Entry #53

Blood in the Sky over Paramaribo
by Victor Bravo Monchego, Jr.


A rooster crowed but the woman slept, sutured with boiled thread, calmed by morphine. Etienne washed his hands in a pan. He sipped on a ginger Thrill®. He was not a real doctor. He was closer to a tree surgeon. He was a logger. They came to Etienne when there was an accident in the camp.

Etienne met the woman on his first leave from the camp. Etienne paid the woman and then tipped her the rest. Her affections for him were strictly professional. He always returned to camp penniless. This woman was his weakness.

This time, he could not find the woman. He searched. Without his beautiful vice, there was nothing to do with his wages. He sat on the church steps. He despaired.

His cohorts came to him. "She needs a doctor."

Etienne handed his money to a man and said, "Get the doctor." To the other fellow he said, "Take me to her."

Etienne rushed to the house. The real doctor never came. The bad fellow stole the money.

Etienne could not wait. He set to work but the baby was born still after many hours. He bundled the lifeless boy in a shirt. The cold package sat on a plastic chair by the door. Only Etienne had seen the caudal appendage. Etienne had been born with a vestigial tail, too.