‘No Man’s Land’ was shortlisted for the 2022 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

I kill the foreman last night.  

He did look up at me from the coppice floor, and I did slip me tongue into he soul. Taste foul. I only ever take the foul ones.  

You’d like the flavour if you could taste men as I do. Sweet rot. Jan-jan, butikako; you know the flavour. Like the little yellow stones at the back of your throat. You taste it every time you sign a new man name in your rota—man that look like you, talk like you. Prey like you. Man to build your paradise. 

Is dirty work them policeman doing. Scraping up what left of the foreman from the side of the empty pool. Já! 

But that nuh fuss you, do it, butikako? Uá. Is all you care about is the plan. How hard the foreman gone be to replace. What he name, butikako? You know him from any other man in your rota? 

Ocama. 

Listen. 

I know he name. I did taste it between he bone and muscle. It was a good name. Chuh! He do it bad-bad when he chop down me ceiba tree. He love to chop, just for the fun of it. I did taste he intent, the hunger to see me nest and the would-be eggs crack in the duff. I often wonder what happen to a man to poison he soul like that. Sometime I can feel the rotten moments, like cysts under the flesh—tiny pearls the body coat in evil ‘til they burst through the skin. 

But I know you don’t care, butikako. It nuh fuss you none to watch the gore running down the pool walls. You just wan’ know if it gone stain.   

The sergeant wrapping yellow tape around me trunks, like that gone stop me. Whispering something ‘bout boar. Say boar! What boar left in me you ain’t shoot yet, ishi yú? Your fingers trembling now for the trigger. You’d shoot the lizards and the birds if you could. That’s all you leave of me in me jumbae. Me womb twinge at the emptiness. 

That’s three men in a month. Já! No more space at the clinic. Gone have to store the body in the fish house now. The sergeant ain’t seen this much death since…he don’t wan’ say it. The truth. That he never seen this much death. Not this kind of death. But you already know the truth. It line the lips of the locals, fading when you pass and rising again when they think you can’t hear. 

People in town say the resort curse. You say is John. I let you believe it. But the sergeant know better. He glance at me shadow in the brasiletto. Smell the sargassum. Hear he grandmother whispering me name over the kitchen fire. The name that make him wet he bed rather than journey to the outhouse at night.  

Oh, you did try so hard to hide me name, didn’t you, butikako? Tried to bury it beneath your concrete foundations. Bury it deep with a new name.  

Paradise.  

But John remind me. That’s why you hate him. Why you reckon is him who smear the foreman all upside your pool. He did give me back me name under the ceiba tree before your tractors tear it down. He pass it to me over the fence between your site and he shack. I must thank John for that even though I hate him. 

You think is John who eat your men and spit them out like pellet even as the foreman blood drip from me beak. Even as I whisper— 

Dak’ax́eka bak. 

I want you. 

—you only see what you wan’ see. 

But the sergeant shake he head. 

‘John’s an old man.’ 

John, the barnacle on your spine. Root so deep, him in the nerves. Sometime in the morning when you tread through me water, I feel him pulsing in your vertebrae. You beat me surf, kick me reef, break me dermis over and over again to purge the bitterness that swell in your throat every time the sergeant dismiss you. Why you never doubt me? The sergeant done tell you. Your workers done tell. They see me in the pine.  

But I’d never do this to you, would I, butikako? You, the ishi yú, who tame me so long ago. You sink your excavator teeth into the casuarina to silence me whispers. You fill in the limestone cracks with cement and block out the three eyes that use to watch you like ember ellipses. When you build your house, you turn your windows to face the sea instead of the coppice that loom inland, and now I don’t frighten you none at all. But that old man John? You seen him shoot a boar between the eyes with a single bullet. You seen him shatter its spine with one swing of him cutlass. The only monster that frighten you is man like John because you know what man capable of. 

The sergeant bite he lip. Say he must close the site. Administrator want answers. Three bodies don’t look good in the newspaper. And with the tourist season coming up… 

The sergeant squeeze your shoulder and your skin squirm. Because he black. Because he smell like Jergen’s soap. Because he don’t look like you or talk like you. I know what make you tick. Whenever I can, I taste you for the moment I can take you. But now ain’t the time, even as you hold your breath against the sergeant scent or when your skin crawl at the touch of him hand.  

But then, me tongue trace your cheek— 

Dak’ax́eka bak’ât hitaü. 

I want your blood 

—and I feel it. A cyst— 

Dak’ax́eka bak’ât pun. 

I want your flesh. 

—growing in the folds of your meat like rust. 

Buk’toka-iná dak’ât kai. 

You will be me nourishment. 

This where the rot start. 

Guarico, nanichi. 

When the soul turn foul.   

* 

If you was like the foreman, I woulda kill you long time.  

But you ain’t, butikako. Your mother did she best to steer you down the path of righteousness. She was a good woman. I taste it in your blood. But men don’t often live up to they mother expectation. Some men, like the foremen, born rotten. You was contaminated.  

I did taste it, the moment the rot touch you. It touch you when you shoot that boar under me ceiba tree. When you did keep shooting long after the creature dead. In your heart, killing was more than meat or bust over your uncle mantle. It feel like being a man. 

Já, how I did hunger for your flesh, butikako! But I couldn’t take you. When I slip me tongue into your heart, I did see your uncle expectation. I did see John goading you on, hoping your uncle would laugh at the way he did poke your cock with he rifle. Your uncle and John was men, but man is a fragile thing. At any moment, manhood can crumble. Only way to keep man together is to make more. To propagate. To be men, they did need you to be one too. They teach you that if you ain’t had no beachside bungalow in the Caribbean, and if you couldn’t sex no gal, you had to prove your manhood in other ways. Me curse very particular. You ain’t had no intent, and there must be intent for me to feed. That’s what foul the soul.  

Guarico, nanichi. 

Come, me love. 

Jan-jan, butikako, I can’t wait for you to leave this glass house by the sea and walk into me mouth. But will Qian come, too? 

Qian glance out the window at the black coppice and him shiver. 

Uá, he won’t come. He know what waiting for him, what waiting for you, in me bowels. Chuh! I was hoping Qian would come. Was him who say to chop down me ceiba. Was him who say cut the branches from the heavens and pry the roots from the ancestors. Qian shoulda know better. You have your delusions, but he grandmother teach him to grow new bamboo and cedar next to the paddies. And yet he strike down me ceiba for pool. 

Why you ain’t stop him, butikako? You act like you ain’t never seen the plans. You sip your whiskey and wag your finger at Qian like you did try so hard to stop the foreman from chopping me daughter roots. Your heart pain when me ceiba fall, and it did cross your mind that this where we first did meet. Where you first saw me red eyes staring down at you, your boy-hands sticky with boar gristle and blood. Where you first fall in love.  

If you did only know. 

Ocama, nanichi. 

Listen, me love. 

That sweet sea breeze that did kiss your neck? 

Dak’ax́eka-itpa bak’ât hitaü. 

I wanted your blood. 

That sultry laugh in the casuarina? 

Dak’ax́eka-itpa bak’ât pun. 

I wanted your flesh. 

Uá, butikako. I ain’t was loving you. I was searching your blood for the taint that did rise into me daughter tendrils with the boar rank, the foulness of manhood gone wrong. 

I swear I did have you. I did taste the fetid desires of a dying heart, one that was learning to beat only for itself. I did open me third eye to look into your soul. But I find a child. You was blighted. Blighted by your father failures. Your uncle cruelty. John need to impress the great ishi yú. But you wasn’t rotten yet. I did uncurl meself from you because I don’t take just so. I don’t eat just so.  

Qian throw another glance at the dark forest behind the dunes. He feel me. Sense me always. But he don’t see me for what he want me to be. He see me as I is. A rustle in the bush. A trail of hay and fresh blood. A ghost in the corner of he eye.  

It ain’t was suppose to be like this, he say. Three of he men dead. He can’t even give they families body to bury. He men scared. He scared. Qian light a cigarette. The red tip punctuate the darkness like a glimpse into hell. 

Qian laugh when you tell him is John. Whimper when I shift in the shadows. Qian ain’t following you tonight. He want out. He say y’all shoulda never try build this resort. He done. Done! You only see what you wan’ see, but Qian done hear me name! He learn to look for the signs. 

You on your own.  

When you pour another highball, your eyes trace the glass walls that overlook the Tongue of the Ocean. If only you’d look closer, you’d see me there, thrashing against the reef. But your eyes fall on the shelf next to the bar where long metal shafts hang like black mangrove roots.  

A thrill rush down me nape. 

Dak’asá-iná bak’ât hitaü. 

I will drink your blood. 

Me feathers tingle. 

Dak’ék-iná bak’ât pun. 

I will eat your flesh. 

I can taste your intent. Stronger than the ocean zest on the reefs. 

Buk’toka-iná dak’ât kai. 

Stronger than the whiskey on your lips. 

You gone be me nourishment. 

You gaze out the smaller window that face the dark mouth of the coppice.  

Guarico, nanichi. 

I already taste your flesh.  

* 

When last time I call you nanichi? 

Me love… 

Not since you was a boy, when you first come to the island. You was so small, butikako—a spot on your uncle bow. He yachts did grow each year, it seem. You did come on the biggest one, smelling like apples and winter.  

We was fellows in suffering back then, wasn’t we, butikako? Your uncle did scar me with dredging, and he scar you with patronage. He never let you forget why you was here. You did come to be mule, like your father before you. Your uncle mock you with everything your father couldn’t give you. Make you polish he shoe. Scrub he boat. Clean he gun. You remember what it did feel like to lick he boots? 

Uá. It easy to forget when the great ishi yú smile at you. He take you under he wing. Gave you his title. That’s how I lose you. The great white lord did bless you with he power. He teach you how to add commas to market value by filling in me marshes with peat. He teach you how to hold a gun and squeeze the trigger. He teach you how to be what the world think is man. Your innocence did dead with the Erymanthian boar. The great ishi yú did carve a hole in your heart, and soon you did crave much more than I could give. I’s the only constant, the ground beneath your feet, but man can’t see the ground for all the stars he crave.  

Ocama, nanichi. 

Listen, me love. 

I wish you woulda know me before the night at the ceiba tree. I wish you woulda know that it was me who caress your face as you sat on the crinkle rock with your yoyo reel. It was me who did cradle you as you jump from the cliffs into the sea. It was me who did whisper from the pine to lull you to sleep at night. 

But what you know of me all come with the engorged weight of manhood. You discover me in your first kill, and from then, I was parcel to sell. You sell the bits and pieces of me you didn’t want, and then with fat pockets, you claim your paradise. When I wouldn’t comply, what you do? Bury me under concrete. Man can’t stand on level with he domain. God ain’t wire you that way. I can live with bonefish in me mangroves and wild herons in me marshes, but you must pave them with cement. When you did buy your first lot of black coppice, you tell me that we love ain’t the love of a mother and child. Not even a love of solidarity. We love is the love of a master for he property.  

But I ain’t never roll over for you. I ain’t no beetle what die when he fling ‘pon he back. Uá, butikako, I fight. So ain’t it funny I ain’t fighting you tonight? Ain’t I does buck against you when you stand at the feet of me jumbae frock? Ain’t I does bite you with prickle and pinecone when you poke at me legs, demanding entrance into me pine? Ain’t I does cry, Guaibá! Go! Dak’ax́eka bak’guaibá! I want you to go! 

Ain’t it fuss you none that, for the first time, I saying Guarico, nanichi? 

Come, me love. 

Uá. All you know is John live in me stomach. You smell the diesel from he mechanic shop behind the fence. Might as well be blood. You push me coral vines apart, so use to taking, you ain’t notice that this time ain’t no prickle patch there to stop you. 

The light from the site black out in the forest. Long time you ain’t know true darkness. Qian men keep the lights on even when they ain’t working. Like children what use nightlight to keep the bogeyman away. They scared. They ain’t did think this land would harbour such dread. The brochures did promise sun, sand and sea. They friends did promise payment in US dollars. They did know the locals was gone gnash them teeth, but that’s as far as the locals was ever gone go. The locals know somebody gone have to make up bed and sweep floor and wash clothes once the hotel open. Is a win-win you promise the workers, the locals, the administrator.  

You remember when you break ground? I did wake up drowning in champagne, vomit, semen and piss. I stretch meself and find me arms bundle up in turpentine and Styrofoam, beer bottles and cigarette butts—me casuarina gone, me dogwood gone. Me mahogany, cedar and mastic gone. Every day, you tear more and more of me clothes away. All the gumbo-limbo. All the tamarind. All the pine.  

But now, things different. The workers don’t linger after sunset no more. 

And I glad. 

The slam of dominoes and bottle clinks done fade into the Plutonian shore. 

And I sleep good-good. 

They bolt the doors against the shadow what lurk between the trees. 

And I tremble in pleasure. 

Chuh! You think you coulda crucify me with rebar, and I woulda take it just so? One by one, I coming for yinna. I been coming for yinna! For the men who tear the branches from me ceiba. For the foreman who chop me roots like dead-ends. I follow them all into the bones of the pine and swallow them whole. They walk out to kiss the lips of a vestal moon and return from the abyss in pellets. You really think a man could do what I do? Tear tendons apart? Melt bone and hair into bolus? Já! You think too highly of John, butikako. Jan-jan, he born from me soil, but the man is a blight. A drunkard who bleed motor oil into me veins. 

But you know that, don’t you, butikako? I think you know it ain’t John. I think you just mad he spit in your face that day you offer to buy he land. He make you feel like a child again, with he cock sticking out from he pant leg long so and he hand on me ankle. You own every other bit of me body but that little bit of space. And he holding on tight-tight. 

Jealousy, you say. John jealous because you make something of yourself. He was content living off your uncle bar tab. He was content that he hair was red and he eyes was green and enough of he forefathers was white, so he could mingle with arijua, foreign men, like your uncle. Like John was kasiké. 

There’s truth in that. Whenever I can, I taste John for the moment I can take him, and sometime, I taste spite in he heart. It pain him fierce to see arijua reap the fruit of he birthright. 

I’d take John if I could, but then I’d have to take all me children. All men rotten in they own way. John have me for dump, but he neighbours sell me for pennies. They turn they backs on me when the police untie John from me ceiba. John ain’t no man of the forest, no jíbaro, but he didn’t stand back and watch your excavators chew up me daughter. The problem was the promise. The promise of hotel jobs did scream above the squeal of the machines. The promise did scream high above the schools of fish in me mangroves and conch in me seagrass, high above me yucá, me batata, me anana and me pixú. What’s one beach when me shore stretch cross the cardinal plane? When me sideburns powder sand? What use me children have for me that don’t come with a drove of tourists? I hate John, but I can’t take him. He don’t have intent neither. 

But that’s why you think it’s John haunting the resort. Because he jealous. You think it’s John who stealing your dream because you know what lengths man willing to go to when he want something. What you’d do to get what you want. 

Don’t let me down.  

One old engine block peek through the duff. When you trip, I laugh. You cut your soft palms on screws under the horseflesh and pigeon plum. Old car seats sit in shreds. The engine block that near kill you dead covered in white sickness, so old it melting into the limestone. You can’t see it, but you smell it. You mucky up in motor oil. You in John domain now.  

You think this what pollution look like, and the world think so too. You think pollution just garbage and chemical waste. That if you ain’t using garbage and if ain’t you using chemical, it ain’t killing me. You think you protecting me from people like John when you buy up all me parts, and I hate you for your delusion.  

Uá, I ain’t got no delusions about John. I can’t tell you how much it hurt when the skeleton of old trucks burrow into me spine. How much the oil and the acid burn me flesh. If I could take John, I would. But he know the old ways. John grandmother teach him the signs. Three pine tops tie up at the tips. A triad of will-o-wisps in the canopy. He know I does wait in the branches, that I does open me third eye to reach into your heart. If he see me feathers in the duff, he does take he garbage elsewhere. If he feel me gaze, he does bow away. He know me real name. 

Chiccharney.  

That’s what he tell you while he did skin the boar.  

Chiccharney. Guardian of the forest.  

I done had so many names. Igbo call me duppy. Conchs, ole higue. Taino call me macú, itákako, Atabey. The only one I don’t like is the one you give me. 

Paradise. 

And you hate me for it, don’t you butikako? You punish me for living outside your dreams.  

How many men know me name?  

As many as I want.  

I use to scream me name to the women, to the children. Even the lizards and the birds know me. 

But you don’t want others to know me, do you, butikako? When John did tell you my name, you did taste the true feculence of jealousy. It make you mad-mad to hear me name on John lips. And now you think you have the right to scour me with lime? To batter me with jackhammer? To bury me real name in cement? So you can feel like man? 

Guarico, butikako, and let me make you real man. 

You smell the hut? Rotting fish. Stale piss. Crumbling cement. John born in this house, as he father before him and he father before him. Generations of John family done try squeeze the American dream from me marrow. They try hard to mould me into the land they lost to the Yanks. They king give them me body, and they done beat me fierce. Chop me pine. Split me joints. Plant them cotton and sugarcane. I give them what I could, thinking I could make them better men if I try meet them halfway. But there was no giving. They only take. I did scream a thousand jurákan to pry the lice from me back, but they latch on and suck me dry.  

You think you so much better. You think you saving me. Jan-jan, your lye saving me, eating out the blood in me veins. Jan-jan, the rebar saving me, jooking through me wrists and me ankles. You pay me your pretty praises, even as you gut me and throw me entrails into the sea to feed algae blooms. But I gone be so pretty when you done with me, you say. When your glass walls line me shores. When your infinity pools drown me gullet. When your fescue lawns hunch me back, I gone be beautiful. You think John ruining me, but that ain’t why you come to kill him. I know it. You know it. You come to kill John because you scared he gone steal me from you.  

I know how you tick, butikako. 

Guarico, nanichi. 

Come, me love. 

Don’t let me down tonight. 

You duck behind one old trailer bed when you spot your prey—a shadow in the kerosene lamp. The old man yodelling away the ache in he joints. I feel your pulse in me feathers. You fumble at the rifle, hands sweaty, lips slick. You lick them as you peer through the scope. That’s what you like, ain’t it, butikako? To feel trigger bloom under your caress. Growing harder with each pinch.  

John stepping out into the night now. He suck the salt air into he lungs. He don’t feel the target at the back of he head. He don’t feel the denouement of life. Your finger tremble when he walk into the forest. When he unzip he pants. When he sigh as the stream slap the rock. You squeeze the trigger. Harder. Harder. Until, finally… 

You find your release. 

John don’t scream when the bullet gouge through he skull. Never had the chance. It ain’t pretty, what you did, but it had to be done. John was killing me. Thank you, butikako. I couldn’t do it meself. It had to be you. 

What you see when you look at the bits of John in the duff? I see a boy who use to fling heself from the cliffs into me arms. A boy who use to chase after the yellow butterflies that sequin me jumbae frock in the summer. Who use to catch Gaulin crabs with he bare hand. Is alright. You can mourn the man who give you your first beer. Who did teach you how to sweet talk girls into the pine. Everybody got they own sort of rotten, but they got they sweetness too.  

But your lust so much stronger than your sweetness. The gore on the limestone ain’t enough for you. John tongue swelling in a pool of blood ain’t enough to change your heart. Your uncle tell you say you is ishi yú. That your skin and your passport entitle you to God promise: dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creep upon the earth, including John. And when there was no more dominion in the aroyúké, the land of white men, your uncle teach you to take from the bieké. To swoop into the Caribbean with your yellow hair and your blue eyes and your real-estate signs. To sell off bits and pieces of me body ‘til your coffers run over. ‘Til you could claim me for your own.  

That’s why you unzipping your pants, ain’t it, butikako? To remind John who you is. To remind me who in control. You throw me a glance as I tremble in the pine. 

Guarico, butikako. 

As you mark me and John with your piss.  

Dak’ax́eka bak. 

Is almost like you don’t recognize me when I step out from the shadows. 

Buk’toka-iná dak’ât kai. 

Like I been hiding from you all this time. 

Ocama, butikako. 

Do me feathers not please you? 

Dak’asá-iná bak’ât hitaü. 

Wet as they is for your blood? 

Do me talons not tempt you?  

Dak’ék-iná bak’ât pun. 

Hungry as they is for your flesh?  

Don’t tell me you don’t know me. 

Guarico, nanichi. 

You seen me in the ceiba. 

Dak’ax́eka bak, nanichi. 

You seen the silver of me beak. 

Buk’toka-iná dak’ât kai, nanichi. 

The scales of me dragon tail. 

Buk’toka dak’ât kai, nanichi. 

The ember in me eyes. 

Guarico, nanichi. 

Look at me. Ain’t this what you want? What you did always want? Come, now. Claim your reward. 

Help? 

Chuh! No use, butikako. Lik’mat’mun ani. Qian ain’t here. Qian ain’t gone come neither. He hear the gunshot. I taste him trembling in he bed. He know your sin, and he fear me too much to disappoint me again. Qian far from we now, and he can’t help but hope I never let you go. Let we finish what we start under the ceiba tree. 

Guarico, nanichi. 

Don’t flinch, butikako. Feel me tongue on your cheek. In your nose. In your skull. Let it worm into your veins. If you don’t got no sins, let me taste your blood. Let me peek into your heart. Let me finally see the real you. The man you been hiding behind your glass walls. Let me taste the rot what sit under the meat, what burrow through the bone.  

What foul the soul.  

And when we done and Qian find you in the morning, there should be enough left of you to remind him and other men like you that I don’t need your saving.  

I think I gone take your eyes first. You done season them good with your greed.  

Don’t fight me, butikako, me blue-eyed one. 

Let me have me dominion. 

2022 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Shortlist