ke choreto
Land of Abundance
2075
Birds rise from glistening trees as Skelele lands, and I surf onto a pristine beach. This must be Zion, a piece of Ke Ara’s heaven on earth.
And we are slightly older, human-looking Ke Ara. An Indo-Afro mixed me, my hair in thick twists, and Skelele, a beaming, handsome boy with spriggy curls. Our hearts seem to like our new flesh bodies and a St. Lucia parrot has joined his dove, as my naniki.
A soft breeze blows, whispering the secrets of this blissful place. We absorb it and are proud to be Ke Ara, to see what we couldn’t dream of, and know that it works here. Solar, wind, and wave energy production designed into the landscape, bio-houses and low-impact buildings, and every single Ke Ara is with a healthy naniki nearby.
Sou sou, maroon, and livity. This is where traditional shared economy is revived, where produce is traded for skills and exported for cryptocurrency, schools are outdoors or virtual, and creative and tech labs are part of farms and marine parks. These Ke Ara are fiercely protecting all that is natural, creating to sustain and thrive.
But what now? Daytime seems to be passing fast. We listen before stepping through the trees. Bee deep beedeep! Brap brap! A shuffling, tingaling, brapping jouvay rhythm is urging a Carnival of Love. It swarms down the valley before us, waving all sorts of fantastical eco-social costumes, kinetic and virtual creations.
We are glowing again and so are our red flowers. Thrumming with the beat. A band branches off and it is a sea of red-anthurium-costumed Ke Ara. They billow into a wave and are now rolling with a tide of blue devils, engulfing us.
Chirping, whistle blowing, stamping, and surfing along in jab-jab rhythm; where is Skelele? He shoots up, out of the red wave, and plucks me up with him, spiralling with his powerful wings. I cling tight as we rise, and his wings, our skin, and his dove turn gold from the setting sun.
My Jacquot parrot flaps frantically, but below us the red-and-blue tinkling carnival sea in the green valley is meeting our ocean and pink beach.
All immortal as abstract paintings.
Ke Choreto. Ke Ara.
Keep us in this spiral to the peak of Zion.
We are almost at the top of the greenest piton and my heartbeat, our heartbeats, are the only sounds. Pumping, lifting us higher.
Landing on the mountain peak, two doves circle us like gold leaves and the sunset sky spins too. It is not yet dark enough for light lines but they illuminate. A light show for us. Light lines of all colours — zipping, dashing in patterns of trade winds, ocean currents, sailing, shipping, flight routes, trawling, cruises, migration of my people, his, ours, naniki. Bi.
We place our red heart-shaped flowers
against each other’s chests
and they become gold.
They fuse into the golden
patterns on our breasts.
Touching each other’s hammering hearts
we will leave light lines of our own
forever. Never-ending
in each other’s eyes. Bi.
BI! My elders are shouting, loudly! And the sky has suddenly darkened, sparking with Middle Passage daggers. Thunder-angry sky elders boom, spreading heavy clouds as we look up. It is Skelele’s father and leaders, scowling, bristling, and furiously pointing, parting the clouds. Wu’a! No!
A thick spew of oil erupts from the middle of our sea, gushing up and rupturing the seabed. Through the fading light we see the mercury-quick spread, fanning out to surrounding islands.
WHIRRRRRRRHHHAA
WHIRRRRRRRHHHAA!
The oil monstrosity, a rigged globular disaster, rises out of the flaming surface and industry alarms pierce the air. Humongous mechanisms crank into action. Fire-resistant clad Ke Ara launch emergency weapons and missiles.
The horror we ignored is in full swing and night is crashing fast.
We turn to Skelele’s elders, but they are gone.
Bomb-dive from mountain peak to deep, dark sea and we bolt like lightning, with two yellow-spotted eel naniki, across seabed. Taino ti, bring all of our senses into one.
Beyond our speeding eels, the oil monster is clawing. Maboya. Island volcanoes belch sulphur and threaten with the tremor and glow of red lava. Oil-seeking missiles whizz by and all around us firefly jellyfish flash.
Ni Ara and naniki have already gathered in panic and readiness, some fleeing with the babies to our Blue Hole.
We touch fin-hands, and they fuse.
Our two eel naniki become one powerful humpback whale, boosting us forward with incredible speed. We breach with the whale, cresting out of the sea surface and Skelele spouts up into his sky self for a second, only to glimpse more destruction.
The global leaders have joined forces with advanced technology. They pretend to attack the poisonous oil-death monster, but are part of the monstrosity, disappearing into it. Maboya.
Multiple extending crane arms reach out in the air and dip, to strain the water, to “clean up,” scooping up Ni Ara and Sky People, coating fish and birds iridescent with the poison. The dipping spreads the oil-death farther.
Underwater, oil-rig feet step out from the shimmering massive globule, crushing coral, fish, and Ni Ara. We can hear the human leaders in the heart of Maboya, capitalizing in their language of power, garbling.
Too fragile …
Too late anyway …
Modernize to survive … the only way.