kagablog

They found her on a sunday, with her clothes torn and thrown over
her head.Her body was badly decomposed and half eaten.The john crows
skipped and jumped around her sprawled body as birds overhead chirped
the day away. The sky lit up with lightning as the clouds drifted by.

In the distance you could see rows and rows of green tomatoes and a
bus coming round the bend.Grasshoppers sung in the tall blades of grass
surrounding the gully.

Death they said was swift, she was thrown over the gully in a clear sweep.
Now her mother and brothers were weepind and moaning.You could hear
their screams and curses through the whole district. My granma kept
spitting over her shoulders and my cousins were bent over vomitting in
the back. It seemed that they had led the search party that found
her. Aunt Gladys,her mother, stood, holding onto a gate post as her
granchildren faned her.Granma was there pointing and sending people to
fetch the undertaker and get the coffin maker.

Her voice was harsh and angry and noone really understood what was
going on.Then the police arrived in their large land rover jeep.They
didnt really show that much concern save for their stiff uniform and
their dark glasses and dark boots.They emerged from the jeep vainly
adjusting and fixing themselves.

One of them took notes as aunt Gladys told them of her daughters
routine and the other just twirled his billy club and looked around at
all of us. I stood to the side looking at his gun hanging on his waist
and watching the reflection of my own shadow on his dark glasses. When
they were done, they got in their jeep and turned and went back up the
road.
“Lickle good that will do” said granma, as they sped away.

By this time a crowd had gathered by our gate outside the graveyard.
They had all come to give more details about the when and where of
aunt Gladys’ daughter.But it was too late she was dead and layed
sprawled in the gully two districts away. She had been missing for two
weeks and noone knew where she was and noone would ever know to this
day what really happened.

There were more rapes and murders in the area, some more gruesome than
the other. There were stories of the “sweety man abducting school
children ,with the promise of sweets. They always said never get inna
car with a cooley man, cause you neva know”

Many things happened after my cousin was murdered but noone knew who
did it.Aunt Gladys and granma held a funeral and buried what little
was found of her. It rained that sunday as loads of people gathered
across from our veranda to pay their last respects. The local papers
were there and the odd visitor fom the other district.

I hung about under the pimento trees, just near my greatgran’s grave
and watched as the old folks cried their eyes out . The day brought
mosquitoes and they were eating away at my feet. i was frightened and
really wondered what murder was and who could do such a thing.

The other boys were scattered around the graveyard watching as the
coffin was lowered into this hole. Then they began to sing and i stood
still remembering my cousin staggering through the district on hot
days laughing and pointing as we played marbles or fly kites. Granma
always said when she saw me staring at her that she was “touched”.

Now what remained of her touched body was being lowered in a deep
hole. That evening would find me dressed and ready to go back to
school far away from Lime Hall and this talk of rape and murder. But
in my mind’s eye though, my mind would still be on her, my aunt
Gladys’s and her sons grief.For they had lost a sister and a daughter
who wasnt intelligent enough to even know her name.