/lit/ - Literature

Dear Jabari,

Enclosed in this package are about four dozen dried baobab. They are an citrus-like fruit that is indigenous to Africa and may help Lupita Westenra with her condition. She needs to sleep with the baobab every night. I suggest you make a wreath of baobab leaves to hang around her neck and a crown to put on her head. The fruits you can hang around the window and the door.

Miss Westenra will surely complain about the inconvenience – be sure to tell her how lovely the scent is, how pretty the leaves are, and so no.

It is vital that your patient wear these dried fruits when she sleeps. I will arrive in Whitby soon.

Sincerely,

Abrafo
While Jabari read Van Hassain’s letter, Lucy examined the baobab fruit. She pushed them back into their box and closed the lid.

“Oh, Jabari, what a curious fruit! I think give these to the innkeeper and she can put them in a bowl in the lobby.”

Jabari began knotting the baobab leaves into a wreath.

“On the contrary, these fruits are all for you. They’re called baobab and Van Hassain had them specially sent to you, all the way from our ancestral land of Africa.”

He took a bite of the fruit.

“Not bad,” he thought. “Tastes like orange.”

Once the baobab wreath finished, Jabari put it on top of Lupita’s afro. Then he made a second wreath and hung it around her neck. Lupita wrinkled her nose.

“These leaves are itchy.”

“My mentor is a strange man, but over the years I’ve learned that he has good reason for doing the things he does,” said Jabari.

Soon the windows and doors were covered with baobab garlands. He cut a hole in each baobab fruit and looped string from them. Those he tied to the bed headboard and chairs. That night, Lupita slept peacefully, although she was annoyed that Jabari insisted on closing the window and trapping in the air that was increasingly smelly with baobab.