A NEW NOSE

Because of the floods that have wrecked havoc across the country, I have decided, to plead with nature, to grow a new nose. I want to be able to smell disaster from many miles, better than our meteorological department who up to now is faceless. We do not see them on television even telling us to plant trees, and then end up with a tag line that we have all come to associate inefficiency, corruption, blatant disregard to the rule of law: GOK DELIVERS. I cannot entirely blame them; they personify our cherished ideals.

As it is, I have not decided to grow any more noses. The ones I have are already in surplus. It is just one huge pimple that has implanted itself a few inches above my nose. It is painful. When touched. And I can’t resist fondling it every second, just in case I can pop the contents out and let my face be the normal and perfect.

As the alarm went off, signaling a new day to pursue the same old shit (lick some corporate arse), my new nose is keen on telling me that it is not worth it. It is telling me in a language that would as well have been Greek, which of course I would have perfectly understood, that I cannot let people see me in this condition. ‘Why let people think that a terrible biological experiment backfired on you?’ It whispers. “you know very well that you don’t like weird looks strangers will throw on you…it is like someone pouring dishwater you, and from experience it  is not a very good thing.’ It goes on elucidating various bad scenarios that would occur, to which I respond in a kind: I AM NOT LEAVING THE HOUSE TODAY.

The world has natured a need in us to be perfect. You have pimples on your face? Here, have makeup. Your eyebrows are not perfectly aligned? Shave them and redraw with this. And our ladies have swallowed the bait. Perfection is the new normal. We men sometimes are not conscious of these things until the day our lovers decide to leave us and all of sudden we understand why we often woke up to a foul mood because each one of those mornings we woke with a stranger. Save for that, when strange things begin to germinate on our faces; pimples and boils.