Page 70 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. IV #1

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Poopa-Miller stirred on the hospital bed. He “Yes, I will eat, and let the worms enjoy it,” he had fallen asleep, but he heard Muma-Miller said. He could feel them writhing around inside saying, “I don’t know why those people both- his gut, feasting on the new blood. “I want to ered. Let him go in peace. Cho! Why give him go back home.”
someone else’s blood. It’s not the Lord’s way.
Oh-what-a-something.”
She was speaking stoosh, that high-pitched voice with the batty-broad vowels that she only used in public. All these years and what? Did she think he didn’t know her? He knew how she felt about Baba-Lulla. That was why she had been so hard with him. That was why he had taken it. He didn’t mind – he never wanted a love relationship. He tried to avoid it, even with his children. How would they have sur- vived in England if they had come with their heads filled up with fool-fool ideas about love? “Marisa,” he whispered, “where is my Marisa?”
“Back home?” “Roaring River.”
A tray of food hovered over his hospital bed. A pot of white yoghurt. They had given him the blood of some poor man – now they were feed- ing him baby food! He had given his blood to the Mother Country. Drip-fed it, oiled the ma- chines of the factory with his sweat. Now it was pay-back time: blood and yoghurt.
at hair. The beating of breasts. Would anyone do that for him? Would Muma-Miller make a show of trying to jump into his grave and go down with him? Would their sons, Lorne and Kent, have to hold her back? No. He did not suppose she would.
Muma-Miller leaned over his tray and picked up the spoon. “Come, nuh, man, eat little some- thing,” she said.
Was it too late for a holiday? Back home to Roaring River. He had never taken a holiday in his lifetime, but he’d always planned on going somewhere. He pictured himself in Roaring River, floating on his river-reed mattress. He turned his face away from Muma-Miller and a warm light reflected from the window onto his
“But Poopa-Miller, you don’t have anybody there. You know that.”
She was right. All his family and friends from Roaring River were dead. He was not sorry that he had missed their funerals. All that playact- ing. The falling down on knees. The tearing