The boy who flew a bin bag

Written in Essaouira, February 2020. Typed up today.

The wind off the Atlantic was strong enough to lean into. I could taste salt and something like charcoal from the streets below.

Essaouira. I’d come for a week, maybe ten days. The rooftop I used belonged to a house with a green door and a cat that slept on the stairs. The cat ignored me when I stepped over it.

Every afternoon the boy on the next roof came up with his kite. It was a bin bag — white, with red lettering — cut open and tied to a ball of string. He held it over his head and ran along the edge of the roof. The wind caught it on the third or fourth try. Then he just stood there. The string pulled his arm up and he let it.

I watched from my plastic chair because there was nothing else to look at. The kite went higher until it was a white square against the haze. Gulls circled below it. One landed on his roof and he waved it off without letting go of the string. He brought it down before the light went each time. Wound the string around a stick and went inside.

The roof had a water tank and someone’s clothes drying on a line.

This went on for a month. I’d meant to leave after ten days, the way I had in Lagos without meaning to. I didn’t take a photo. I don’t know why.

One afternoon he didn’t come up. I kept looking at the roof. The string wasn’t there. The stick wasn’t there. I sat there until the light changed.

He didn’t come the next day either. Or the day after. I never worked out why.

I’ll tell you the rest if I remember it.