Ruin

Prologue

Sunday: 1pm
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As a little girl growing up in Shadow Grove, old-time-days people used to say 'Devil finds work fi idle hands.'

And a wise person once said that you must listen whenever old people spoke.

"Bomboclaat!" someone says at the top of their lungs and almost give me a heart attack. I drop the pot cover from my clutch at the sudden outburst.

Shit!

I grasp my baby toe and rub where it was already turning red, wincing at the slight sting.

Cho shit house man...

I instantly turn down the stove under the rice pot at the sound of the commotion outside my kitchen window.

Throwing the empty Kendell coconut milk packet in the bin under the counter, I dry my hands in the dish towel and make my way outside.

The sun was in its prime and its glow painted a beautiful picture through the greenery over the hills.

Dah Sunday here pretty eeh? Mi need fi hurry up and wash out mi uniform dem make dem dry.

I pull up the door behind me and step outside unto my verandah stairs.

"No man!" I mutter at the sight before me.

A group of people had gathered under the big East Indian tree beside my gate; some laughing and clapping and carrying on with a lot of excitement.

I could see my next door neighbour Sharon and her two daughters peeping over their fence; one of them videoing the scene before us as they both laugh like hyenas.

I put on my yard slippers and pull up the grill before stepping into the yard.

Almost everyone from the lane was out here.

Kadian from down the lane runs up beside me, her phone already out and on video camera. "A yah suh nice!" she shouts and bursts out laughing.

Brawling as ever.

A huge yam bug buzzes beside her ear and she swats it away without the phone once shaking.

It's the professional videography skills for me!

My eyes follow the annoying bug as I say to her, "A wah, Kaddy? Wah the excitement out yah suh fah?"

"Girl, yuh blind? Yuh nuh see stinking Keisha and Shawna a war?" she said excitedly. "A from wah day this out fi gwaan eno. Keisha nuh stop drop wod pon di gyal! Yes man, see it yah now, think a every day di likkle gyal aggo take the styling!"

Seriously? Inna the big, big Sunday yah!?

I pull out two concrete blocks from the stock by the June plum tree by the fence and place them atop each other against the concrete wall. I climb on top in order to get a better view.

While I want to clearly see what is happening, I have no intentions of going anywhere near that crowd because I can't take a hit from a stone or bottle in my face.

Me? 'Fraid a lick bad!

"But all them two woman yah careless eeh?" I say to Kadian who had also drawn closer to me.

"A mi fi tell yuh! Cyaan believe a one buddy make them a gwaan so. It must big like Hulk to baxide..." she says and trails off as if imagining it.

I laugh at her facial expression and shake my head.

"Or them a just two big idiot yam heads," I counter.

I don't know if I was cut from a different cloth, but I can't fathom the day that a guy could have my head spinning around his little finger like Marvin had these two.