind a mahogany niqab, but no one else did. Especially not Sula. "I'm an engineer! You artists could really shape the new city. Have you scanned them online? Boring! Dull. All white, and with sad names like Alpha Quarter One and Beta Residential Complex. Engineers aren't dreamers. You should go up there and breathe life into the place!"

"And how would I do that, cut the hair growing out of the walls! Come on, brother." Ake rolled his eyes some more, a long, slow, sunrise kind of roll only someone with such lengthy almond orbs could. He rubbed his face with one hand, careful to first deactivate the glove with a thought from his optical node. Ake stretched wide lips on a slender, sable face and groaned. Political discourse often slammed the surreal state required to make a masterpiece. He needed Soul.