Stories by the Fire (Listwa bò difé-a)

Come child. Come and let me tell you a story. Sit still. Pa bwennen twòp, ok? People starting to forget child, and that is why I must tell you these things. Cause you see, if these things get forgotten, if people let these things go, that is when the real trouble will start, you hear? These kind of things don’t disappear, doux doux.  They hide in the shadows and in your nightmares and they wait for that day that someone will start to believe in them again, and trust me child, there will always be someone to believe in them. Es ou konpwann, doux doux?

You have to be careful. Here, take the stick, child. Draw a circle. We have to keep them  things out. Keep them far from our souls. Make it wider, child. Wider than that. People can’t take any chances these days. That is good, child. Watch the moon, doux doux. Watch how it getting thin and covering itself up with black sky, and watch up there, child, watch how the stars getting smaller and shrinking back into blackness. Bondjé. That is bad luck child. That is how we know things getting bad.

 Come, come child get that fire going stronger. Throw the wood in. We need fire to keep them things away. Yes, like that, child. Throw it in. No, don’t throw in the wet ones, doux doux. You want us to get caught out here in darkness? Sé sa ou vlé, eh?If that fire get out is you, me, and the devil to keep company, eh.

 Listen, child, you see back before you and I was born, things were different here. It was not just people and animals walking on this beach. Not just that at all. It had spirits too, child. Jumbie is what we called them. Dark spirits. Jumbie that had so much hate in them that they would burst into fire in the middle of the night sky. You know what is that, child? To be on the beach and then look up and see jumbie burning up like fireworks? Non, ou pa konpwann.

Oh, no, don’t frighten, doux-doux. Look I here with you. I here, and we have a circle, and we have a fire. Jumbie can’t hurt we here, child. But you have to listen. You hear the waves, darling? You hear how the ocean breathing and crashing on the shore? She knows the stories, child. Listen to her.