Basmati

Walking curiously through stalls of vendors, the greasy stench of frying dough and warm caramel slit open my nostrils. Creole lullabies melted the air; lanterns hung from dusty Bedouin tents erected on Cap-Haitian’s old port earlier that night. a chiseled lace of bluish-grey shells had long encrusted itself on the abandoned boats, slivered with splinters, algae and lost corals. Following a sugary waft, I walked further while it delicately intoxicated the air from a nearby stall amidst the festival’s revelry.
A strange silhouette stood slightly away from the crowd. His pale skin seemed to drink the moonlight as he ran his finger through his coarse hair. When he smiled, his eyes were strangled with a dancing violet light. Dirt and dust bit the contour of his nails like black crescents at the tip of svelte, agile fingers, intensely shuffling through a deck of cards. I approached while he fixated a kneeling woman whose restless hands tore at blades of grass - betraying a consuming indecision.
He deftly flicked her a card from his deck.
“ I’m bored.” He said, with a blasé smug.
   -  “So you throw cards?”
“ I make signs.”
He opened his hands slowly, as if guarding a treasure. The cards were stained with random encryptions and images; their meaning, he told me, was in the receiver’s mind.
“ So the woman?” I inquired.
“ A card marked: Yes. “
I gaped dumbfounded into his eyes, peering above crackled cheeks; my veins turned to ice. I was standing two meters away from a madman who looked as if he had just crawled out of the rabbit hole.
He lifted a hand towards me. I cringed.
“Basmati.” He introduced himself.
Hesitantly, my muscles unhinged. He opened his dusty crevice of a mouth and plucked rusty vocal chords that cackled into laughter.
“You can say it. I’m crazy.”
And without letting go of my hand, he pulled me in closer resting his mouth on my ear. In a breath clouded with coffee and spices, he whispered:
“But what are you?”