03 Interlude

Interlude   I

Hummy and BillyG

     

Because this story may go on for a while I should set some backdrop and ease into gentle familiarity of folks, places, and situations. We are living, by no choice of our own, in a world that is accelerating at a dizzying pace. If the medium is the message as Marshall McLuhan once described the situation; then we live in a cozy jungle at warp speed. But McLuhan was kind enough to call it a global village.  
        This fable takes place in the small and mountainous island of Dominica within the Lesser Antilles and just north of Martinique. The two main characters are a goat and a hummingbird. The Purple Throated Carib is the name of one of the island’s three species and Hummy fits this description admirably. The goat, BillyG, was the celebrant (though not eaten) of the 2012 Goat Festival in Dominica in the township of La Plain.

     In Dominica, practically everyone has a mango for lunch, drives a Toyota, rarely watches TV, is passionate about local politics, and on leaving the island usually returns. It is truly a cozy jungle and planted firmly on the eastern edge of the warm Caribbean Sea. I love this island. No matter how pretentious the brochures might be the island belongs to its own coziness.

     Hummy woke up suddenly as though the Universe blinked and burped simultaneously. But he would only gradually discover what was to come soon after. Hummy was anxious to return to his conversation with BillyG and he had a long flight ahead of him. There was something stirring inside his oversized hummingbird heart and he felt the jolt of the Universe blink-burp.

      His perch was very near Melville Hall airport in Dominica. As he was flitting by, he saw a man entering a taxi with a book under his arm. He could barely make out the title of the book but he thought it read; The World in Disarray. Was there a message in the book for him or was it just meant for humans? He would ask BillyG; for he knew that he had certainly munched on a few books in his time. He wondered if he read what he ate. Though Hummy did not actually recognize the blink-burp of the Universe, this was a very special day.