Mini Short Stories: 2020 Volume 1

Ash

"I does real remember long time thing, you know. Wasn't easy yuh know." This is how my great-uncle would launch into a tale of long ago. They were magic words that recalled a time before YouTube, Instagram and iPhones. Once he began there, it was magically humorous.

"Ever eat mohanburg?" I shook my head. "Yes," he would say and allow us to go back and forth until he revealed his trick. "That is parasad, boy! Yuh mudda now make it so go bring for meh," he instructed laughingly. Another occasion it was, "Come take a drink with yuh uncle. We go drink big man ting." I ran over excitedly. There was a dish towel covering something on a tray on the table next to him. "What we drinking?" I asked expectantly. "A lil rum, nah," he whispered conspiratorially. I moved closer repeating the forbidden word and brazenly ready to taste what my parents and society had denied minors. He reached over dramatically and pulled off the cloth revealing a very non-alcoholic Kola Tonic with ginger ale. He laughed at the joke and poured us a glass each. "Rum not good boy. Not good at all!"

The story I remember the most, even more than the funny tales even the one with the snake and his first cell phone call, is about the canefields being set on fire. He worked those fields and he talked about how hard and back-breaking it was. He was not even a teenager when he started helping his mother to cut and pile the sugarcane. "Hard work, but good work!" he would exclaim proudly. He always waxed poetic about the flames from the burning of the fields. They were always bright, tall and hot. A living heat that devoured each and every stalk to kill or drive away unwanted pests. I could always see that living heat as if I were there next to him, sharing the aweof evading the burning ash that flew for miles.

I saw my uncle grow sick suddenly. He began to forget. First, it was the small things. Then the major things. I was preparing for CAPE, but every day I visited and told him about my day and told him a story from his days. He would laugh mostly, but forget instantly. He died in his sleep while it rained on the day of my last exam. The entire village cried. They cremated him and I cried as he turned to ash. A full body turned to dust. We buried his urn in a special patch of sugarcane on our land. He will forever rest there as a part of our family history.

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I wrote this to remember an uncle of mine who was a special part of my life.

There are some people who are important but you don't realise it until after the leave your life or this life.

That's the purpose of this story.

Just love the people who are already in your lives.

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