Fulani Rain

When the rains come, they don’t mess around. They are dust in skin and goats hiding from the wind. At the Fulani house, they’re preparing for the end of the world. The women hide under their tin roof, peeking out and finding excuses to brave the water, my smile mirrored in a dozen faces. The only one who truly hides is the man made real only by the frail bones holding on his loose clothing; otherwise he would slip from this world, leaving only silence where there had been the fluttering of the heavy pages of his Koran.

I knew all I had to do was get here. I knew once I got here I’d be welcomed. I knew they’d give me a seat out of the storm, an umbrella, nervous reverence, undeserved. I could be in any century. Should the world cease tomorrow and leave just this small village, they may only notice the new quiet of market.