An exceptionally hot day saw a lady grace a beach; a day where most people made due with their temperature controlled swimming pools and jacuzzis, omnipresent in Dubai and the Emirates. She was trudging along the near empty beach until she got to a spot she felt was perfect, near the centre, in full view of anyone watching. This was a black girl with braids wearing a bikini and a shawl that was wrapped around her waist, a shawl of red, black and green. She didn't have a parasol or anything, just a bag with a towel and the natural protection of melanin - which she wanted to top up.
She spread the towel on the beach, with sand that nearly set the skin on fire and laid on the towel, brushing the heat away. She had taken her book out too and started to read a play called Booty Candy. Before she really started to read however she looked to her side and noticed a man laying on the beach. He was wearing the traditional white robe belonging to his people, an Arab man, bald, laying on the fiery beach with his clothes on. He had his eyes closed.
The woman raised an eyebrow as, for one, she had expected a more appropriate beach attire on a beach despite the conservative nature of Dubai. Secondly, he was laying down, shadeless, facing the sun in fifty degree weather, crazy for a man to do, a man like him, a man with limited melanin. She turned around to see if anyone else was surprised by this but saw near desertion with the few scattered people concerned with their own affairs. The Arab man and the black woman were the only two people directly under the sun.
After studying the man and his intentions for a moment, she dismissed the man as an oddity and went back to her play. But the man kept calling her attention, an odd man with surreal behaviour. He was motionless. She was starting to feel the heat acutely now and was starting to sweat, though not just because of the sun.
The man began to induce worry. Such sun exposure could be fatal especially to someone lacking in melanin, which he certainly was lacking in. Heat like this could only be withstood if you had appropriate melanin. She had the appropriate melanin. He definitely didn't. So why would he expose himself like that? Did he identify as black person or something? Did they do that in the Emirates too ? No, can't be, that's a European thing. But what could he - was he committing - She looked closer and her worry heightened. She noticed a rash on his face. The beginning of a heat stroke under a sun that he wasn't made to handle...
The man suddenly and casually started scratching his face. Surprised, shocked and disappointed. Several moments passed until she mouthed eczema. The man returned to immobility after the scratch. Strange, she thought. She wanted to check her own face now. The woman took out her mirror. In it she saw the sweat accumulating on her brow and she swore she could see the sweat forming and evaporating on her moist face, topping up her melanin, darkening her face. She smiled, happy, put the mirror away, happy, because she knew the importance of being colourful, and got her play out again, Booty Candy.
Scene two. She was furrowing her brow trying to follow the plot, a shifting plot that went here and there and struggled to keep her concentration. Turning her eyes to blue skies, the lady flicked her pretty eyelashes towards the sun for a little sun gaze to freshen up. She used the sun like cold water was used in Scandinavia. Some people use water, some people use the sun, she always said to herself. She washed in the sun. Some people were made for the sun or even by the sun, she always said to herself. A sun child!
She blinked away after a few seconds and a little fresher in her mind, her body excreting more and more sweat, fidgeting on the towel because it was getting as hot as the sand itself. She glanced at the ocean and astonishment creeped upon her. The man who had been laying there was now blood walking on water, doing a little dance from Compton. How…
She turned towards where he was laying and saw that he was still there. She turned back to the ocean and saw nothing but blue water. What..she looked about, grabbed a handful of sand and saw that she could still feel discomfort, pain, which the hot sand induced. The slight panic that comes with hallucinations made her tremble and she began to stare intently at the man. For a while the man didn't move and didn't look like he was breathing until he again casually started scratching his face again and went limp.
'Motherfucker. Is he fucking with me? Or am I.. I'm cracking before him,' she realised. 'But how? And before him? How? Black. Don't. Crack. And definitely not first…' Her eyes narrowed in the struggle even if she was furious and tearful. She looked at her arms and saw her arms distorted by the sun, her feverish mind in the grip of heat stroke. Her arms were pale. Moaning, saying no, no, she looked at the man who was now as colourful as they come, more colourful than her now with his inflamed eczema. Again he casually scratched his face. This scratch was the last stab of a dagger and she swooned, smiling wryly…colourful but not colourful enough.
