Sylvia Wynter's Dream

Setting is more than a place, it’s sensory.

I remember the winding red dirt roads before there were highways. Our little green car was always sandwiched between the mountain edges and tall bamboo. When we swung around corners I wondered if bamboo was strong enough to catch a car if it fell. I turned my head and tried not to look.

I was always car sick in between Keyshia Cole’s Heaven Sent. Whatever nausea I felt subsided while the CD still worked, while “everybody say I wanna be the one you love, I wanna be (sent from Heaven)”.

Eventually the CD would scratch and we had to change the song, then my stomach was reminded we were dodging pot holes and the car was leaning sideways off a mountain.

But it wasn’t always rough driving.

On perfectly level roads, my mother would slow down to buy jackfruit. Then the car was its sickly sweet, rotten candy smell.

My auntie’s car stopped to buy roast yam and saltfish, which meant we were all stopping to buy roast yam and saltfish from the shack on the side of the road. I would take the chance to finally get out of the car, hopping on the soft earth and trying not to get my shoes red. I could smell the warm butter and almost forget that I was car sick. Somebody ran across the road into the bushes to use the bathroom.

Then we were all back in our cars on the way to my Great Grandmother’s house for Christmas, and the road was back to winding.