FOR $1 000, would you be able to spend the night shut up in a dark room with a dead man (a stranger) lying in a coffin? This is bearing in mind that you have no cellphone or contact with the outside world – it is just you and the dead man.
Already I can hear some people saying, “Not me, I would be frighten”.
Listen, it could be a million dollars, I know most people still ain’t stopping in that room, and the few who would go, you would have to leave them with nuff toilet paper, ’cause if they barely hear any noise like a floorboard creaking . . . well, you know what would happen. Why? Because them frighten. Frighten for what? The dead.
They got unemployed people, who don’t care how much money a funeral home paying to powder the deads them ain’t want the job, ’cause they frighten that they might be powdering a fella and next thing you know he open his eyes.
That is why them got people who would prefer to kiss a centipede before them take a shortcut through the cemetery a night-time to get home.
In fact, I don’t know if this story is true, but as a youngster I heard of a man who was taking a shortcut through the cemetery one dark night and fell into a freshly dug grave. Well, I ain’t got to tell you how frighten he was. Anyhow, he tried all kinda things to get out but nothing ain’t work. So bathed in sweat after hours of jumping and trying to climb his way out, he decided to sit down and smoke a cigarette.
However, when he reached for the matches to light the cigarette he realised he did not have any. So he let go one long hard cheupse and said aloud, “I ain’t got no luck at all. Imagine I fall down in this grave and can’t get out, and now I would like to smoke a cigarette I ain’t got no matches.”
Just then he felt a hand tap him on his shoulder and a voice said, “Here buddy, use my matches.” Well, I aint got to tell you how fast he got out of that hole.
Just the thought of him being in there with a duppy give him new strength. But what had apparently happened was that earlier that night, a drunken man was also taking a shortcut through the cemetery and fell into the grave, and it was this same man who offered him the matches.
But we could give all kinda explanations ’bout the dead not knowing anything and when you dead you dead; people don’t want to hear that.
My reason for saying all of this is because, only a few days ago, we had a big shootout in the cemetery. As you fully know, shooting in Barbados is now an everyday thing.
Anyhow, I hear people saying things like, “Lawd, look how them gone to wake up the dead”, and “even the dead can’t rest in peace” and “even the dead aint safe from these idiots”.
Now, all of that sound real nice, but the truth is, the dead ain’t know that them fellas was ’bout there shooting, ’cause when you dead you dead.
In other words, it ain’t the dead we is to fear, ’cause the dead can’t do we anything. It is the living, especially these idiots with the guns.
So, are you ready to spend the night in the room with the dead man now or would you prefer to spend the night with one of these idiots with a gun? See ya.
E-mail: madderic@hotmail.com Twitter @madderic
