Dreams can be funny. They take you to the most exotic places sometimes. One can enjoy the riches of princes in the unharnessed caverns of dreams.
Certain people believe that the spirit never dies. In a dream there may very well be the feeing of déjà vu; that one has lived that life before. The Wild Coot dismisses this notion because he has a recurrent dream that sets him up as a murderer. No way could such a loving, harmless fellow have been a murderer in a previous life. Yet the dream persists.
This leads me to explore the thought that there is an underworld where human spirits wander after life; just like the ancient people believed. There in the nether sphere of those whose time has expired, spirits are separated by virtue of their deeds here on earth.
The bad ones like murderers, tyrants, thieves and paedophiles are haunted and never find rest – but the good ones, like those who walk the straight and narrow, sit around, talk, share jokes and throw parties for new arrivals.
Well I had a dream that I was an influential person and I had the ear of the powers that be.
“Consult the Sybil at Cumae,” I said to my boss. And he did. The Sybil told him that like Aeneas of old, he would have to take to the underworld and consult with wise men of yore. Then my boss, the Sybil and I, armed with the golden bough, made the treacherous journey to the palaces of Hades. We got to the river Styx, met the old boatman Charon, gave him an oble and he took us across. I had some sweet rockcakes that I gave to Cerberus and he kept quiet. Then we passed to the Elysian Fields and were greeted with calypso singing ballads of old led by Lord Kitchener; there was also Shilling strumming on his twisted guitar.
There in a corner holding forth to some younger spirits sat Errol Walton Barrow, architect of Barbados’s independence. We greeted him politely and waited while he finished his “sermon” on responsible government.
“How are the political antagonists in old Bim?” he asked cheerily. Hear my Sybil: “As spent swimmers that cling together and choke their art. The one with furbish’d arms and also supplies of funds from unnamed sources begin a fresh assault upon the poor and middle classes and doubly redouble strokes upon strokes.”
“Disdain this not the people?” asked the skipper angrily.
“All in good time,” said the Wild Coot stepping forward and being seen by the skipper for the first time.
“You! Wild Coot! You should know that when good men are silent any foolishness can happen. Now go back up there, if you can find your way out, and kill the snake, not scotch it.”
Slowly and sadly we wended our way out, the Sybil leading the way. “What did he mean by ‘kill the snake’? Surely he did not mean for us to commit murder.”
“He meant,” said the Sybil, “that instead of waiting to see if the world economy will improve, we should take our small economy by the horns, find the niches where we can make a difference, niches such as offshore business where our easy lifestyle is conducive to luxury living; give full support to agriculture and feed ourselves; examine the aspects of ‘killcow’ charges for electricity and gas; reexamine the negative aspects of VAT, don’t pay any mind to the IMF; pass and enforce integrity legislation; review the operation of hotels and restaurants, especially their tax obligations to give them some form of relief for a while; disabuse ourselves that the world owes us a living; mend our elephantine approach to doing business with foreigners and locals alike, and generally pull up our socks.”
“All right then!”
