The Last Lajablesse

Tonight, was the last night of Carnival in Grenada. The sun had long since set but the sounds of steel pan, laughter, and stomping feet kept the night alive. People were laughing and carrying on all throughout the island and in one small town north of Grenville called Paradise there stood a woman tucked deep into the shadow of a palm tree watching the festivities with a frown.

The woman wore a broad brimmed hat and a long white dress. Her dress had a long slit beginning at her right hip showing off her beautiful curves and cinnamon skin and peeking out just barely beneath the frills of the left side of her dress was a dark black hoof.

Lajablesse sighed softly and for a moment she allowed herself to reminisce. Pictured her handsome Leroy's face, the shine of his eyes as they jumped and wined to the fast rhythms of Soca songs. Those joyful eyes that soon turned wandering.

She needed to focus.

She owed the devil one more soul and then she would done...for now.

"A man would be easy there's no shortage of wayward men in Paradise," She thought to herself.

Her eyes narrowed on a man with eyes firmly on the breasts of a woman across the room.

"Or maybe tonight I could find myself a nice woman to take my place," She mused.

She had been Lajablesse for many years and was beginning to tire of Seeing how darkness, too much rum and a bit of exposed skin would turn men into animals.

Bust as long as men strayed, she would be needed.

"And there's always the third option." She chuckled softly to herself. "No mankind did not deserve that."

The night slowly began to wind down and rapid Soca turned to slow reggae.

She spied a man at the very edge of the crowd almost in the shadows watching a woman in a short red dress dance and sway with her eyes closed and a bottle of Carib clutched in one hand.

Lajablesse felt herself smile with a touch of wickedness.

"It seems the choice has been made for me," She thought to herself.

She moved from beneath the palm tree's shadow and stepped out and onto the dirt road.

A few meters away she blew a kiss in his direction, a cold wind escaping from between her lips. Startled by the sudden cold breeze he turned. Before their eyes could meet, she turned her back on him and began stumbling and giggling down the road.

The sounds of laughter behind her faded and soon all she could hear were the night and the steady thumps of his footsteps behind her.

"Hey miss you lost?" He called out from behind her.

"No sir," she giggled.

She skipped a few feet forward her hoof scraping lightly against the ground before spinning around to face him.

She tipped her broad brimmed hat up just enough for him to see her flirtatious smile.

"But maybe you can walk me home," She said suggestively, resting her right hand on her exposed thigh.

"Where do you live," He asked, walking up to her and laying a steady hand on her back.

"Just down this way," She responded.

She wonders if he is a believer. No matter how many she takes fewer and fewer believe in her. A man is found at the bottom of a cliff with a broken neck and kisses on his cheek. All people will say is he must've got lost and stumbled over after too many cups of rum.