GRACE

Grace looked like an ebony queen: tall and long-boned, her naturally flowing movements were elegant and precise, as though she were a direct descendant of Fulani or Wolof royalty. Small and feisty, Canela’s medium brown skin and short rasta curls could be found in any city in America, north, central or south, on any island in the Caribbean. However, Canela and she were always together at volleyball games and that is where she also ran into Hatuey. She then searched the crowd for Canela, finally remembering they had been together. Her eyes scanned the area where she had last seen her girlfriend, but she was not there. She could clearly see in front of her but no one she knew was within eyesight. Grace glanced back; no one was there either. When she looked back to Hatuey, she was hoping he would still be there. Her eyes locked to his and she held his gaze to make sure he didn’t disappear. “I wonder where everyone else could be?” she said aloud. Then she remembered Toussaint catching the corner of her eye a while back, as he left the rarah to join some friends at the beach. But, she hadn’t seen her dad in a while and that wasn’t a reassuring discovery. The song changed back to Rub-a-Dub© and she noticed it right away this time. Hatuey danced behind her smiling. She stopped thinking about her dad, about Canela, about being worried; she stopped thinking all together. The rarah was moving ahead happily, everybody was having a private party and the collective effect was one hell of a good time. Mixed stenches had numbed her sense of smell, her body moved to the rhythm and she took the music in through her ears and all of her pores; she was actually enjoying dancing. There were many people in the group, but there was no violence, no pushing, or pulling, everyone had a happy smile and moved along to the contagious beat. When they came to the end of the path instead of veering left to follow the road the rarah headed strait for the ocean. The front-end of the rarah entered the sea first, people set flower-covered rafts and food in the water. Grace could see heads tied in white and blue handkerchiefs and the flowing movements of arms setting small boats to float on the water; they sang and danced waiting for the colorful flags to snap in the wind. ♪ Ezili o, Ezili sa, while sailing on the sea my canoe overturned, if not for the grace of God we would not have been saved.♪ They sang over and over. It started to get creepy and Grace wasn’t too sure what to do. She looked to Hatuey for direction, his warm eyes were reassuringly sexy, and he didn’t appear worried at all. “You can do this,” he danced, and drew near holding her arms outstretched from side to side, “You can do this,” he whispered convincingly in her ear their bodies joined at the hips and moving as one. It felt as if invisible strings were pulling her from within, almost like a puppet. Her legs felt heavier and heavier. The drumbeat seemed to get louder and the pace quickened, her feet automatically shifted and moved one after the other edging her closer to the water. She lost control to a magnet located underground that connected to metal implants inside the soles of her feet, or so it seemed. The rhythmic thumps of the drums were communicating with her body and the automatic responses were beyond her control. Grace thought the water would feel cold or at least wet… Nevertheless, when she put her foot down all she would feel was herself slide into oblivion and everything and everybody around her disappeared.