James Hackett

It exists just north and east of Trinidad. It can be seen as a bright star when the north-east trade winds blow the clouds away and reveal a passage of light. This is the destiny of all that belong to the nation that it overlooks. Adrenaline City.

It is a spiritual place. It is here that the ambient spirit of Carnival finds a home. The limitations of the flesh are cast aside and all enter this place with a new life and everlasting solace.

Pan stormed through the hallways. Costumes of traditional Carnival characters looked down on him. Bois was after him.

“Why you doing this now?”

” You know he going and get them now.” Pan cast back angrily over his shoulder. He swung his massive mallet forward and the gates to Trinidad opened. Rapso was right behind him. Bois shouted to Pan.

“Pan! Don’t do it like this you may jeopar…”

“Jeopardise what, old man?”

“You know better than to call me that,”  Bois sternly replied.

“Look Ligahoo going after the Serpent’s Mouth. If he gets it, Lord alone knows what will go on.” Pan was trying very hard to be patient with Bois.

“Let me take young Rapso and go after him. I will get the Dragon’s mouth…”

“Why do you need the Dragon’s mouth?”

“Because by the time I arrive in Trinidad he would already have had the Serpent’s Mouth.” Pan played a tune on the sky and opened up the thunderpath to Trinidad.

He and Rapso mounted a silver chariot and rode lightening toward the mortal realm.
Rhonda had been staring at the roof for some time now. She was thinking… wondering what was going to become of her. Her schoolwork was giving her a headache so she paused for a bit. It had been some time since she had had the run in with the douens.

Rhonda and her friends had discovered that blue — as in blue to wash white clothes — kills jumbies.

In fact, she had killed the pack leader, Redman. After weeks of trauma from the douens and Madame, who was later discovered to be Soucouyant, they managed to fake their deaths.

Adrian, Soucouyant’s human replacement for Redman, had secretly helped them. Keston had quit formal school to pursue his musical career and worked by day in the bank while moonlighting as a deejay. Kayla was majoring in psychology at UWI and working on a Rapso career.

For months now there had been no obvious activity in the spirit world but Rhonda knew better than to believe that they had all miraculously disappeared.

Soon after she had fallen asleep, she awoke to someone calling her name. Her room, the house, everything was gone. She was in some sort of crazy forest with trees of circuitry and wires moving with bursts of electricity.

She heard her name again.

People were there, but then again they were not people. They were all attached to, and covered with wires and logos. There were numbers on their heads as though that was how they identified each other. She heard her name again and she looked into the distance. A red box moved every time she stepped forward. She stepped closer to it and it moved again. She started to quicken her pace. She streamed past loads of wired people, trees and seemingly dead landscape. It was alive, however—an absolute techno jungle.

There was no individuality. Despite the many moving creatures—she could not call them people anymore—the whole panorama seemed to be one massive life-form containing everything else. Only the box was different. Someone was definitely calling her name. Was it from the box?  She remembered her mother telling her that she must never answer a call when she did not see the person

that was calling her. She remained quiet but became increasingly curious.

The box disappeared behind a massive tree as a hand from the tree grabbed it.

She paused for a second; the hand was organic—the first organic thing she noticed since she had entered the dreamscape. Peering around the wire-form trunk she saw the box on the ground, blood spewing from it. A woman was standing over it. The woman turned and Rhonda gasped. It was the same woman that had come to her so many months ago. She was different now. She did not seem so old and she looked powerful-dressed in what looked like a battle suit. She immediately thought of an extremely intricate carnival costume. The woman introduced herself as Mama D’glo. Rhonda turned to run-scared as hell-but bounced into the same person she had just been staring at.

The woman held Rhonda’s head, “don’t be afraid. I am here to help.”

“That box was going to lead you to death. You are still dreaming Rhonda. You are lucky that I have been looking for you at this time or you may have been killed. This place is the “Lost Scape”. It is what Trinidad and Tobago can become

if Soucouyant and her accomplices have their way with it.” She paused a bit and looked around. “Your time here is almost up so I need to be quick.”

“I often come here trying to save the lost souls—the ones that should not have been taken-but at times it is hard. You will get pulled back here. There are forces from which even a mark from the good spirits will not protect you.”

“So what do I need to do?” Rhonda asked, part curious and part afraid of the answer that she might get.

“There are masks constructed by the first peoples of this island. They made them to harbour the power of the very soul of the land and their gods. You need to get them. One for you, one for Keston, one for Kayla and then there is a fourth one that will not be for any of you. The one who must wear it is of the other side—it harbours the power Maljo.”

Rhonda immediately thought of Adrian.

Mama D’Glo got up and beckoned Rhonda, “Come. It is time to leave.”

Walking along the strange dreamscape Rhonda noticed a figure in the distance.

She stopped. Whatever it was seemed strangely familiar. Mama D’Glo had a concerned look on her face.

“Rhonda I will distract this creature, I want you to close your eyes…” A burst of electricity was given off and the face of the figure was revealed. It was Redman and he looked very angry. In a second he was at Mama D’Glo’s throat.

The woman conjured a massive standard that held him at Bay,

“Close your eyes Rhonda!” she shouted, “my power is limited here and I cannot hold him for long. Wake up NOW!”

Rhonda jumped up only to see her mother over her. Her mother was smiling softly.

It was as though she knew what had happened.

“I know. I know that it was not just a dream.”