Yeah, but Mercy, he lives on the other side of the ocean.

Mercy had Ibou memorized like a thin, cool sheen of perspiration enveloping her skin. At any moment, she could suddenly smell his long and lanky movements mingled with the dirty sea-salt air of Dakar. The smell of powdered clay mixed with man that she snuggled into every night before she drifted back to Africa in her sleep.

SALAAM BY ALISON GRIFA ISMAILI 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 20

The morning light in her friend’s apartment was unreal and heavy like static snow on the television. Mercy watched smoke escape from the bright red rhombus of Waka’s lips, and for the first time, the impossibility of her own love story smacked her in the face. In her mind’s eye, Mercy recognized herself sitting across the greasy matchstick table, telling her story to her fumbling thumbs while dodging the skepticism in Waka’s eyes. She heard her own voice lilting and tumbling as in a little girl’s jump-rope song. She could see from the studious scowl of Waka’s face that her words sounded flimsy and nonsen…