TT, where art thou?

DANIELLE FRANCOIS

A BEGUILING face of sunshine and sea; an aroma of cooked food and a carefree ambience. Calypso music and reggae play in the background in seeming chorus with the Trinidadian-Tobagonian dialect, lilting in cadence with jabs of picong creating rhythm.

At its worst this nation is complacent, shirking work in favour of the bar, the beach or some other good time. An island paradise of love and multicultural harmony, pulsating with the roar of the ocean and dancing with the tinkle of the steel pan.

Looking more carefully at this beautiful face you notice something else bumbling and beating beneath the surface. A movement indicating there is something hidden, trying to stay hidden, a fleeting glimpse of something twisted and ugly. Over the years your eyes and mind run back sporadically to this glimpse, the pulsation becomes a little louder, the shaking more violent, a longer glimpse behind the mask.

The stench of destruction, chaos and trauma sometimes wafts through the air, despite increased efforts to hide it behind a perfume of “wutlessness.” Murders rise, the country’s income disappears into secret pockets and governmental systems fail as security and social services suffer from lack of resources and still the face of the lurking ogre remains hidden.

Intoxication, Carnival and parties on boats overwhelm the nation with an almost manic desperation to be light-hearted and fun. As we spiral the ogre grins as it does not have to exert itself as much to keep its mask on.

Only a small portion of you has steadied your gaze long enough to see the ogre’s shadow, squinting through the glare of the sunlight, discerning a darkness. Some recoil and rush back to the festivities and the next distraction, preferring the paradise, the soothing lullaby and the ease of accepting the sun-kissed face of the mask.

Even fewer of you have gazed steadily back through the glare, called by a conscience or a curiosity that is difficult for you to disregard as “not my business.” Your lives have been imperilled; your illusions destroyed and loved ones murdered by the quietly lurking beast. You cry out to your neighbours, family and friends, “Something is very wrong here!”

Your neighbours can’t hear you, they are on a boat ride, your family and friends urge you to “focus on the positive,” go to the beach, have a bake and shark, a doubles. You cannot turn away, right is right. “Where is the justice?”

You feel called to fix the ills around you, your quest for change drawing you closer and closer to the beast. You lobby for change and try to influence others into doing what you know is right, calling on all in authority and all in positions of power to listen. They shrug you off or ridicule you, but you work harder and grow louder.

The ogre creeps nearer and you turn around. It grins at you while it towers above, a mix of red and yellow, white and black, a beast with more arms and heads than you can count and seemingly as long and wide as the ocean surrounding the island. These moving arms all working seemingly independently from one another, these heads that resemble various authority figures in the paradise or gang leaders and members in the shuddering mask.

The ogre spreads its arms and touches every corner and every pocket of the twin-island nation. One or more of its heads supervise every location and its many arms quickly tossing out every building block you just put into place. The ogre’s heads surround you, its arms and legs lock you in as it excretes the paradise, intoxicating you with its fumes, binding your arms and trapping your legs; you cannot move.

You look back up at it as it leers down at you and realise this is the true face behind the mask, the real face of your nation. You also realise that this is what your friends and family were trying to tell you.

You must either self-lobotomise and live here in an ocean of manic intoxication, dancing, music...or, if you chose not to, you must leave before the ogre inflicts its sharpest blow, saps your mind and soul. Then you too will sing and dance, but limply, like a marionette, and gaze back at paradise with dead wooden eyes and painted static smile.

Farewell TT, I hope we can meet again under better circumstances.