#greenishblack

And what if I were to die here, in the belly of Lost Lake, my bloated black body made heavy by failed lungs and irony.  All because of this fool.  This fool that I sadly and desperately depend on.  He knows it too, just like he intimately knows nautical knots and executive handshakes.  He knows how to roll a reefer better than I do and casually swallows drawn out tokes, controlling the release of both fumes and joints from his stalky fingers.  I accept and inhale..and cough.

‘ Northern Thunder, eh?  Good shit right?

  I nod, swallowing an earthy mix of swamp and pride.  We grab our paddles again and venture even farther into the lake, waves from our canoe announcing our presence to the dark world below.  A world of blues and greens and purples and blacks and life and sex and resistance and submission.  I remove my paddle and watch eddies succumb to a liquid eventuality and I feel real fucking blessed.  I see the clouds below full of droplets promising a safe return home.  I see rivers and migration patterns, refined by rocks and blockades, some natural, some man-made. I watch ripples from the Baptist`s  wet hands raising chance from defeat mixed with the everyday cleanin’ and bakin` after Sunday service.  Church.

E-Jesus? E-Jesus lives over there on Old Oven Hill and sees everything we do so you better not steal any parts and sell them to the Lebanese, okay? Don’t be like Doubting Thomas. If you want your blessing you better not do anything stupid. That’s the rule. Now, don’t worry about the old TV screens or the broken computer screens..you’re too weak and you don’t know how to use a screw-driver. You are still a kid, so you got to do kid stuff. That’s the rule. You should be looking for tiny-tiny things like batteries and the old i-phones with shattered mirrors, use your tiny-tiny fingers! E-Jesus likes car batteries. So batteries is your mission. I christen you Black-Battery-Betty, our newest missionary. Praise to e-Jesus. Praise to e-Jesus, Siemens and Sony. You must repeat.

That’s the rule.

Understand that all around you, technology is the future. The future is here and it is dead. If the carcass of the future, the corpse of technology is here, then where are we, B-Three? Yes, New- Ghana, but where are we really? Heaven. This is Abogbloshie, the future of the future, and it is Heaven. If it was no so, could e-Jesus survive the gray fires of Old Oven Hill? No, e-Jesus would burn blacker than black! But here everything and everyone is dead, no current through their metal veins and we, the chosen missionaries will resufficate and bring new life.

Tonight, e-Jesus will visit you in your sleep. He will open the door of your refrigerator-bed and pray in tongues and shower your face with silver dust. 'Toshiba-panasonic-sony-apple-samsung', he will chant. You must repeat. That's the rule.

 I gone and write down all deh ingredients down on piece a paper so, fold it twice from corner to corner and stuff it in my arse right tight so when the Lord does call me home, me and my Ginger Beer recipe gonna  walk up to the pearly gates together as one.  Cheez on, what a day that will be, yuh!  In my three piece suit prim and proper ready to kick deh bucket and leave this wretched place, and leave all yuhs ungrateful children that plotting to teef my recipe from me. Chuh!  Fool me once, if yuh please! 

On my tombstone, that big piece of fine rock, make sure to write ‘Official Creator, Founder and Royal Curator of the Original Ginger Beer’ in the Queen’s Calligraphy yuh hear? That’s the very least you and your lazy brothers can do for yuh father. The very least.