The Hair Braider

image courtesy:freepik

Anna found the salon by mistake. A narrow room squeezed between a hardware store and a kiosk that sold forgotten things. The sign above the door was fading, letters curling like burnt paper: “Sifa’s Touch Salon.”

Inside, the air smelled of coconut oil and something strange, like smoke caught in hair. Mirrors filled the walls, each reflecting her at slightly different angles.

Mama Sifa didn’t ask what she wanted. She only said, “Sit.” And began to hum an old tune.

The chair felt cold. The radio in the corner played an old taarab tune, slow and sad, the kind that clings to a memory long after it dies.

Sifa’s fingers moved quickly, faster than thought, parting, twisting, and weaving. Each braid felt like a thread pulled from her skull and tied to something unseen. She tried to speak, but her tongue felt heavy.

“You’ll look different,” Sifa murmured. And the humming grew louder.

When it was done, the mirror showed someone beautiful; too beautiful, as if every flaw had been brushed away and replaced with someone else’s calm. She smiled without meaning to. Her reflection smiled a beat later.

That night, she dreamt of fingers in her hair. A woman behind her, humming that same song, combing her with something. When she woke, a braid lay coiled around her neck.

She told herself it was nothing. That sleep does strange things. But the next day, people called her ‘Aisha.’

At the office, a man she didn’t know greeted her with a grin too familiar. “You changed your hair again,” he said. She laughed. She’d never met him.

By evening, her scalp ached. The radio in her apartment played that same taarab tune, though it hadn’t worked in years. When she looked into the mirror, her braids shimmered, alive.

She went back to the salon.

The hardware store was gone. The kiosk too. Only Sifa’s light flickered in the dark, steady as breath.

Inside, three women sat still, eyes closed, lips moving soundlessly to the rhythm of the hum. Their braids gleamed like wet rope.

Mama Sifa looked up and smiled.
“You came back,” she said.
“You always do.”

Her voice filled the room like smoke. The mirrors trembled. Each reflection blinked at a different time.

“I don’t know who I am,” she whispered.

Sifa’s eyes softened.
“That’s the point.”

A braid slid across her shoulder and rested over her heart. She touched it. It pulsed once.

In the mirror, Aisha smiled.
Behind her, Mama Sifa hummed.
The song did not end.