13

Most memories never fade from consciousness unless they are cleaned with the wet sponge of new experience. You think you’ve erased them but still, the dust of memories long passed cloud the blackboard of your mind, a haunting backdrop that lingers almost unnoticed. Nothing wipes the slate clean like immersing yourself in the alien, the bizarre, the totally not you.
Nothing wipes the slate clean like Five Hairs.
This was too good, way too good.
It was starting to freak her out.
Sapphire could feel the red heat rushing to her high forehead. It caused her to wiggle beneath the seat belt. Nervousness took over the control panel and she started to fidget. She flipped the visor a couple of times and her right index finger flickered back and forth opening and closing the passenger window.
She glanced over at Five Hairs. He kind of looked like a monkey wanna be, like a Homo Sapien that regretted moving up the evolutionary ladder. His Mount Rushmore brow reached biblical proportions and almost obscured her view out of the driver’s side window. She looked at his hands gripping the steering wheel and even though his knuckles were bare, she surmised that it was from scraping the sidewalks of his home town as he wondered around looking for bananas.
She was freaking.
No man ever, ever did anything nice to her. They were always groping. Fat sweaty old arms forcing her to come closer, they flipped out twenty dollar bills thinking it would make everything OK. They let their warm man chowder splatter over her cheeks and let her off at the next exit. She hated them.
But Sapphire had a soft spot.
It usually was reserved for animals. Real animals, not animal like people.
She loved kittens, stray dogs and of course, the Puffin.
She decided that it was wrong to hold anything against the Homo Sapiens challenged. Five Hairs needed love and she needed to open the flood gates.
Besides, he was such a good kisser.
Her mind wondered back to some Discovery Channel show she watched where she saw chimpanzees kissing. They seemed pretty good at it and she wondered if was in his genetic makeup. Is good kissing passed down from generation to generation? From species to species?
She looked over at noticed that Five Hairs was looking back at her. His eyes held a softness that took Sapphire by surprise.
“Just three more hours and we’ll be there.”
Sapphire tucked the monkey thoughts deep into her cerebral cortex. No need to dance on anyone’s ego just yet.
“I can’t wait.” She sighed as she opened up the glove compartment and noodled its contents.