Honey Child wanted me to touch her face, the lines of her body, memorization as a blind man might.

I took one of the rooms higher up as I felt it safer. The trade off was that unlike some of the better rooms, my one window did not look out into the courtyard.

At night when not actively pursuing anything, the Hyenas walked softly, their paws crunched on the sand as if it were snow.

This did not seem to bother anyone but myself. To my shame, when the  sun was at its most brilliant a pair of little boys would get the disregarded scraps of leather from the cobbler.  They would then almost completely bury them in the sand, leaving them there until the end of the day.

They would then go back and dig up their treasure. Over the course of the day the sand became hotter and hotter. Each grain burnt the leather so that it became dimpled like a more expensive version of itself.

While drinking mint tea these would then be made into wallets to sell to tourists at the medina.

I had my pen and paper to keep me company but sometimes that was not enough. I would play my records but not too much as i worried of some misfortune befalling the player for which i knew I would not be able to get parts easily.

Mostly I played James Johnson, Willie the Lion, Fatha Hines. Their looping frenzy seemed of another world to the locals.  No one ever complained as they were sure that it was part of some incantation similar to that of the men up in the mountains with their rams horn instruments.

“What do you call it?”

“Boogie.”

To them, the word had a deeper, primal,  meaning and i think it was better.

Fini

“Boogie” (1st painting new studio) 5×8 watercolor & paper