lux aurumque
baby got Bach
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![[*]](./images/Makeitgolden/default_icon.gif) posted on 21-9-2009 at 03:23 AM |
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It was a stereotypical spring day in Jamaica, one which tourist brochures would boast about using exquisite paintings on the front flap- if such a
thing as the tourist industry existed at that time. Golden rays of sunshine bathed the tropical island below, coaxing delicate tendrils of morning
glory from their slumber beneath the auburn earth and caressing tiny buds until they unfolded the young leaves within. Even the ocean seemed to
rejoice now that winter had lost its feeble grip on Jamaica, dancing lightly against the ivory beach and kicking up its heels in explosive bursts of
spray. Winters in the tropics were never particularly severe, but this winter had been unusually chilly. Coupled with the famine that had seized the
island for the previous growing season, the residents of the island suffered a harsh winter indeed, made all the more unbearable by prior seasons of
plenty that had worn down their caution and rendered them quite tender-footed as a whole. Cold showers had bathed the island nearly all winter,
ending the drought but making the residents rather miserable.
All of that was forgotten with the arrival of spring. Pallid children, their cheeks sunken and their clothes hanging looser than they had the
previous fall, danced in the streets, enjoying the first rays of sunshine they had seen in four months. Livestock that had lowed mournfully in barren
pastures paced the newly green fields, devouring all the greens they could and unknowingly fattening themselves nicely for the hungry farmers who
sensed a profit on the warm breeze. Lanky newborn calves, oblivious to the suffering of a few months ago, pranced in the footsteps of their mothers,
butting heads with one another playfully and nipping at the greens they lacked the teeth to eat. Even the grass seemed to revive the very second it
was cropped back by hungry herds of cattle. New life had come to the island.
If only the tourism industry had been invented, the happy scene in Kingston would have been the centerfold of their brochure. Even the slaves, who
had more cause than anyone to be unhappy in the face of such welcoming weather, raced out to the sugarcane fields with tremendous grins of their thin
faces. Even though the arrival of good weather meant more work for their lean bodies, it also meant more food, and they had suffered more than any
other group of people on the island during the famine. Laughter seemed to spring from the very earth itself, and no soul on the island would deny
that the birds sang more joyfully that day than they had ever sung before.
There was one person on the island who was noticeably less jovial, however. While everyone else lightly raced by her, skipping and singing, she
walked with a considerable weight to her step. Her slightly threadbare calico work dress had recently been dyed a depressing shade of dark grey,
almost black, and her straw bonnet was trimmed with black lace. She would have been an attractive woman if not for the overall air of misery about
her- her figure had not suffered too much in the famine and had retained its curves, and her somewhat wavy light brown hair framed her features
nicely. Her chestnut brown eyes might have sparkled with laughter sometime in the past, and her cheeks might have dimpled whenever she smiled.
There was no hint of that fun-loving woman there, however. In her hands she clutched a scraggly bouquet consisting of the first wildflowers to have
sprung up that spring, and in her overall air there was such a depressing aura that the happy children gave her a wide berth to avoid being
contaminated. Barely married a year, and already a widow! Still considered by many to be a newlywed, she should be well on her way to welcoming her
first child with her husband, not burying him underground in a plain wooden coffin. Yes, she had good reason to be so miserable.
As evidenced by the well-worn quality of her dress, she and her husband had been poor, though not as poor as some of the beggars in the town. John
had little to offer his intended bride except his love and devotion. Some of her nosy but well-meaning neighbors had tried to convince Beatrix not to
wed until John had the means to support her, but Trixie, as her beloved fiance called her, paid them little heed. They scraped by a living for the
first few months, John by working down at the docks and Trixie by selling pies until flour and sugar became so expensive it was not economical to
continue to buy them. Life together was not easy, but they were so in love that it did not matter.
The famine took its toll on the young family, however. Trixie had the strong constitution her husband lacked, and bit by bit, he wasted away until
there was little remaining of her lover but a skeleton and some flesh. Too weak to continue such backbreaking work at the docks, he languished at
home for a month, berating himself for being unable to support his wife even as Trixie tried to insist it was not his fault. Too weak to fight off
infection, he succumbed to influenza barely a week before spring returned.
A week had passed since his funeral, and Trixie was making her daily pilgrimage to the town graveyard to visit the small wooden cross marking his
fresh grave. She would have liked to afford a marble headstone, like those surrounding the grave, but there simply wasn’t money, and given her
widowed status, money was unlikely to come pouring in any time soon. She could only count her blessings that there were no children to support,
though that was a bitter blessing indeed. Trixie had always wanted children.
She followed the same path she had traveled for a week up the hill toward the church she and her husband had attended. The pastor had been very kind
to allow her to bury her husband in the graveyard without a fee, but then again, they had been very dedicated members, and there was some talk in the
church of establishing a fund for the less fortunate members of the congregation to pay for the interment of loved ones.
It was a rather expansive graveyard, dotted with marble tombstones of various sizes and trees just bursting into bloom under the warm sun. Trixie
wove between the maze of marble to the far edge, where the newly deceased were buried, and had just passed around a large statue of the Virgin Mary
when she nearly walked into a man wearing a rather heavy overcoat for the warm weather who had been lurking on the other side. He was about a head
taller than her and was looking down at her with an expression of keen interest on his face.
Trixie stumbled backwards a few paces, wearing an expression of wariness tempered with the sadness that seemed so out-of-place on her face. “Pardon
me,” she said with a lilting accent consistent with a woman who was not from an upper-class family and lacked the proper education of a well-bred
lady. Considerably shaken by the man’s sudden appearance, she made to step around him and continue on her way to her husband’s grave. She didn’t
like the way the man straightened up when she nearly walked into him, almost like he was waiting for her here… but she had never seen him before in
her life. Why would he be waiting for her?
I thought... well, I started to think
you were just a madman with a box.
There's something you better understand about me,
'cause it's important and one day your life may depend on it.
I am definitely a madman with a box!
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