I want to be a ventriloquist

Not so long ago, before electricity bright-up me gran’parents’ village, if you wake after midnight you would think you lying in a vacuum so black you can’t see even your finger in front of you. The only way you know you ain’t alone in a dark, free-floating void is them snawwwk-pieeewwww snores from Pa in the next room.

Them was the nights that jumbies…ghosts…spirits of the dead…used to roam wild and free, because, as Pa used to say, jumbies love pure darkness.

But now, them scary stories start to change. Now, instead of black nights, jumbies stalking the land in the bright daylight. Now, living jumbies, descendants of dead, terrorising people. Nearly everyday we newspaper does scream out them bleak words. Bandits. Gunmen. Guns. Terrorise. Family. Rob. Beat.

This morning, after chucking aside the last couple o’ days newspapers, I say to Rehanna, cleaning girl, “You does watch America’s got talent?”

“Yes.”

“You see the last show, you see who win?”

“No, who win?”

“The turtle win!”

“The turtle win? How that man does do that with he voice?”

“Girl, I just don’t know. I wish people here can do it though. Imagine, if a gunman go into a house, one o’ the family can make the gun say, ‘Put me down right now, you stinking rass man you, don’t let me turn around and shoot you.’ The voice-thrower can even tell the gunman that the house is haunted. The voice-thrower can make the wall near the gunman say, ‘You son of a bitch, this is you dead father talking to you, this is what you grow up to do?’ Rehanna, I can bet you the gunman ain’t know if he father dead or alive.”

We laugh in a’ amused but resigned kinda way. Rehanna continue she chores, I go to write. Later, in the kitchen, I grumble about bandits again.

Rehanna sit on a stool, slow and staring, which mean she got something sad to say. “Girl, me and Fazal been by Big Market on Tuesday. He sister does work there. And girl, me sister-in-law say that a lady and she daughter been to the bank. And it look like a thief been watching them and he follow them. And when they reach Big Market, he grab she bag, and my sister-in-law say, if you see how this lady fight for she bag! And the thief dashing kick and blows in she eyes, she face, she belly…”

“Ow, ow, that musta been a whole lot of money, she musta work she whole life for it, ow me gosh, ow. How old she is?”

“She must be in she fifties. She work she whole life for that money, to build she house. Me sister-in-law say if you see the crowd that gather while he fighting she, and she screaming and hollering…”

“Nobody couldn’t pick up something to lash he in the back o’ he head? Ow, they too scared to do anything,” I say. “Them thieves does have friends with them, and if anybody lift a hand to help, the friends does watch they face, know who it is, and stab them up later on. Auntie M. get robbed in town one day, and a young fella tell she afterwards why nobody could run to help she.”

Yes, in these bright nights of electricity and days of sunlight, jumbies stalking we land, living jumbies with minds so dead they can’t switch on the light no more; I just ain’t know who kill they minds, who turn off the light in them in the first place.

As for me, I try to find a thousand ways to let the light in, and laughter is one way, and I gon throw it all over the place, and I ain’t care two hoots if the Serious Thinkers of Guyana call me “frivolous” and “silly” and “empty-headed.” Haha I say to you.