The pure white line

I read somewhere, a butterfly flutter he wings in one country and earthquake happen in another part of the world.

Reality, me dear, ain't pretty like a butterfly.

Somewhere out there, right now as I type, a young Wall Street hotshot is in he razzle-dazzle apartment snorting a pure white line up he nose-hole.

That line connect he to my country, tie he to sellers here, twist and knot them together along a violent razor edge.

Boom, a father get threatened…if you don’t back off we case, we gon kidnap your li’l daughter and cut off she fingers and send them to you.

Clang, innocent gyal travelling to Abroad for the first time get throw in jail, she carry a bottle o’ rum for she boyfriend (she love, she life); she didn’t know he put stuff in it for she to deliver to somebody Abroad.

Later, Wall Street hotshot gon phone he grandma. I need more money, Grannie, my rent is so high, I don’t know how my salary goes so fast. You think he care how that pure white line tie he innocent grannie to sellers here? If he ain’t care about that, why then he should care about we who he ain’t know? Third world faces without names, a brown mass in a country that is transshipment for the stuff that give he bliss. If we tell he about the anxiety we go through because of that stuff, he might just laugh. Here, snort this, he gon say.

The anxiety ain’t obvious; is like your shadow in daylight, you don’t notice it because it always there and you take it for granted. But every now and then when darkness break loose, when you get a power cut and you light a candle, the glow cast your shadow huge up on the wall and you can’t help but see it. In that same way you become aware of this lurking uneasiness.

Like the time I been going back to university, and a mother ask me to carry a fruit cake for she daughter who didn’t come home for the holidays. The mother is a good woman, from strong Catholic background, wealthy Portuguese family; the daughter was me high-school friend, a kind, caring gyal, so of course, I didn’t think twice to say yes.

I collect the cake, keep it on we dining table, I would fetch it in me hand luggage. The evening before I travel, Auntie Babba [who been living in Guyana then] peer at the cake. Give me a knife, she say. No, no, you can’t cut it, I protest. I am not cutting it, she say, just give me a knife. I give she the knife and she poke and jook and examine. Mm-hm, it’s okay, she say. Why you do that, I ask, still puzzled.

“You never know who to trust these days and what they can put inside that cake,” me dearest, dearest auntie say.

We didn’t have a blackout that night but a shadow rear up big and frightening, then it hit me, the truth. About what me auntie been saying.

The truth. In miniscule ways law abiding citizens must pay because of it.

Like everybody else, I just go about me business but sometimes that truth make me angry because of the hours, no, days we waste trying to do a simple thing like mail a package overseas. Ain’t so easy no more since the curry powder fiasco.

About a year ago somebody hide the white stuff in a tin o’ curry powder and post it to overseas through the customs section in the general post office. As the story go, them customs people in the post office didn’t examine the curry powder properly, they only stir the top. The tin of curry powder reach all the way to the airport before the machine there discover the white stuff. But the sender didn’t get ketch because he or she did write a wrong mailing address on the package.

Immediately after that, a new rule burst on the scene. Senders of packages must provide proof of address. No problem. Except nobody ain’t tell we what is a proper “proof of address”. So back and forth, from home to post office, the people go, including me, with various proofs. Driver license one day. Stamped, addressed envelope that had snail mail another day. One girl in the line say this is she fourth attempt to send some DVD’s to she sister in Canada.

One day, there I been in the line again, still trying to mail a birthday gift to me li’l nephew. Suddenly, a gyal with a wrong proof of address burst into rage at the customs officer. “Look lady, move from here,” the custom officer shout. I could see the frustration on he face too.

Wow, I think, suppose, just suppose he is a spiteful man, and he note down she name and address and ID card number, and the next time she post a package, he tell he friends at the airport, look, put some white stuff in this package to get back at she for me. Or suppose she travel, and he tell he airport friends, plant some stuff in she suitcase, suppose, just suppose.

Crazy, crazy thought about one incident as slight as a butterfly shaking he wings, and it ain’t gon cause no earthquake in no other damn place. Crazy, anxious thought that, because they crave that white stuff over there, one li’l dispute here can change a gyal whole life.

Clang, just so.