How to Escape From a Leper Colony Read Online Free Page A
Author: Tiphanie Yanique
the water. The sea seared into my cheeks and mouth and the soft part around my eyes. Tantie did not come. She stayed behind on the shore and watched me soak into my real life. “I can’t swim,” she called and then went to our house without looking back at me.
Now when you sail by on your ships you will say the island is haunted. You will visit the places where we bathed and played our pickup soccer. You will take pictures of our houses, our beds made up stiffly like war bunks. The sheets still on them and the pillows well placed. You will see the plates and bowls sitting on the table, the pots and pans lying dirty in the sink. In the surgery, all the records resting open for any curious boaties to rummage through and know that someone’s leg had been chopped off, someone else’s penis. Someone’s arms were too ruined to hold her baby, someone else had been cremated. Someone had begged to be killed in his sleep. The X-rays will still be up on the X-ray machine. Our medicines, the early salves that only soothed but didn’t heal and the more modern penicillin, all exposed. Now the government says they will tear down everything and build hotels and casinos so that your ships have a reason to stay in the region and spend money. Or perhaps you will only walk along the shore and swim in our beach.
But if you go deep, you will also find our goddess, rough and elegant. I left her behind. You may visit her if you wipe the dust from her feet. I left for the sea. I swam in the soup with everyone. Nuns and volunteers holding on to lepers for dear life. The dark protective salve running off their faces and revealing them to be of every race. Lepers hoping a shark would come and eat their leg off so at least they’d be lighter and their bodies would stop being a dead weight.
THE BRIDGE STORIES: A SHORT COLLECTION
1
The Parable of the Miniature Bridge Maker: as told by an Island that is between things
The people wore little bridges around their necks. And when couples married they hopped over a little bridge. Everything was good.
There was a bridge maker. He made bridges that people put in their earlobes and around their fingers. Tiny little bridges. Decorated and beautiful and perfect. He decided that when he died he would request a thin bridge fixed to his casket helping to connect him to his dead family under the ground.
His living family insisted that he leave a real legacy. He was famous for small things. They wanted him to be known for big things. So he built a real bridge. Paid for by the Yankees—not to honor his memory, but really for their own convenience. Like everything new. Huge and stretching from Guyana—the place in the world most south—to Miami—the place in the world most north. Before allowing the public to walk on the bridge he gathered all his family onto it for a picture. But the bridge was built like his others, the only way he knew how, delicate and pretty but not able to bear weight.
When the picture flashed—a big, beautiful, blinding light—the bridge fell apart. And not only in that spot but in places all over the Caribbean, so that the many families who had gathered to take pictures (without express permission) also went into the ocean. And though they were surrounded by the sea no one in any of the communities had bothered to learn to swim. The water never seemed as important as the land.
2
The Story of the Burka and the Habit: as told by a Catholic Lady in a big hat
Margo was a kind of ghost. A living ghost. She’d been living in St. Thomas for a decade but she had just up and sailed back to Dominica years ago. She couldn’t continue to suffer the lack of dignity she faced here in St. Thomas. Oh, yes. Right here. Her husband, Rashaad, living in St. Thomas like a proper Muslim man. Working even now that their children were grown. Their grandchildren almost grown. It was a sham.
Back in Dominica their house was small and old and rolling down the hill inch by inch every year. No
Now when you sail by on your ships you will say the island is haunted. You will visit the places where we bathed and played our pickup soccer. You will take pictures of our houses, our beds made up stiffly like war bunks. The sheets still on them and the pillows well placed. You will see the plates and bowls sitting on the table, the pots and pans lying dirty in the sink. In the surgery, all the records resting open for any curious boaties to rummage through and know that someone’s leg had been chopped off, someone else’s penis. Someone’s arms were too ruined to hold her baby, someone else had been cremated. Someone had begged to be killed in his sleep. The X-rays will still be up on the X-ray machine. Our medicines, the early salves that only soothed but didn’t heal and the more modern penicillin, all exposed. Now the government says they will tear down everything and build hotels and casinos so that your ships have a reason to stay in the region and spend money. Or perhaps you will only walk along the shore and swim in our beach.
But if you go deep, you will also find our goddess, rough and elegant. I left her behind. You may visit her if you wipe the dust from her feet. I left for the sea. I swam in the soup with everyone. Nuns and volunteers holding on to lepers for dear life. The dark protective salve running off their faces and revealing them to be of every race. Lepers hoping a shark would come and eat their leg off so at least they’d be lighter and their bodies would stop being a dead weight.
THE BRIDGE STORIES: A SHORT COLLECTION
1
The Parable of the Miniature Bridge Maker: as told by an Island that is between things
The people wore little bridges around their necks. And when couples married they hopped over a little bridge. Everything was good.
There was a bridge maker. He made bridges that people put in their earlobes and around their fingers. Tiny little bridges. Decorated and beautiful and perfect. He decided that when he died he would request a thin bridge fixed to his casket helping to connect him to his dead family under the ground.
His living family insisted that he leave a real legacy. He was famous for small things. They wanted him to be known for big things. So he built a real bridge. Paid for by the Yankees—not to honor his memory, but really for their own convenience. Like everything new. Huge and stretching from Guyana—the place in the world most south—to Miami—the place in the world most north. Before allowing the public to walk on the bridge he gathered all his family onto it for a picture. But the bridge was built like his others, the only way he knew how, delicate and pretty but not able to bear weight.
When the picture flashed—a big, beautiful, blinding light—the bridge fell apart. And not only in that spot but in places all over the Caribbean, so that the many families who had gathered to take pictures (without express permission) also went into the ocean. And though they were surrounded by the sea no one in any of the communities had bothered to learn to swim. The water never seemed as important as the land.
2
The Story of the Burka and the Habit: as told by a Catholic Lady in a big hat
Margo was a kind of ghost. A living ghost. She’d been living in St. Thomas for a decade but she had just up and sailed back to Dominica years ago. She couldn’t continue to suffer the lack of dignity she faced here in St. Thomas. Oh, yes. Right here. Her husband, Rashaad, living in St. Thomas like a proper Muslim man. Working even now that their children were grown. Their grandchildren almost grown. It was a sham.
Back in Dominica their house was small and old and rolling down the hill inch by inch every year. No
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