The airport was abuzz with travelers. After a year of performing for audiences who shouted “yes” to their Haitian music, Pappyon, Neg Mawan, Yatande and Zilibo—known as The Haitian Cats—were going on vacation . . .
You might think that she was a monster, but she really wasn’t . . .
It was rumored that Miss Neela’s spirit roams through the village in the dead of the night with her fetus wrapped in her arms . . .
The magnificent yacht followed the racing boats into the roughest part of the channel—where the Atlantic meets the Caribbean . . .
Daddy Bats lives with you in a one-bedroom flat in Belmont—until today. This morning, Daddy Bats flicks the cold from the corners of your eyes, and just after Radio Trinidad announces the day’s deaths, he marches you between lively trucks and horn-blowing super saloons up the hill to the orphanage.
“Don’t worry, son,” Daddy Bats says as he kneels before you. “Is only for a few days. Then I will save you . . .”
It was all because of the squeal of the windshield wiper. Not the rumbling racket it made as it stammered back along the pane. No, that wasn’t so bad. But the squeal on the way down—shrill, insistent, bleak. Who could stand that shit? . . .
Hark!
When the First People found her sparse remains, Karinya’s body had already entered the Eternal Circle of Life, her spirit as free as the corbeaux circling overhead.
Wait. It’s chilly here. Let me get more comfortable . . .
When the young soucouyant first realised there was a baby growing in her, she held the thought in her head tightly, boxing it in the same way you might wrap a pastelle: fold one side over and seal before folding the other side . . .