by Amy Berg
“Cause we nuh matter,” Sisu’s Mama would hiss in return, “What sense it mek to take care of de ants in de yahd before yuh tend de rats in de kitchen?”
So for once, Sisu was glad to have little money and to be from a land that was considered thoroughly unworthy of notice. And she and her fellow islanders can only hope it stays that way. At least until they understand what this not-so-brave new world will become. They already knew their new world was dangerous. Her parents—No. Sisu shakes the thought from her head. Not now. Now, she must focus on the task at hand.
She loads up her rickety cart with bananas, ackee, and breadfruit. With coffee from further up this south side of the Blue Mountains, already hastily ground and dumped in a few burlap sacks. Its aroma clashes with the heaping baskets of mangoes she heaves on top. As she adds to the pile, she gives her skin-and-bone horse, Winston, an apologetic pat. Time was, they’d drive him in a truck closer to Port Royal. But her truck and trailer were long gone. Now Winston was being asked to do long journeys on little food and it had taken its toll. Sisu is already steeling herself for his loss, too.
As she sets off down the mountain, she smiles at the cart her Mama had bought thinking it would attract tourists to their stand in the marina. Sisu had always felt they romanticized the past too much for ignorant tourists who wanted things quaint and exotic, but she was grateful for the cart now, grateful to have transport now that there was no fuel on the island.
Good thing she knows the route well, that she’s used to carting food down the mountain. Now, though, she brings it to the newly-named United Defense Forces. A grand name for what is mostly a bizarre alliance between the police and the better-armed gangs from Kingston, finding, for once, common interest in shooting at the mainlanders who try to find refuge on their island. It began with cruise ships and tourists who outstayed their normal single-day welcome, who couldn’t leave the island after the Investors suspended air travel or who feared what they might find at home upon their return. But the island could not support these extra people. Especially not when they, in all their entitled arrogance, demanded to take over, to tell their Prime Minister what to do. PM Morgan had, for once, had the country’s entire agreement when she decided to ignore the calls upon Commonwealth loyalty and concede their land as a satellite base. That would just bring the trouble here even faster. And the ants need to stay beneath notice for as long as they can.
That’s not to say that things are entirely safe here. The chaos had hit Jamaica, too: opportunists and thieves and fanatics who used the invasion as an excuse for their own wicked desires. Her parents—no, no thinking about that, not when she needs her eyes free of tears to make out the hazards of the road by moonlight. So, even when she passes what’s left of her home she doesn’t look. Refuses to acknowledge the two recent graves, some bits of greenery beginning to emerge from the dirt.
Sisu must keep moving. She’s running late—again. She tells herself that waiting for the full moon to rise will make this nighttime trip less treacherous, though she has been making the trip for years. Traveling through the night used to give her the chance to meet the sunrise at the waterline, set up her wares for sale. Nowadays, she hopes it will keep her safer, keep her out of anyone’s notice, while it seems like the whole island is armed and wary and waiting to see what will happen to them next. It’s like waiting for a hurricane to come, only worse. There doesn’t seem to be any hope this will pass quickly or blow itself away. Sisu’s accepted that there probably won’t be an end to this. Six weeks in and she’s becoming, at last, practical. A Powell. The Powell family had always been very practical, had made their living off the land and the tanned, eager tourists for generations now.
Nuh Powells nuh quit.
It’s become her mantra. The thing that reminds her she’s a farmer, the daughter and great granddaughter of farmers and, before them, slaves brought against their will to work this beautiful, mountainous island. She will not disrespect her ancestors by lying down now, not when slavery and rebellion and liberty are in her blood. She survives as her ancestors have, by retreating up the mountains and into the shadowy gullies. Retreat is, after all, an effective means of resistance. It had served her well after their farm was attacked, after looters snuck onto their land in the dead of night, raided every inch for livestock, fruits, and vegetables. When her dad ordered her to run, Sisu took off up the road—her feet bare, her hair still tightly wrapped in her head scarf. She’d hid in a small cave she’d played in as a child, trembling in a corner. It was a full twenty minutes before she realized the bandits weren’t coming after her, a full three days before she understood her parents weren’t either. So the cave has become her new home. It provides her good cover, and there is even a grassy corner where she is beginning a new garden.
As she arrives at the first checkpoint, the guard recognizes Winston and her wobbly cart, waves her through. She moves past the skittery hairpin curve that always makes her queasy and happy she can’t actually see the drop off, and past Eleven Mile village, popular in legend as the home of a rebellious slave. These legends are found all over the island, and Sisu hopes their ghosts are keeping watch over them now. The highway smooths out as much as it ever does, and it’s just another 20 kilometers or so to her final destination. Time will be tight with Winston’s slow, footsore pace.
Today she’s stopped at the second checkpoint. The flirty UDF guard on the right throws her a whistle and a wink before relieving her of her supplies. Saves her the trip all the way to the end of the spit, then. Good. He doesn’t give her cash. What’s the point of money right now? Some fool-fools had taken money, as if a mix of Jamaican dollars and a few scattered Euros would be accepted anywhere. No, Sisu has taken easily to the barter system and is smart enough to ask for batteries, scrap metal, and kerosene instead. When even that becomes too rare, she will ask for any spare tires or cured ironwood they had left over—the pieces too small for use on the blockade, but good enough to shore up her cart and her vegetable beds.
Almost sunrise now, the sky lighting to cobalt and a hint of orange. Sisu carefully reins Winston to an old pull-off from the highway, finds the narrow stone path down to a small cove. Tourists used to love it here, thinking they’d found a secret lover’s beach. Locals would sometimes fleece their cars for any valuables left behind, or wait impatiently for their return to sell them fresh squeezed cane juice or coconuts they hacked with a machete to open for drinking. No one is on the beaches much these days. Right now the UDF is focused on keeping people from coming to shore, not on anyone heading towards the water. No one will notice her here, and the sweeping watchlights are being powered down to spare them this close to daylight. Giant signs offshore proclaim FOREIGN GO HOME!, as does the occasional blaring loudspeaker if an unknown vessel comes into sight. The UDF had chased off a few giant cruise ships early on, but things had been quiet for the last fortnight. The friendlier of the two men at the first checkpoint told her, on her last trip down, that the Prime Minister was worried that more were amassing. Assuming the Investors hadn’t already taken care of them, that is.
But just today, just for a few minutes, Sisu wants to pretend everything’s irie, like the last several weeks haven’t happened. She wants to stick her toes in the surf and greet the morning. Maybe even catch a small snapper or two for supper. She toes off her sandals and heaves a shaky breath. She can do this. She can keep surviving. She dips her feet in the warm water. Pretends the sand beneath her toes is a spa treatment like the ones you get at the stush all-inclusive resorts. And so, her next breath is easier and the one after that freer still. The weather will be good today, she can tell by the lack of pain in her ankle and by clear skies turning bright on the horizon. Sisu looks down at her wiggling toes and fumbles in the pocket of her trousers for a hook and some line.
She hears some muffled splashing first. Sound carries far over water. She ignores it, assumes it’s a local fisherman out or someone like herself. But then, she hears more.
“No—this
way!” in a woman’s voice and “Quiet!” in a different register. And neither voice was Jamaican.
“What—what de hell?” she breathed.
Heart suddenly pounding, Sisu stared as hard as she could out to sea. Surely she was imagining things. But—was that really a raft? How did it get here? And how come the UDF didn’t spot it? She should probably raise the alarm. It’s what they’ve been told to do. And one strong shout would bring at least a dozen UDF to the clearing. But for the folks on that raft her call would mean certain death. And though it had only been six weeks since the Investors threw the world into chaos, Sisu is already tired of death.
So she runs down the beach, rushes up to the two men and woman dragging their raft onto shore.
“You must hide it,” she whispers urgently.
Three pairs of eyes turn towards her, guarded, defensive. She stops. Holds up her hands in peace.
“Your raft. You must hide it. The next shift’s goin’ pass by in a few.” They didn’t want to alert the UDF to their trespassing, did they? And though the refugees could certainly hide amongst the thick trees surrounding the cove, the raft would give them away. Did they want to spend the next few hours running from trigger-happy UDF guards?
Sisu hears their sighs of relief, sees their shoulders relax as they realize she won’t betray them. One of the men, the younger of the two, steps forward, tells her his name’s Aidan. The other two, an older man with grey tinged hair and a willowy redheaded girl, attempt to carry their cargo off the raft. Wait, not cargo—a young boy, maybe seventeen. But he’s not moving. The girl begins to shake him, the color draining from her sunburned face, her whispers turning to cries. Sisu watches in pity as realization and grief hit the girl, knows when her mouth falls open she’s primed to wail, to give away their location and bring the UDF running. Alarmed, Sisu moves to hush her, but the older man is quicker. His hand clamps over her mouth, muting her screams. He’s sorry, very sorry, but there’s nothing to be done for her friend. He holds her as her body trembles, as it shakes open his coat, revealing a small vial hanging from his necklace. It’s too dark to see what’s inside, but when he catches Sisu looking at it, he tucks it under his shirt.
Aidan calls her attention to the horizon, his brow furrowed with worry. The sun will be up soon. They can’t stay here much longer. He wants to know if Sisu can help them, hide them. And for some reason she does not know, Sisu says yes, shakes off the guilt of betraying her countrymen, her homeland. A few stowaways aren’t going to sink the island.
They hide the body and raft under sand and palm tree branches, head back to where Winston waits patiently with the cart. After she helps the three climb inside, she uses her newly gotten scrap metal to cover them, throws some rotten fruit on top to discourage checkpoint guards from looking too closely. She only hopes Winston, his body shaking and straining from the extra weight, won’t give them away.
This time, when the checkpoint guard favors her with a wink and smile, she flirts back. Hopes it seems natural, hopes he won’t notice her shaking hands. Luckily, he waves her through. Just in time, too, because soon after, Winston falters, stumbles. His meager body trembling under the strain, he refuses to move any further up the mountain. Sisu guides him off the road, unhitches him, gives his rump a firm pat—he’ll have to find his own way. They must find theirs. The sun will be up soon and they must hurry.
As she leads her companions into the canyon stretching down below, Aidan seems familiar with it, guesses they’re in a gully near Judgment Cliff.
“You’ve come this way before?” Sisu asks, surprised.
After slight hesitation, he says no, he’s only heard of it. But the path wasn’t usually mentioned to tourists for fear they’d attempt it. With scratchy, thick foliage and steep, rocky inclines made slippery by resilient moss, the terrain was far too rough.
Still, the two men take the climb in stride, even the older one, which given his gold watch and manicured hands surprises Sisu. But the woman, who Aidan says is called Lena, frets the whole way. Do they even know where they’re going? What if they die out here in the middle of nowhere? Her mumblings are in English, but with a hint of something else—French, maybe—and Sisu pays more attention to her accent than her words. But Lena’s male companions try desperately to shush her, seem worried Sisu will take offense. As if they believe she will tire of Lena and abandon them to navigate the treacherous terrain on their own. But Sisu’s dealt with people like Lena before. Foreigners, scared and out of their element, a long way from the familiar, from the soothing comfort of home. So she takes her hand, gives it a firm squeeze, tells Lena the same thing she used to tell them.
“Everyt’ing goin’ be alright.”
She’s not sure Lena believes her, not sure she can believe it herself. But as she leads the three strangers back to her home, she tries to draw hope from her family's favored saying. Tries to believe that somehow, saving these three might reap unforeseen fortune or garner her some goodwill. That perhaps, this one generous act will be the key to her survival.
About The Authors
Shalisha Francis has been obsessed with the art of storytelling since she was a little girl begging for one more story before bed time. This fixation persisted through her study of Comparative Literature at Princeton and even through her years practicing law at Proskauer Rose and Warner Bros. Records. Thankfully, her current career as a television writer allows her not only to read intriguing stories, but to create them as well. Her writing credits include Castle and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Nadine M. Knight is an Assistant Professor of English at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. Her teaching and research interests include African American literature, Civil War narratives, and film and television studies. She usually divides her time between paging through 150 year-old diaries in special manuscript collections and watching shows like The Wire or The Bridge for academic articles, and she welcomes any Civil War diaries or television recommendations you can offer.
“Collapse”
by Lisa Klink
We were out on a call when the earth started to shake. It was the third time in two months that our ambulance crew had been dispatched to this particular address, home of 77-year-old Edgar Sullivan. He had called 911 complaining of chest pains. Again.
Mr. Sullivan was one of our “frequent fliers,” who summoned emergency services every so often just to break up the monotony of his solitary, post-retirement life. We’d known this was a false alarm even before we left the station, but we couldn’t exactly ignore the call. So here we were, in a small, overstuffed apartment on a miserably hot day, dutifully listening to Mr. Sullivan’s heart and assuring him that he was not having a heart attack. Again.
“If you’re really concerned,” Davis told him, “we could take you to the hospital for some tests.”
The old man waved his hand, dismissing the suggestion. This was all part of the usual script. To Davis’s credit, he didn’t sound nearly as exasperated as I would have. He had a calm, confident manner that patients with real emergencies found comforting. I was crabby from a stupid fight I’d had with Jeff this morning about buying a new car, which had turned into another round of prudent husband/irresponsible wife.
I was jolted back to reality by a violent tremor that knocked me off my feet. Books rained down from the overstuffed shelves. One clocked me on the forehead before I remembered to duck and cover. A lamp slid off the end table and smashed next to me. Kitchen cabinets flew open, and a cascade of dishes poured out, breaking on the tile floor. Outside, a dozen car alarms blared to life. We heard a mighty crash of concrete and glass.
Then it was over. I looked up to see that Davis had pulled Mr. Sullivan under the dining table, like you’re supposed to do in an earthquake. They were both unhurt. A rivulet of blood ran down my forehead, and I swiped it away, wincing as I touched the rapidly swelling spot where the book had hit.
The apartment looked like a tornado had come through. The living room was littere
d with books and knickknacks, and the narrow kitchenette was at least a foot deep in broken glasses, bowls, and plates. I glanced at the LED display on the microwave and saw it was dark. The power was out.
The three of us headed outside. The temperature had risen by at least ten degrees while we were in Mr. Sullivan’s apartment. Our ambulance driver, Alex, was on his way in to find us. “Are you guys all right?” he asked.
We confirmed that everyone was fine. Then we saw how lucky we’d been. Across the street, a four-story apartment building had collapsed into a huge pile of rubble. The building had an open first floor for parking, and the concrete pillars that supported the whole structure had crumbled. The floors above had pancaked, landing on top of one another in a mess of bricks, drywall, and crushed furniture. It was almost noon on a Tuesday, so most of the residents should be at work or school. Most of them.
Alex went back to the ambulance to call Fire Station 72, our home base. Neighbors were starting to emerge from the other, undamaged buildings on the street. Some of them were hurt, mostly cuts and bruises. A tall man with a scruffy goatee was cradling his wrist. For a moment, he reminded me of Jeff.
Jeff. I hadn’t even thought about him. I was a terrible wife. I pulled out my cell phone to call him. No service. Of course. Phone lines and cell towers were probably down all over the city. But we had an emergency plan. Jeff kept a radio in his desk. He would use it to contact Fire Station 72, which would relay a message to me. That was assuming Jeff could reach his desk. In the really tall building where he worked. He was fine, I told myself. Perfectly fine. Those angry words this morning wouldn’t…couldn’t…be our last.
