ERNA BRODBER
You think Melissa stop here? The lady see herself like some monarch of all she survey, stopping like Queen Elizabeth in any Caribbean country she feel like and stopping for how long she want. She even have outriders. Before she land she send on rain to inform the Natives of her coming. For days the Heavens were pure white like somebody haul a white paper serviette across it so that the rain descend in drips and drabs and of course eventually bursting the paper napkin and flowing along until the napkin totally soak and drop off somewhere and mortals like me have to walk in water up to the ankle.
Now we know this is a beautiful country, plenty coconut trees and banana trees dancing in the breeze. All of wi come from elsewhere and find wiself here. But it is natural for trees to die. Somebody have to plant them back. Is we. So I think it is pure spite when Melissa with one breath blow them down. You see Ocho Rios? I born long time. Is nuff hurricane I see. And I know those winds strong. One time I see a hurricane lift up a hibiscus hedge like it is a front end loader. Hold it for a few minutes in the air and drop it back same place. And I know I see a coconut tree ripped out of the soil, its roots showing like a disorganized dreaded head the whole thing flung over a fence by the hurricane’s wind. That bad but not so bad. This Miss Melissa called “five Category Melissa” lift up a concrete wall which pin in the earth by steel and throw it down. Why she mus behave so bad? Who do her anything? Banana tree, coconut tree, all ah wi? We see that you have power. But you have to show off so!
Everything that have blood in them vein run from cold, damp and rain. That includes mice and rats, forty leg and frog and lizard. With the drip drip drip drip rain they start looking for shelter. I think the good book say that man should take care of these creatures. It did not say that man should give them his space and he should stand around giving them food and water. I have in my house a favourite corner with a table close by on which I put my cup or glass and stare and meditate. Don’t ask if lizard nuh walk in and even dipping into my cup and glass and supping heartily of my grog with the coming of Melissa! And hear this one: my son find one rat lying off on the blanket on the settee like a retired spy from Herzegovinia free and private now, soaking up Negril’s sun. Melissa made the condition for creatures to try taking over from man.
I know myself to have natural rights so I had no intention of giving them up to any creatures which is what the Genesis called them. Everyone was saying that I could not stay at home alone when Melissa arrived, but I had plans laid to serve Melissa a sauce. They had worked before against other hurricanes but I forget my age. They just could not work, so I had to submit and leave my house but not before setting poison for Melissa’s friend and company. Mi wicked eh!
Melissa finally come and I go back home. The house stink; dead and dying creatures were all about and Melissa tell JPS not to turn on back the lights yet. She must want me to know what lonely feel like. Bad mind Melissa gone about her business leaving me to feel wicked, foolish and alone. At a time when the lights were on in the whole house I fell while negotiating a short staircase and had to be taken to the hospital in the night. If I fell in this dark lonely post Melissa time of no electricity, how would I manage? I could not phone for help. Imagine me walking in my own house with a slim light hoping not to squelch any dead creatures and feeling like a patron of an obeah man stealing through thickets at the dead of the night for a consultation. Melissa twenty days after landfall and her absence, still has her way and I for all my natural rights, have to bend my life to suit her. Natural rights! Walking in my house like a thief. No fridge. Any food cooked has to be eaten same day. I will put on weight and the new dresses will not be able to hold me. All because of Melissa.
