This story is a work in three parts. Each part overlaps ever so slightly, but can stand alone if need be. Love and folklore collide to tell about lovers who gamble and lose, or win, depending on perspective.

Never to Know, Never to Tell
by Mark James

Every letter informed a word, every word informed a thought, and every stick have he crook. Let me just get this out of the way now, my issue is colored black and I don't agree with her on all things, but she is the mother and he is the father, purveyor, determiner, my matters of contention. Some say it done, but I say, it just start. Although this place produces asphalt and babies daily, it is not a world of eavesdropping butterflies, grey gliding aunts with glittering decorative combs in their hair or muttering trees. With all due respect, this is a world where lonely widows make pact with the devil, men fall prey, and Africans fly. This is a love story. No matter how sad or farfetched it may seem, or how the people seem to sing though they are simply talking to you, lizards and hibiscus flowers are everywhere and the hummingbird always gets its nectar.

She had ribbons in her hair...
He left. And so she had nothing to do, no place to be, and no one to parade for. Never once had she imagined life without him. Unspoken gratitude, unanswered queries, unfinished quarrels equaled a love untold; a love that existed atop a hill, all the other loves looking up, hoping for, to be more like, them. But, the other loves got buried in the sand and shrouded in shade, no light or water reached them as they were outperformed by Unis and Algernon Grant. Silly that love could be so present one day and then gone the next. Unfair that change is in fact the beginning of one thing and the end of another. Without the current, there is no wave, no ocean, just salted water without form or mood. Dead, gone, tomorrow is d'man wake service. Lord fadda God almighty...
   
***

Like charcoal and chalk...

Many boys and a father, and a mother who brought a mother with her to share in the suffering. Yes, they came from there to here, in search of God knows what. A white Mister with a French name, funny talk and white skin; a Madame? with a French name, tacked onto an African name, black skin and white manners, arrived here many years ago (head high, nostrils flared, searching and silently critiquing this new place as if to say, "We could do much better, but, this will do"). Haughty, pretentious people who act like they better than you but don't have a pot to piss in. Yes, they were broke, thank God for what possessions and connections they were able to hold on to, as it gave a certain impression. The island people looked on, taking in and recording the arrival for a later retelling. This odd couple had others in tow, eight young men, all shorter but just as fat and wide as the leader, and two older dirty looking ones who carried bags and trunks and passed out water to the leader and his black woman. An older black woman balanced herself on the arm of one of the fat young boys and grimaced for no apparent reason; beside the grandmother-like figure there was a little girl and a little boy, they both had light brown skin and flyaway hair that looked like cornsilk. The girl clung to the old lady and the boy sucked his fingers. For the time this was unbelievable to witness. It was wrong, out of the norm, a betrayal even, too much to handle. Restoration was in order, this black "queen" had to know she wasn't in France anymore...

***
...and the flying African...
...No yellow brick road, but wooden sign did say Golden Lane, it lean to d'side, it propped up by a red dew-soaked Chaconia bush since d'ground did loose from all dat rain d'night before. Quiet neat wooden shacks, painted white, stood up ahead of her as she reached the top of a small hill. Here she wasn't alone. Here had people wearing long dresses with cushioned heads where pails and pots balanced; here had people casting fishing nets and fixing boats; here had chil'ren that point and then pull on cotton skirts to distract mothers from what was doing, one screamin' for some ungodly reason. It was Gang Gang Sara dey did see come up d'road, naked, and smellin' like somewhere in Nigeria. Woman drop she pot and cover boy eyes and push little girl inside, man drop net and let boat slip out he hand causin' damage to the other man that was helpin' him tuh carry it, even d'birds stop fly and d'waves stop reach out fuh sand, but Gang Gang Sara keep walkin' not even botherin' to cover-up this new nakedness....