One Night in Suriname

Too exhausted to sleep; a truly ridiculous concept when you think about it, though it was the reality that mockingly confronted me. I stared at the clock which offered grim reading: 2:06 local time, that makes it 6:06 back home. No wonder I couldn’t sleep, my body clock was used to getting out of bed at this time, not submerging into one. Amsterdam to Suriname, that’s nine and a half hours of my life I’ll never get back. Flying has never been my strong suit and jet lag will forever be the utmost bane of my existence. Although I love them, sharing that lengthy and numbing journey with my family was nothing short of mentally serating. Denied rest by the constant complaining and fidgeting of my young daughter, I hadn’t grasped even an eyeful of sleep since we took off. Now I had gotten three hours sleep out of twenty four and sat wired awake on the edge of a hotel bed.

Cautious not to wake them, I crept by my sleeping family and peered through the window, the streets of Paramaribo shimmered in the street lamps below. What a majestic city! The capital of Suriname, a hidden gem of South America bearing the hallmarks of post-colonialism with its Dutch architecture, western religions and diversified cuisine. 

The thought of food stirred a yearning rumble in my stomach and it dawned on me that the overpriced croissant from the airport may need some company. It was late but for a Friday night in the undercard food capital of the continent, there would surely be plenty of street vendors on the market stomping grounds for many hours yet.

Before I had the chance to register it, I was traipsing back down the stairwell and had slung a jacket over my shoulders. As I blazed by the reception desk I was interrupted.

“Ah, good sir!” Said the receptionist urgently. He hurried around the desk to intercept me. “Are you going out? At this time?”

“Yes…” I replied questioningly.

“Aha,” he chuckled nervously. “I do not think that is good idea my friend. It is dark tonight and the streets will maze you.”

“Maze me?” His English wasn’t the best, but I was patient with him. 

“Yes, the streets are big maze. You will be lose if you do not know Paramaribo.”

The penny dropped when I realised what he meant, replying “oh don’t worry! I have a maps app on my phone. If I get lost, that will find me.”

I patted the jeans pocket that held my phone reassuringly, but the receptionist wasn’t convinced. I felt the need to speak again.

“Besides, I’m only getting some food, I’ll be back here before anyone realises I’ve gone.” I patted him on the shoulder and moved to the exit, but he stepped before me once again. The concern on his face was evident now.

“Sir please,” he almost begged. “No food out now, too late!”

“Fine.” I tried to shuffle around him. “I could at least do with a drink after that flight.”

“No! No outside, we have beer here.”

He was starting to irritate me, the lack of sleep and food did little to inspire my mood. 

“Well I’m very happy for you, but I had a sneak peak at the bar menu earlier and the equivalent of six Euro for one beer is quite an eye watering price. So unless you’re willing to offer me a discount…” I placed a hand on the door and he threw his body before it.

“Move.” I hissed sternly.

“They will get you if you go out! They will!”

“Who? Muggers?” I scoffed. “I can handle myself.”

“No!” He looked over my shoulder, as if he were checking to see if anyone else was around before he said more. “They will get you.”

“...Right…” I mumbled slowly.

He must have not understood the English words I used to describe the dregs of nightlife. Why were we speaking English anyway? Naturally we both spoke Dutch. A number of rebuttals ricochet through my head, but in the end I opted to simply roll my eyes and barge through the door.

“Sir! Do not go to-” The door slammed behind me before I caught the whole of his warning.

I was halfway down the street before I noted the eerie quietness. No people, no open bars, cars, vendors or even beggars in sight. All was motionless and a perplexing chill fringed the tropic air. I traipsed the lonely streets lined by pools of flickering light and felt curtains twitch around me as I walked past the watchful houses. I rounded a street corner at a crossroad and like a mirage, a beautiful bar stood before me at the end of the road. 

“Finally.” I whispered under my breath.

The bar was capitalised by large windows, broad timber framing and welcomed me with warm orange lights that glowed enticingly from within. I couldn’t recall entering, but naked bulbs hung from the ceiling above me and a dark red carpet silked across the floor. Potted plants from the rainforest stood proudly in the corners, their vines reaching tentatively along the rafters. I looked back out onto the street through the windows and was surprised to see it was mirror glass. In the lonely reflection I became aware that the bar was utterly silent, not another patron in sight. I almost jumped out of my skin when I became altered to the presence of a barman, who had been patiently observing me from the bar hatch since I entered.

“Hello sir!” His voice was warm and smooth like whiskey. In the wake of such tranquillity, I immediately felt the pent up tension of the day being unwound from my muscles.

“Good morning.” I replied with a calm smile. “I was starting to think I’d be out here forever looking for a place to eat.”

“Yes, well tonight is a strange night,” he chuckled. “The locals with their strange superstitions and all.”

My mind was forced back to the hotel receptionist and his warning. A dull fear crept up from the depths of my soul. The barman must have noticed my thoughtful expression for he quickly added: 

“I assure you there is nothing to fear. A drink perhaps?”

“Sure.” I smiled again. That was what I came here for, wasn’t it?

“Here you are sir.” He grinned comfortingly when he nudged the glass towards me. I was almost startled by the speed at which he had produced the glass. I hadn’t seen him move for the bottles racked on the wall, nor could I remember saying what I wanted, yet a glass half-filled with clear liquid sat before me. I must have told him. I must have. Perhaps my jet lag was worse than I anticipated.

“Thanks.” I rubbed my eyes wearily. “So where is everyone?”

I sipped the drink and coughed sharply. The barman allowed a small smirk to snag the corner of his mouth. It was some kind of locally brewed white rum, the sort that was so strong you could run a car on it. The potency of the alcohol and rush of blood to my face did little to quell the brewing fuzziness in my head.

“A good question sir. Paramaribo is normally bustling with vibrant nightlife, even at these small hours. But an old tale keeps the people at bay for one night every year.”

“Really?” I was struggling to focus on him, the alcohol was hitting me like a freight train. I subtly shuffled on the bar stool to stop myself from drunkenly crumpling onto the floor. 

“Indeed. When the Europeans arrived and began to ransack these lands, the local tribes of the rainforest were pushed from their homes. The tribes who survived the European diseases stood little chance against their guns and chains. One day, the chiefs of the depleting tribes met in a small town that is now Paramaribo. Here, they forged a plan to poison the Dutch water supply and kill them all. It had a somewhat successful outcome, but as you can see all around you, colonialism triumphed here as it did all over the continent. Though that night, they did something far more sinister too.”

“What could be worse than poisoning people?” This irked another fulfilled smirk from the barman, a brand of smile that suggested he was smugly harbouring a secret.

“Here, in this very city, they forged an unbreakable curse which the locals believe to be as potent today as it was when the chiefs first cast it hundreds of years ago.”

Great, another fairytale. I decided to subdue the sarcastic urges and humour the barman, indulging his little story.

“And what, pray tell, does this curse do?” The barman seemed pleased by my interest. In truth, I was merely trying to distract myself from how drowsy I had become. 

“Every year, on the anniversary of the Europeans arrival, the tribesman cursed any traveller who was alone in the city to be banished from the mortal world. Their souls condemned to be trapped in the spirit realm between life and death. There, they would remain restless for all eternity, while their memories would be slowly drained by the energy of evil spirits. The locals shut the entire city down to stop tourists from coming outside and falling into the clutches of the curse. Tonight is that night.”

“Any traveller?” I tried in vain to suppress my sniggering. “And the locals believe all this?”

“Religiously.” He concluded.

“Hmm,” I was sceptical of course, who wouldn’t be? We lived in a new, modern world where ideas of curses and spirits were pure fantasy. I took another sip from my drink, then gingerly placed it back on the counter. I noticed my hand was shaking.

“Are you alright sir? You look rather pale?”

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just the jet lag getting to me. Anyway, this is a fascinating story but I am amazed that anyone at all, let alone the whole city believes it. Surely it would be common knowledge around the world if droves of tourists magically vanished from Paramaribo overnight every year.”

“Naturally.” Something had changed about the barman’s expression which made him inexplicably unsettling. I picked up my drink again as an excuse to look away from him. 

He added “that is why the spirits can only take a soul under one certain condition; a rather simple one that only the locals have heeded. They have tried telling the world but those who come here are tone deaf and dismissive of their warnings, unwilling to understand or even acknowledge the unseen world.”

“And what would that condition be?” I felt awful, I couldn’t hide it anymore. My teeth fizzed like TV static. I felt weightless and densely anchored to the ground all at once. I could hear my eyes rolling in their sockets and feel the blood coursing through my vessels. 

“The spirits may only take you to their realm if you accept a drink from them.”

It took a moment for his words to register, then the colour drained from my skin and sank beneath the floor. Shakily, I looked at my empty glass and dropped it like it had bitten me. When the glass hit the floor it did not shatter, it pooled into liquid then evaporated into nothing. My entire body began ebbing and weaving through reality as an unseen force scratched its malicious fingers across my skin. The plants flourished across the ceiling, the pristine wooden rafters wilted under their wake, instantly becoming overrun by the toils of time; rot, damp, decay. It felt as if I were standing next to myself, powerlessly observing as these impossible events transpired around me.

I howled in breathless horror when I cast my bewildered gaze back to the mirrored windows and witnessed a hoard of shadowed, senseless entities converging upon me. Some still held vague resemblance to their discarded vessels, while others were barely seen, no more than formless collaborations of tangled, deprived emotions. They emanated pure anguish and weeped with confusion, their understanding of the world long eroded by the evil spirits who had imprisoned them. They were an unsettling, sorrowful glimpse into the tortured fate that now awaited me. Dread breathed through my lungs, I had started to join them.

The boundary between my body and the encroaching world smudged into a flickering blur, like smoke pluming from flames. My eyeless vision glided back to the barman, his grubby garbs were replaced by a celestial tribal gown, sculpted from mind fog and fragments of a long forgotten past. He was shapeless yet appeared to be intricacy personified, an inexplicable cluster of clarity and incomprehension.

“You will become one of them,” his passive voice rippled against my weary spirit. “No name, no face, no past, no future. We are all cursed. Stranded here in the fraying fabric between life and death, forced to forget about the existence of the world that we have left behind. When enough time has passed, the world shall forget about us too.”

I went to beg, plead, cry, whichever came first, but my voice had been hollowed and my mouth smeared from my face. My lucid fingers fluttered between realities while I fought to salvage the scarps of my life, but I knew there was already nothing left to save.

Dead? I am not dead, for death is absolute, indiscriminate and merciful in its nature. Death would be the greatest of blessings to me, for every passing moment I delve deeper and deeper into the one fate truly worse than the cold clutches of that great mystery. A low, humming bass drones towards me from the distancing outside world, cruelly reminding me of a beautiful life I am doomed to slowly forget. The faces of my friends, my wife, my daughter, they will blur to nothing along with their names, though I will not weep for their loss. I will not weep for I will not know of it, my mind will be corroded beyond repair before an inkling of reflection or sorrow has penetrated it. I will not know what I have forgotten. No man is so cruel as to deserve such a demise. Senility seeps into my soul, and it will continue to do so long after the last strands of my marvellous life have left me. I am alone.