Guyana gyal
Pest in paradise
Guyana-Gyal
Dark Things on Wings Guyana-Gyal
- How do you kill a cockroach ? you are
the expert
Gail -: Stamp yr foot on him., u gotta
run faster than him though
- Or else ? no alternative ?
Gail: thinking
Russian marketing
red devil
Guyana-Gyal
Pest in paradise
FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 2007
Pest in paradise
A quiet morning walk, nothing to warn me of the pest. No bird in the big tree
by the roadside wee on me; no dawg bark at me as I walk in the next
neighbourhood; no mad man accost me. I return from the peaceful walk.
“Cockroach bite the papaw,” my mother say.
Oh no, is a brand new papaw my mother buy yesterday, we ain’t even cut it as
yet, I forget to put it in the fridge last night, bleddy kakarachas, where you
come from, I ain’t see none in the house for ages.
I go in the kitchen to make breakfast...this is we routine... I make the light
meals - breakfast, supper, and my mother do lunch.
I look ‘pon the papaw.
Instantly, a series of nervous breakdowns hit me, biff bang thud, bradaps,
just so they take me down, piece by piece, ow, somebody hold me, hold me and
sop me head with cooool Limacol before I faint.
I look again ‘pon the papaw. Long teeth marks in the gap. On the cupboard top,
li’l flecks of papaw lie scatter scatter about.
“Mummyyyyyyyy, that ain’t no bleddy kakroach. Is a...gasp...!”
Another set of nervous breakdowns hit me. “Is that empty house behind we...that
is where he come from...”
The house where them Brazilians used to live then they move out and some
rude-staring fellas move in then they move out, that house is now deserted. Or
so we think. The grass grow high, high, only the good Lawd knows what live
there...and one musta sneak into we home, only the good Lawd knows how...when...
“They should pass a law, when houses get empty, the owner should maintain it,
keep the yard clean,” I holler. “Then you gon see who own a house and who
disown it. All property disputes gon end right there and then...nobody ain't
want to pay for what ain't theirs!”
Me sister email. “Be careful,” she say. “It can bite you foot while you sleep.”
Oh Gawd, help me, suppose it feel cold tonight and decide to snuggle up with
me while I sleep, ow, ow, hold me, don’t let me fall apart, suppose the entire
neighbourhood get afflicted, the whole town, the nation, they gon isolate we,
lock we down, damn you Alberrhh Kamoo, damn you, I never know such anxiety and
dread ‘til you expose me to the plague in you bleddy book, I shoulda stick
with Heidi, then we woulda make goat cheese from the milk of every living
creature, ow hold me before I faint.
I wash, I clean, I Lysol the house. Rehanna the cleaning girl wash and clean
and bleach.
My mother go to town and buy traps, poison, paste-boards. We ready to do
battle with you Mr. Pest, I ain’t care what them animal rights people say,
they can defend all them two-legged rats and two-legged snakes and bandits
that they want to defend. But you...you...
...ow...I feel another breakdown...lemme go lie down...
SUNDAY, JUNE 17, 2007
Friday night hell
I lie on me bed like the man from me childhood village who did die with he
eyes open. Stiff. Staring. I ain’t know what that dead man see but I see hell.
Hell. Ning-ning, some people does call it. I see ning-ning two times on Friday
night. The first time was more like a recognition that hell exist. And the
second time...well...lemme start from the start...
On Friday night I put one glue trap on the kitchen floor, near the stove. In
the middle of the glue trap I set a li’l piece of papaw. Trembling with
trepidation, intimidation and all other fearfulations, I loll on the settee in
the living room, watch tee vee and wait. My mother gone to bed.
I wait some more, I expect to hear squall and struggle soon in the kitchen. If
that happen, then like a trueborn coward I would wake my mother to get rid of
the thing.
Not a squeak, not a squawk I hear. I nod off. A shout on the tee vee wake me.
Time to go to bed anyway.
Tiptoe into dining room. Peep into kitchen. Immediately, horror scream through
me mind like the sound from Psycho when the man did stab the lady through the
shower curtain.
The glue trap been three feet away from the original position. The li’l piece
of papaw gone missing from the middle.
Ning-ning. Hell. If I did want to deny it, I couldn’t, not now. This was
evidence, absolute proof that the thing is in we home, what else coulda move
the glue board and go with the papaw?
Ayiyeee kakamole, mama mia kakalamba. I flee in disarray to me bed. I lie
staring. And if what I see then wasn’t hell, I ain’t know what it was.
The thing appear in me mind as if it been right there up on the white ceiling...it
got four legs, two beady malicious black eyes, fur, a long black tail stiff
like a whip. As I stare, it grow bigger, bigger. It look like that creature in
The Nutcracker Suite - the movie, not the ballet, I never see a real live
ballet. I ain’t even want to contemplate what part of the house the thing is
hiding. Slow, careful, I get up and hang me mosquito net, tuck in the hem
tight tight under me mattress. Whoever did say hell is a place of we own
making, meaning, we imagine it, they ain't know squat. Hell look like a rat.
I wake on Saturday morning with suitcases under me eyes. I think I going
crackers.
Guyana-Gyal
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Dark Things on Wings
Guyana-Gyal
Paint
me with citronella oil and call me Warrior-Gyal. I going on a hunt, I going
for the kill and the enemy is them Dark Things on Wings.
Them Things sneak up with
these May-June rains, sneak in between the pouring wah-wah, and sometimes
pitta-patta. As soon as the rain ease up and them grey clouds pull back one
kanchee bit, them Dark Things on Wings rush out in black flocks. I want to
believe that they form unions - they arrive so thick, in unison.
Oh? My venture to kill
them is a frivolous one? Skin irritation, allergic reaction and swelling ain’t
that bad?
Well, what about dengue
that them Dark Things cause? It come with fever to blister you, and pain so
fierce even your eyelashes hurt, one sufferer did tell me. And the hemorrhagic
kind make your gums bleed.
And what about malaria?
That kill millions in plenty countries, kill children in different lands -
every so many seconds, one child dead. I ain’t know how my mother survive it
as a chile. Fever blaze she skin, chills rattle she bones and pain make she
very marrow cry out.
And don’t let me talk
about filaria, which them Dark Things bring, sticking parasite into you, then
your leg swell grotesque, make your leg, from your knee down, look like a
giant, mutant elephant foot.
How them Dark Things get
this power is a story so olllld, old like the story of Man. I hear it from my
mother who hear it as a chile from Long Lady, who did live in she village.
One day, me nanee, my
mother’s mother, send she girl-chile to return a coconut grater to Long Lady.
Them Dark Things been zinging around Long Lady yard in heavy, black clouds.
“Clap them, kill them,”
Long Lady say. “Don’t make them bite you.
“One day,” Long Lady say,
“the very first Dark Thing go to God.
“ ‘God,’ Dark Thing say,
‘I want to have power to kill people.’
“ ‘No,’ God say. ‘Go and
bite people. If them nah kill you first then you got power.’
“So clap them, kill
them,” Long Lady say.
Yesterday, in we yard I
blast a basin full o’ brooms, a box with empty plant pots, all corners, with
Baygon. Mother Nature haul sheself into she green-leafy cloak, screw up she
face at the rotten insecticide smell. I sorry Mother Nature, I sorry, I ain’t
got no other method that ain’t gon harm the land, no safe method like insect
eating plant growing near Kaieteur, we interior waterfall.
I did hear that them
Israeli scientists formulate a safe method, sugar and something else, put it
in trees to attract them Dark Things and kill them...but until that become
available...
...and until we get we
own scientists here...oh but this one is a dream, we don’t seem to put much
energy into science research here, and all we Bright Young Things migrate,
leaving we with them Dark Things on Wings.
Aiyeee, but them Dark
Things dwell Abroad too, and the list of troubles they can cause there too can
read like a death chant.
Lucky for me, I got a
fighting chant, a chant that my mother learn as a chile with she classmates,
Mam Bruce teach them. [I wish, I wish I did know who that long-ago writer is,
so I can give credit.]
We all are jolly
hunters
Though we haven’t got a
gun,
We’re out to slay wild
animals
And we’ll have lots of
fun.
The animals we’re
hunting have lots of people killed,
And should you let them
bite you
They will make you very
ill.
Look there’s a mosquito
Smack smack smack.
There he is again
Now setting on your
back.
Kill him while you have
the chance
He’s a deadly foe.
The cause of all your
fever is a mosquito.
Now paint me with
citronella oil and call me Warrior-Gyal, I going on a hunt.
p.s mosquito is ‘he’ and
not ‘she’. I kill one and had a good look.
Guyana-Gyal
Mosquito
