Author: FarJourney Caribbean

        <Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

       Locket # 40

       Not calling names. At least not real names, okay?

       I like taking care of the women who come to our hospital all bruised and
       battered. They talk to me. I listen like a big sister. Find out what really
       happen.

       Take Jainee. Her man beat her up bad, then he try to kill himself. Both of
       them hanging on here, though left to me this man would be mince meat and
       ribs for the ants and earthworms.

       I looking after her, alongside this doctor from England. He used to work in
       Malaysia, and now he is here.

       She in a fragile state, in and out; most of the time sleeping, or pretending to
       sleep, especially when relatives come to visit. Whenever I come in to check her
       vitals tears fill up her eyes. She’d hold my hand tight. “What happen to the
       man,” she’d ask. Don’t fret yourself, I tell her. And I’d whisper, He don’t
       deserve to walk again after what he do to you.

       She don’t want to leave the hospital. She don’t want to live anymore. All her
       life people taking advantage. This last beating was like the last straw.

       Her man came home one night demanding! Common law situation. I could
       never for the life of me understand these situations. More like common
       lawlessness. And this man has rise and come problems.

       In his 40s, almost twice her age. They have no children. He likes his rum, but
       he could barely lift and stay stout inside. He always wanting help.

       At some point ‒ grabbing her hair, forcing her face to his crotch ‒ he’d give
       up; then in the middle of the night he wake up and fly in a temper, like he
       remember what didn't happen, and he hitting her for not helping.

       This time he hit her with a Roti rolling pin, knock her all ‘bout her arms and
       head. She here now all swell up.

       I asked her, You don’t get tired of his nonsense? She didn’t want to cause
       more aggravation, she said. Besides, she was seeing another man. He was
       better. Better? Well, he didn’t need any help. And when he talked, he made
       her smile, he made her feel happy.

       So just a lil sweet talk and she spreading? In the hot stuffy bedroom, she had
       to push her husband off her stomach. She’d lie on her back, pouting, watching
       his chest heave, listening to the grinding of the cooling fan; thinking only
       when next she would see Mr. Sugar Cake man. He's probably near her age,
       better looking.

       So why she didn’t just leave? Same thing I was wondering. She had nowhere
       to go. She wasn’t going back to her parents. Another man was waiting there
       to take advantage. A pandit.

       First time she went back her mother sent her to him. He listened. In his
       opinion, her husband had “stress” problems, which was why they had no
       children. Drinking rum was not the solution. Her duty was to help release him
       from these problems. He told her to take off her clothes, he would give a
       demonstration.

       This is what we have now, pandit talk show fornication, with one of these ‘my
       dear child’ pandits, which makes for bad fornication.

       I tell you, sometimes our bodies are like a forest. Every day some creature
       comes out, crosses the river, hungry for scraps and bones. When it can’t find
       anything, when it can’t stand being ignored, it does horrible things, then
       scoots back to some shed in the bush.

       I stab one o’ them already. He was no older than a schoolboy. Pushing me inside
       as I opened my front door, all sweaty and pointing a gun. Expecting me plead ‒ 
       Okay, okay, please! 

       I waited till the right moment, when he thought I was too frightened to resist.

       I reached in my bag and pulled out a doctor’s scalpel. I always carry one. You
       should see the shock on his face when I slice him. He stared at the blood on his
       fingers, on his shirt, and he ran out the house fast.

       Mongrels! with no future! pointing gun at your face and running at the sight of
       their own blood. 

       I don’t think Jainee could make it on her own. I will help her get better till
       time come for her to leave. Her village there waiting ‒ sugar in short supply,
       cows with milk to give and belly heavy men. Not a lot to choose from. Still,
       you never know.

                                                         *

       This doctor from England (he wasn’t born there, but he has their accent) in
       his fifties. He seems to know what he’s doing. Mr. Shiny Shoes. All beard and
       curly hair.

       He gets fussy about time and he can’t stand anybody who couldn’t be bothered
       doing things the right way. He likes when I tell him everything is in order.

       He told me he was beginning to understand our problems. The women in this
       country all waiting to be rescued. Rescued from what? I asked. “Your mother
       and father probably saved each other and now, see? you’re working here, doing
       well. You know things about life,” he said.

       Only here a short time and already he’s this big expert on my mother and
       father, and our women; and claiming to know me.

       Actually, we had a very nice conversation. At a restaurant, after work. Was
       him, another woman and me. I think he wanted to show us girls he was not
       above socializing outside the hospital with lower level staff.

       He ordered wine. No one had ever served me wine in a wine glass anywhere in
       Georgetown.

       He said our country was breaking down, too many viper heads, too many hot
       air heads in charge. One day we going become like Malaysia.

       The other girl laughed. Maybe she thought she was supposed to laugh when
       sipping white wine in the company of doctors.

       At the restaurant I could tell he hadn’t been with a woman since he arrived. I
       picked up signals ‒ after the wine and the conversation and some awkwardness
       outside ‒ that he wanted me. I played Not interested. Didn’t want him to
       think I was another Georgetown woman who needed saving. But the next day
       I spread for him.

       Was after 10.00 in the morning, in his office, I brushed his left side with my
       hips and thigh and told him how much I enjoyed the wine and his company.
       “I enjoyed your company too.”

       Sorry, things didn’t advance afterwards, I said in a soft voice. And that must
       have raised the colours up his flagpole.

       “Lock the door,” he ordered, catching me by surprise. “The door,” he
        repeated, rising from his chair.

        A pen rolled away and fell to the floor as he pushed my shoulders down on his
        desk. He took a little time putting on “his gloves” like he about to examine
        a prostate. Ready for work and pleasure, you notice.

        His finger grip on my wide hips was firm, I couldn’t move. My mouth opened,
        enough to release a muffled Yes! Yes! to keep him driving. Other parts of me
        waited for something grand to happen, like fireworks of pink and gold. Too
        much to hope for at that moment, I know.

        Mr. Far from home, lonely but not showing it, whose lips barely move when he
        talks; who just the day before was saying how women here could use a little
        “sweetness” now and then, though his word for it was “affection”.

        When he was done, he patted my buttocks and turned away as I scrambled to
        pull my pants up and look tidy again. Then he sat down and laced up his shoes.
        He had slipped out his shiny shoes! All that time he was in his socks! huffing
        behind me like he climbing stairs.

        Regrets? Not from me. One day a man who I knew was generous, the next
        day I let him. We here now, calm and composed as per usual; we even in Eden.
        And that feels better than some mongrel jumping out the bush at you, leaving
        you on all fours ragged and torn.

        Doctors and patients come and go. I feel my life has changed, maybe just a
        little. I’m definitely not the same as yesterday.

        Whatever happens next, I am not going to end up living alone in Georgetown.
        With a cat or a dog. Some child’s auntie. Acting the same way every day, not
        realizing the years passing.

        Our rivers move at their own sweet pace. I could always find wine and wine
        glass in a shop here. I think I could manage.

        I’m not going to let situations wear me down. My little doctor scalpel right
        here ready to head off any common lawlessness.

        Ayanna Brimp
        Georgetown, Guyana

So what’s “the takeaway”, as US newsmen like to ask, after the passing of the
British (born in Trinidad) author V.S. Naipaul.

 You mean the ‘Indian bloke’ who lived in Wiltshire, England for umpteen years?
  with his second wife, a cat named August and a British way with words? Finally,
accommodation.

 Many consider A House For Mr. Biswas his masterpiece. It came long before
thoughts of the author’s greatness took to the air like balloons. Set side by side
Tolstoy’s War And Peace or America’s Moby Dick, it marks the stellar
achievement of a region and a century and a man.

 Followers from the days of book reading have saluted the prose master’s life
investment: this is how some men seized their independence inside colonial
boundaries, testing courage, risking home approval.

  His fiction, the long and short pieces, set in the region, their value yet to expire,
contain the only conversations that really matter to the islands.

  The Mr. Speakers in The House, quick to feel and deal offence, might want to
look again at his insights and descriptions. Our view pointers settling for word
bloated columns could take a cue or two from his unsentimental precisions.

   Here then ‒ from the man who helped us think about how we lived! the Knight
surveyor of our darkness! ‒ 13 extracts from V.S. Naipaul’s start-up stories.

   What he was he was.

                        ________________________________________

        [from The Suffrage of Elvira: Penguin Books, England, 1969]

  *   Elvira was stirring before dawn. A fine low mist lay over the hills, promising
a hot thundery day. As the darkness waned the mist lifted, copying the
contours of the land, and thinned, layer by layer. Every tree was distinct.
Soon the sun would be out, the mist would go, the trees would become an
opaque green tangle, and polling would begin.

   *   Ramlogan was striding ahead, flinging out his legs, shaking and jellying from
his shoulders to his knees.

  *   Foam said, “Is those Witnesses. They can’t touch nobody else, so they come
to meddle with the poor Spanish people in Cordoba. Telling them not to vote,
to go against the government. Who ever see white woman riding around on
red red bicycle before, giving out green books?”

 *   To get the van into the yard they had to pull down part of the rotting wooden
fence and build a bridge over the gutter. Some poorer people and their
children came to watch. Baksh and Foam stopped talking; frowned and
concentrated and spat, as though the van was just a big bother. And though
it wasn’t strictly necessary then, they put up the loudspeaker on the van.

 *   “Herbert,” Mrs. Baksh said. “You mustn’t tell your father he lie. What you
must say?”
     “I must say he tell stories,” Herbert said submissively. But he perked up, and
a faint mocking smile – which made him look a bit like Foam – came to his
lips.
     “No, Herbert, you mustn’t even say that your father does tell stories.”
     “You mean I mustn’t say anything, Ma?”
     “No, son, you mustn’t say anything.”

   *  “How Hari?” Baksh asked. “He write yet?”
Hari was Dhaniram’s son.
“Boy in England, man,” Dhaniram said. “Studying. Can’t study and write
letters.”
          

     [from The Mystic Masseur, Penguin Books, England, 1964]

   *   He spoke in Hindi but the books he showed in this way were in English, and
people were awed by this display of learning.
        His main point was that desire was a source of misery and therefore desire
ought to be suppressed. Occasionally he went off at a tangent to discuss
whether the desire to suppress desire wasn’t itself a desire; but usually he
tried to be as practical as possible.

   *   And then there was Soomintra to be faced. Soomintra had married a
hardware merchant in San Fernando and she was rich. More than that, she
looked rich. She was having child after child, and growing plump, matronly,
and important. She had a son whom she had called Jawaharlal, after the
Indian leader; and her daughter was called Sarojini, after the Indian
poetess.

   *   He was in a temper when he returned late that night to Fuente Grove. “Just
wanted to make a fool of me,” he muttered, “fool of me.”
       “Leela!” he shouted. “Come, girl, and give me something to eat.”
         She came out, smiling sardonically. “But, man, I thought you was dining
with the Governor.”
        “Don’t make joke, girl. Done dine. Want to eat now. Going to show them,”
he mumbled, as his fingers ploughed through the rice, and dal and curry,
“going to show them.”

  *    They brought their sadnesses to Fuente Grove, but they made the place look
gay. Despite the sorrow in their faces and attitudes they wore clothes as
bright as any wedding crowd: veils, bodices, skirts all strident pink, yellow,
blue or green.

              [from Miguel Street: Penguin Books, England, 1971]

  *  Mrs. Bhakcu would say, “You better mind your mouth. Otherwise I come up
and turn your face with one slap, you hear.”
     Mrs. Bhakcu was four feet high, three feet wide, and three feet deep.
Mrs. Morgan was a little over six foot tall and built like a weight-lifter.
     Mrs. Morgan said, “Why you don’t get your big-belly husband to go and fix
some motor car and stop reading that damn stupid sing-song he always sing-
songing?”

 * I couldn’t bear to look at the fight. I looked all the time at the only woman
in the crowd. She was an American or a Canadian woman and she was nibbling
at peanuts. She was so blonde, her hair looked like straw. Whenever a blow
was landed, the crowd roared, and the woman pulled in her lips as though she
had given the blow, and then she nibbled furiously at her peanuts. She never
shouted or got up or waved her hands.

* “I did everything for him. Everything. I gave up everything. Money and family.
All for him. Tell me, is it right for him to treat me like this? Oh, God! What
did I do to deserve all this?”
  And so she wept and talked and wept.

    (A version of this article appeared elsewhere in 2009)

                                                     – Wyck Williams

        Least when you expect . under the whush whush
      of helicopter blades . into the gravity! duck, step.

      Sparks from sun scorched grass leap . only
      the shirt damp on your faith never once doubted.

      In the desert you might hear whispers 20 miles away,
      something on its way | don’t go metrological at the wind.

      You dig a ditch you slice a worm it does a twin
      shimmy . still processing.

      A newspaper folds . what’s left for you to swat
      Read Only flies.

      The phone screen light middle of the night vibrating
      fibril disquiet No no no! assembling

      Trace with scull oars ice break aways . polar end
      plates | floaters sky stares; bubbles at sea mark dares.

                                                           – W.W.

          QAT

   
       *SPEAKING of which, Qat can tell you of teenage
        Zillah who, with her Christian parents, fleeing
        From Beirut via Sicily, had been sent
      By Canadian government sensitives to try
        To live in Didsbury ‒ where, feeling indeed  
        Done-interred, she exhumed her corpse, getting it
        Pregnant, shocking her dad’s heart to its last thump.

        Gloom, guilt, despair and other self-punishments
        For a few seconds’ surrender of her sex
        To a roué kinder than her own parents
      Were what Zillah really brought to Qat’s desk at work (and,
        More than once, to Qat’s kitchen-table) under
        The pre-text of a plea for help in finding
        A sleeping-space beyond her widowed mother’s.

       (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan, 2018)

        <Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

          Locket # 39:

          Nobody here know about the 9/11 lady. That is my name for her.

          I’m about to break a little pledge. I swore not to talk about her but some
          things you can’t keep to yourself forever.

          She’s a survivor from the 9/11 Wall Street plane attack. Remember that?

          She was right in the middle of it, she said. On the pavement on her way to
          a hot dog stand. The plane hit. She turn. She see this big cloud of ash going
          up to the heavens. She feel dust coming down on her face. She freeze
          and stared and said a prayer and kept walking in the opposite direction.

          Well, by now she should be dead or dying. Plenty people who were down
          there who inhale the dust, they dying now one by one. Firefighters, police,
          workers in the area, even people miles away who breathe in the dust, they
          coming down now.

          Since that day, she said, she scrubbed herself but she couldn’t get all the
          dust off her skin, out her hair. She turn on the bed sheet, she feeling the
          dust. Months pass, nothing change. She still couldn’t get rid of this feeling.
          Then she came home and went up the Pomeroon river.

          I heard this a year ago when I picked her up at the airport. She looked
          middle aged, maybe mid-forties, middle of something. I want to go to
          Parika stelling, she said. And she offered to pay in US dollars.

          Her bags were already in the trunk. It was out of my usual taxi runs. I had
          to calculate fast. Take the fare, take her to the stelling, take the US
          currency; you probably wouldn’t see her again.

          It turn out to be a sweet piece of change. Everybody here waiting for
          robberies to end, for the days of ‘good salary’ to start. Let me tell you, now
          whenever this lady call to pick her up at Parika, I am there. I believe in
          this lady.

          So what belief got to do with it? At some point in this place you start
          wondering what you have to show for yourself, how far north or south your
          life gone, or if you’re the same person after all the years. This lady set
          me thinking about my long years.

          I still not sure if in fact she slowly dying from the 9/11 dust, but something
          she doing ‒ and I don’t know what the hell she doing ‒ in the Pomeroon
          giving her life bright new days.

          I told her once, “You know, you could package your survival story and sell it.
          They have people like you in India, spiritual people, with thousands of
          followers dying to listen to somebody like you.”

          She cut me off. People here don’t listen and learn. They prefer to dream
          and follow.

          “I was in New York, I used to live in the basement of my daughter’s home,”
           I told her. “But I came back. I trying my best here.”

           She cut in again, You looking good for your age. Careful though. Family and
           relatives probably watching and waiting for something to happen. You have
           to be alert. I heard pure confidence in her voice.

           And just like that after one pickup at the airport and a little conversation, 
           me and this lady getting along tight, tighter than blood.

           From Parika she takes a speedboat then a bus to Charity in the Pomeroon
           where she lives. These are different times. She don’t trust Georgetown,
           don’t trust any town or city for that matter. She calls for car service, I am
           there.

           Laugh all you want. You have your spiritual people you believe in, I have
           this 9/11 lady.

                                                            *

            The other day she called. I drove the miles to the Parika to meet her. No
            squeezing up in a minivan for this lady. My transport is like her limousine,
            her shield and security in Georgetown. As my father used to say, avoid as
            much as possible the vulgarity of the vulgus. And take your time.

            Only US dollars. I know you wondering. I was wondering too. Did she
            declare this foreign currency at the airport?

            And if you wondering what big plans I have for my dollars, you can stop
            right there.

             Actually, Kembi, my Nigerian friend, is the one with big plans. He drives
             a van, but he hoping to move on from here soon. He has some business
             connection with a Chinese man here in the supermarket business.

            This place, I tell you. So many people here, with every trick and reason,
            from  every crab hole in the world, running their own “No speak English”
            business, you don’t know who to trust.

            Kembi offered me a gun at a cut price. Just in case. I had to warn him to
            keep his damn mouth shut about the dollars. Once people start asking
            where he get his dollars, it could lead back to me, then back to the 9/11
            lady, and that could be problems for everybody.

            We have motorbike pirates, boys and broken men who know only simple
            mathematics, like how to grab or add and subtract using trigger fingers.
            I took the gun. I have to protect my goose and my golden eggs. I ready
            for all o’them.

                                                                 *

            Once every week or so I drive the Pomeroon lady around Georgetown. I wait
            outside. She does her business, gets back in my transport. I take off turning
            this way, that way. A few more stops. Same procedure. Then we head to
            the bridge, back to the Parika stelling.

            One time we picked up a white lady at the airport. Not too many bags.
            Judging from the laughter and the name sharing, they might have been
            co-workers in New York. Whose husband, it turned out, was one of what
            they call first responders, emergency people who rushed to Wall Street
            dust storm that day. Which meant her husband inhale a lot of dust.

            He couldn’t make the trip with her. Never heard of Guyana. So you here
            to check it out for him? my lady said.

            I was introduced as Mr 5th Avenue. I have a little decal on the dashboard.
            “You’re in the hands of my trusted chauffeur, a good man, my first
            lieutenant.” I am also the Confidence Keeper man when it come to
            conversation.

            Let me tell you, passengers talk their heads off in the back seat, on their
            self phone, thinking the driver’s mind blank as the car headlights. I hear
            people speaking a foreign language who I wouldn’t trust even though I
            couldn’t understand a word they saying.

            I took the white lady straight back to the airport. The 9/11 lady didn’t
            come along. Safe journey. “And thanks for the package. I hope they
            don’t go through my bags at the airport.” It’s not in your carry-on, you
            shouldn’t have any problems.

            My first thought was marijuana. But why would this white lady come all
            this way for marijuana? “She was giving me a jar. I told her they would
            inspect that for sure. So I have this stuff in like a plastic ziploc bag. I’m
            supposed to mix it in yogurt or something. If it worked here, it should
            work there.” Couldn’t be marijuana. “Then I’ll stop wasting money on
            multivitamins.”

            So you had a good time, I asked. “It was okay. My body likes so many things
            here. Bernice got something good going.” So what were you two up to?
            “Not much, the usual.”

            She probably thought I knew what the usual was. “There’s money to be
            made, but Bernice isn't thinking business.” I nodded as if I understood.
            “Lots of people I know would give anything for a few more good years.”

            I interrupted, She’s a good person. Not to be taken advantage of. She went
            silent for awhile.

            “Well, I can’t wait to get back to my mattress.” Her mattress? where did
            they sleep? in a hammock? on the ground? “And I’ll miss milk from the cow.”
            So what they use for drinking water?

            A week in the Pomeroon bush is not like a week on a California beach. Her
            body was caked with mud, she was bathing in the river, walking around the
            bush with nothing on except. “But you know what? I feel terrific. I haven’t
            felt this good in a long while.”

            “I wasn’t thrilled with the bathroom facilities. Those noises at night if you
             had to go. Reminded me of camping outdoors when I was a kid. But the sun
             on my skin felt good. Can you imagine? I was like a guinea pig for a week
             in the jungle. You might see me back here next year.”

             You getting the big picture?

             I tell you, every river find its own direction to the sea. I don’t pretend I
             know everything, and that this will go on and on. I know what matters in
             this world and I staying alert.

             R. Misir
             Georgetown, Guyana

        <Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

        Locket # 38:

        Telling you straight, not me again. Even if the travel service improve, even
        when I get old and dying to see Canal District one last time.

        Plane delays and cancellations happen all over the world. In New York a storm
        could blow in trapping you at the airport, but nothing compared with this.

        06.00 hours: Leaving Canal District. They change up how they calling time here,
        using numbers and “hours”, like they hoping to pin down people's habits. But 
        things carrying on the same way, a full day's work starting late and rarely
        finishing on time.

        07.00 hours: Crossing the river bridge and remembering: I grew tired quick of
        back home conversation. There was really not much for me to do.

        At the start you catch up on the news and opinions, glad for the lil sun, a  
        child you never knew who ran to hug you in the kitchen. At some point the
        smiles and the talk sound like claptrap. “Claptrap” is my husband’s word for
        when your mind reach saturation point and you can’t take anymore.

        And don't talk about older relatives telling you everything that happened to
        them since you left, and making requests that are completely out of the
        question. 

        In my room the day I arrived I was unpacking and I noticed this tiny lizard on
        the window ledge outside crawling, stopping to meditate, then scooting away.
        Something like that, anything crawling in my house in New York, would drive
        me crazy.

        08.00 hours: Georgetown roads. People on bikes, or crammed in these minivans
        mouth, teeth and eyes working hard on their face, like they have so much on
        their mind. It would scare me if the car suddenly stall and now my worries out
        in the open facing their everyday worries.

        And let me tell you, living space tighter everywhere now. Somebody always
        noticing what you doing. You have your regulars spreading their tail like
        peacock, twitching this way that way, wanting everybody to notice what they
        saying and doing. Chew and chew, their beef still hard to swallow.

        10.00 hours: Airport.

        12.00 hours: Sitting in departure lounge, waiting to board.
        14.00 hours: Sitting on the plane waiting to depart.
        15.00 hours: Back in the departure lounge ‘cause they detect some mechanical
        problem they have to fix.

        18.00 hours: Still fixing. I can see the plane but I don’t see anybody who look
        like they doing any work.

        20.00 hours. Plane not going anywhere. They say they flying in another plane
        to fly out passengers. They removing bags from the bruk down plane. The man
        man on the baggage cart driving so fast I sure he spilling bags all over the
        place.

        After midnight now. I should tell you, I survived on sugar cake and two soft-boil
        eggs which I packed away. We might have all curled up and wasted away if it
        wasn’t for this one passenger, this woman from New York.

        Hair in braids with wispy strands of grey. And with a belly fat problem. You
        don’t know how that does upset me ‒ folds of fat flabby over her midsection,
        exposed young people dress style, like the person think she still young.

        I don’t understand that. I had two children. I used to struggle every day to keep
        my bulge looking reasonable.

        This lady had her winter sweater on. Was late October and we heading back to
        cold temperatures.

        I don't who she was visiting, her accent sound like she was not from here. She
        had a voice people could hire for situations like this, loud and making one big
        commotion. The other passengers sat stiff and not-involved, exchanging
        glances. This lady upbringing was clearly not their upbringing.

        A child would start crying, she would stand up, and words would burst out her
        pouty face: how she going sue the airline; how the airline responsible for
        transport and accommodation if the flight cancel. Is anybody listening? Hello.
        Who in charge here?

        Eventually they told us we would not be leaving that day. We were now
        considered like passengers entering the country again.

        But we still here, we never left! No matter. Get passports ready for Customs
        and immigration.

        They had to call back two officers who must have gone to Georgetown after
        the last plane came in. We had to wait till they reach back. Two gentlemen,
        frowning or just plain annoyed they were called back for this. In no mood for
        courtesies, asking the same stupid questions.

        Two lines inching up, inching up. A lady with a duty free bag kept fumbling
        for something. The bag drop. A bottle of rum broke and the liquid made a
        spreading pool we had to step around.

        I don’t like seeing anything spill and left like that, but I would have had to
        leave the line to find somebody to clean it up.

        Our bags from the plane were dumped in the front lobby in a roped off area.
        Two official-looking young people told us they were waiting for the
          passenger sheet. They would allow us to step forward one by one, pick our
        way through the jumble of bags with address tags to find our own. A crowd
        was building up, pointing and trying to spot their luggage.

        Canal District people were standing around with only their hand luggage, some
        on the phone explaining and complaining, travel clothes ready to fall off their
        shoulders and legs barely holding up. Considering the long drive I couldn't
        imagine even the kindest relative driving back here. We were on our own.

        I walked away and stood by the drop-off area outside. Georgetown far off and
        least concerned. Canal District deep in sleep. The airport lights like they
        warning, Careful, stranger! don’t take chances back down that dark road at
        this hour.

        This is when the night crabs climbed all over me. I couldn’t be brave anymore.

        I was ready to cry, feet in one place, heart in another. And phone battery
        low. I didn’t know if to try calling forward to New York, or back to Canal
        District with news.

        I thought of my husband. He’s my second husband. He’s an American. We live
        on Long Island. I know him ‒ he wouldn’t have left our house for the airport.

        Actually he called the airport. They told him the flight was delayed; then
        they told him the flight cancel. “You were right,” he said. “You can’t rely on
        travel service out of that place.” I pinched him in the stomach to remind him
        he could always rely on me to find my way home.

        Miss NY lady with the angry braids, still in her winter sweater, the phone in
        her hand still hot from outrage, interrupted her conversation to inform
        everybody, “Transport coming! Transport coming from Georgetown!” To take
        us where?  And who paying for this transport?

        A car rolled up near where I was taking the gentle breeze on my face, which
        is not like New York wind that don’t care how it blow in your face this time
        of year.

        The driver jump out. Somehow he must have heard passengers were stranded
        at the airport. His transport looked like a private car. He removed a baby seat
        from the back to the car trunk, then stepped forward, rubbing his palms.

        So where you folk coming from? Cuba? You all here like for group shopping
        in Georgetown? I didn’t hear the plane come in. Okay, so where you want
        to go?

        02.00 hours: dead of night and next day. And since this now sounding like
        more back home craptrap, I gone.

        S. Sharma-Reilly
        New York, USA

                                                                                                                                                  
                                                                                  "There is nothing new about that thirst
                                                                                     and that suspicion…"
                                                                               - Julio Cortázar, “Hopscotch”

          
        Even as sails hail the screens flat aluminum
        sheen . clean so you're afraid to smudge the back
        lit surface, soon there'll be only pixels and pimples
        to remind us there exists a body you own ~ moist
        walls reforming what definitions dare do . be
        devil the cane groiner at row.

                                                                        With so 
        many camera happy truth to sell is only a phone
        throw away . meSelf unblocked, the copy piling
        hangers on; even Stocks palm clutch live drive
        the curve to market . under Run pamplona street
        manners.
                                                                        Left to
        astonish so few resurfaced bedrocks : everybody’s
        on some pitch or platform getting their profile word
        spready for page ~ the end tight positions text
        handlers assume.
                                                                       Not sure
        anymore what’s irreducible? people once launched
        nude sheets of song in the shower . what lungs!
        up from the bowels Glory be! vowels.
                                                                    Small trace 
        now as much frosted glass activity beads to mist
        sweat from day labor a collar ring of the past, like
        rag wipes after our asininities . land lines down
        wind overbending archipelagos ‒ about which
        few True but views allowed.      
                                                                   – W.W

          MARA
          
         Mara's mother once told her that in New Am-             
         sterdam, the cobwebby city in which she
         Was born (and Mara conceived, a second thought ‒
       For second thoughts to become the child’s second nature),
         A Dutchman atop a rearing horse can still
         Be seen waving a whip and charging through town ‒
         Seen, the daughter had thought, if you stay awake

         While others sleep, or if you’re dreaming wide-eyed
         While everyone else is busy still making
         The sense the White horseman’s whip makes sure they are,
       Making and fixing the links and crafts of time and trade,
         Making promises, appointments (and keeping
         Them or else! on the link-roads you must forge first)
         And adding to the cobweb-spin of Matter ‒

         Which, as any Dutch master would tell, is the
         One thing that matters here on Earth, no matter
         What stones and nails it forces you to kneel on,

             
         (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan, 2018)

        <Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >          

         Locket # 37:

         Out of the blue I got word from my mother, Mr. Polo wasn’t doing too well.
         He had asked for me. Wanted me to know he was “ready”. That weekend I
         headed home.

         Mr. Polo ran a taxi service taking children to school. His boat didn’t have
         power motor and speed. My mother traveled with him to Charity 'cause it gave
         her a chance to look for people, wave as she passed houses and clearings.

         In the morning he picked us up one by one, in the afternoon he brought us
         back. We had to be at Charity on time; he didn’t like waiting around too long.

         One day I was late. I went off with my friends after school up the river and we
         lost track of time. When we got back to Charity he had come and gone. It was
         getting dark. It was too far for my friends to paddle me home. They thought
         the whole situation very funny.

         I waited at the pick up spot, praying Mr. Polo would come back. And he came
         back.

         “Your mother worried sick, wondering what happened to you.” I was with
         friends up the river. “Up the river? with friends?” He seemed eager
         nevertheless to forgive me.

         When we got home he tried to calm my mother. “The boy now learning to be
         independent.” That made her more angry. He knows right from wrong. He
         shouldn’t be doing something like this. Mr. Polo gave her a bag of crabs; he
         stayed until her temper cooled.

         But it was what he said on the way home that day that stuck with me.

         “You know how to swim?” A little. “What you mean a little? You either know
         or you don’t know.” I could float. “You ever swim ’cross this river? Right
         across? “There’s no right or left. If I throw you overboard right now, you know
         what to do?” I think so. “All this time you in school, and you know only a
         little about water around you. I don’t understand.”

         After secondary school, I decided to go to Georgetown, hoping to find work.
         He tried warning me about moving there. My mother told me not to listen to
         him. I might find better paying jobs there.

         He said he’d been to Georgetown several times. Each time, bad luck for him,
         it rained, heavy rain. The streets turned into rivers. People looked on helpless.

         “Complain, blame the Government, wait for the water to drain away. Helpless.
         Plus they have no respect for the rules of road ways, the quiet of rest and night,
         no respect. Big seawall, so they think they have nothing to worry about.”

         I have to say what he said about Georgetown, about the flooding and no
         respect, is true. Heat and hard hearts everywhere.

         Eventually I learned to swim. Mr. Polo offered to help me. I told him I didn’t
         need any help. “That’s good. You feeling confidence now. Good.”

         He told me about what happened to him one day, how someone – relative,
         family friend, he brushed past exactly who – took him out in a canoe took him
         out in a canoe across the river, but when he stepped out on the other side,
         the man backed out the canoe and told him make his way home.

         He shouted after the man. “Stop shouting. Shouting ent going help." 

         He started swimming, but half way across he turned on his back to rest. Next
         thing he knew he was sinking, slowly at first, with his body’s consent.

         It seemed to go on forever, a peaceful descending in the water. At no point
         did his lungs swell, or threaten to burst. He worried if he didn’t snap out of
         it, he might never see the sky again. Then is when he panic.

         He scrambled, arms and legs fighting up. He broke the surface faster than
         expected. Fear wrapped round him and he swam like a rattled shark to the
         river bank, grabbing hold of mangrove roots like they were life preservers.

         My mouth was half open, I didn’t know what to say. He pointed, “You should
         see how your face look,” laughing and coughing, one hell of chest raking
         cough.

         Alright, I thought, this was just a joke. Just Mr. Polo spinning a story, playing
         with me – all for the look on my face.

         He circled back, serious again, adding one more thing. He knew now, he said,
         what it takes to manage a river life. He understood how one minute people
         act like they responsible and close to you, next minute they unbuckling, and
         you on your own in the world.

         Whenever I went back to the Pomeroon I looked him up. By then I was old
         enough to drink his rum and share a little marijuana. Ready to listen and
         follow.

         He’d ask me how I was doing in Georgetown. Same nonsense every day, I told
         him, as if regretting I gave up the river. I was glad he didn’t ask what work
         I was doing.

         “Listen, I have a favour to ask.” A favour? “You must promise to do it, no
         questions, alright?”

         Hard to believe, this from a man who never asked us for anything, who gave
         the impression he knew how to manage every river situation. “I know you
         from since you was a boy. Remember the day you didn’t come home and
         your mother was worried sick. I remember that day.” I couldn’t refuse him
         his favour.

         I went by him late in the afternoon. His face was narrower, his teeth broken
         and browning; it was the first time I saw his skull without a cap. Like you
         losing weight, I said. I hear you was in hospital. He didn’t answer.

         He looked shrunken, the pants belt pulled tight, keeping his pants all
         scrunched up at the waist. “Things does flare up all of a sudden, like church
         bell reminding you,” he spoke up. “As long as you could move your legs, use
         your hands to clean myself, you can count your lucky stars.” Then he said,
         “Come with me. I have to show you something.” We went outside.

         He stepped from habit but with slowness into the canoe, while my
         Georgetown walking legs tried to keep balance.

         We set off keeping close to the bank, the sunlight falling fast behind the
         trees, stillness and silence except the gurgling sound when our paddles
         dipped into the water. Then he began steering as if to cross.

         In the middle of the river he stopped paddling. I looked over my shoulder “This
         is it,” he said. This was what. “Where we part. I leaving you here, you can go
         back.” He playing with me again, I thought.

         He lifted his legs over the side, rocking the canoe a little, a look of worry on
         his face. He slipped into the water, and he was gone.

         I sat in the boat, one, two ,three minutes, gripping the paddle, expecting his
         head to break the surface – and there he was! spitting water, wiping his face,
         getting ready to explain what was going on. Nothing, not a bubble.

         Maybe he swam away under water, leaving me alone and baffled. And with
         some explaining to do if anybody asked later. Nothing, not a sound.

         When I got home my mother asked about him. “He okay,” I told her,”I don’t
         think you’ll see him for awhile. He said he was leaving.” Where he going?”
         He didn’t say. But he’ll be alright. And with that I came back to Georgetown.

        Joseph Midasie
        Georgetown, Guyana