The Shaman’s Apprentice

It was another glorious day at the Revitalizus Resort in sunny Barbados. The shaman’s young apprentice took his time trimming the bougainvillea bushes in the lush gardens surrounding the resort’s sparkling “adults only” pool. There was no need to rush. Islanders conserved their energy especially when it was well past noon. It was too hot to work fast.

The apprentice worked slowly. He liked to listen to the tourists to learn their language. Perhaps one day he might go to North America. It would be wise to be able to speak English.

Snip, snip, snip.

Between the snipping of the shears, the apprentice’s ears buzzed with the tourists’ incessant, silly chattering. They jabbered on more than monkeys. He didn’t really like the tourists all that much. Deep inside, they annoyed him, but he needed to learn to control that annoyance. Each week brought a new bunch of them. They were often so boisterous, becoming increasingly so with every new glass of rum punch, tequila, or long island iced tea that the pretty, brown-eyed Mathilde brought them. He loved Mathilde. He and she would enjoy lying down together when their shifts were over tonight.

Amongst the tourists, especially on the night they arrived, there would always be at least one super drunk who couldn’t get to a toilet fast enough. Such a drunk would trample across the flower beds, invariably fall into the bougainvillea, and wet himself, Served him right, of course. Those drunks, like the discarded plastic glasses or cigarette butts they flicked onto the lawns or into the garden soil, just meant more work for him and the grounds maintenance team. The team grumbled about it amongst themselves but always made sure they had big broad smiles for the tourists. Big smiles meant big tips. 

The apprentice knew it was wrong to resent the tourists; Barbados needed their dollars. But now, as he snipped, his eyes hidden by the shade of his dirty safari hat, he listened as an overweight middle-aged woman nudged the equally heavy woman beside her, yelling,

“See that Wendy? See that Hulk Hogan of a man over there near the bar? Now, if I had a man like that in my bed every night, I’d be complete. I’d be the happiest woman in the world!”

Sitting on her other side, her bleary-eyed, red-nosed husband scoffed,

“Yeah right, Shirley! Dream on. Nothing makes you happy except stuffing yourself with food. One look at you and Hulk would be gone faster than Flash Gordon!”

Her raucous husband and his buddies laughed and shared fist bumps. What a nasty sense of humor these men had, talking about their women that way. He would never talk like that about his beloved Mathilde.

Bolstered by his buddies’ inebriated support, Shirley’s hubby continued:

“Ah…now would you look at that gorgeous blond who just wandered over to join Hulk. Now, that’s more like it. See Shirley, if you just looked like that I’d be one completely happy chappy. Say, what’s that she’s rubbing onto his back?”

“Sunscreen…you stupid buddha-bellied loudmouth,” Shirley replied angrily. “And I did look like that before three children!”

“Aww, just getting a rise out of ya, Shirl, old girl. You can’t blame an old fella for wanting a woman like that rubbing sunscreen all over him. Right, boys?”

“Ha! You should be so lucky, Ralph,” said Wendy coming to Shirley’s defence. “A girl like that wouldn’t give you the time of day. You wouldn’t know what to do with her.”

“That’s what Viagra’s for, Wendy. No worries on that score,” Ralph replied with a drunken lascivious leer.

Hooded by his hat, the apprentice bristled at their exchange. He moved toward another bush as one of the other less-inebriated men of the group suggested,

“Hey, let’s not spoil such a beautiful sunny day. We’re here to have fun, right? You know, what you all are squabbling about just made me think of something. What’s the one thing each of us would want that would make us completely happy?”

“That’s easy. I’d love to unload that old Mercedes of mine and buy something newer,” said Don. 

“Newer, Don? You bought that Mercedes only 2 years ago!”

“Yeah, I know. But the newness is gone. Bored with it already. Can’t help wondering what it’d be like to drive a Maserati.”

“Not me,” said Bob. “No, what I’d love is to own my own Cessna. Imagine flying in that. Now that would be bliss.”

“Well, you can afford one, Bob, so why don’t you buy one?”

“Well, I can’t fly, remember? And I’m getting too old to learn. What about you Wendy? What would make you the happiest woman on earth?”

“Apart from never having to listen to you guys talk about women, cars, and planes? Well, to be honest, I’ve been dreaming about moving into that fancy new gated community in ValleyView Heights where they have those sprawling bungalows. We’re nearly empty nesters now, and I think now’s the time to move while we can still even move! I’m starting to feel my knees going up and down the stairs in our two-storey. Besides, it’s so darn dated. I can’t be bothered hunting up home-improvement companies who charge the earth to replace your bathroom taps, let alone renovate an entire kitchen. No thanks. Just the idea of moving into a lovely brand new home sounds heavenly to me.”

The apprentice snipped and listened. These people obviously had more money than they knew how to use. As wealthy as they were, it seemed they still didn’t know that constantly buying new things didn’t bring happiness. Sadly, neither did being poor like him and his family. He couldn’t even afford to buy Mathilde a cheap engagement ring.

His father had named his younger brother, Bentley, after a car he had seen in a magazine left by a tourist. Just 13, Bentley now cleaned miles of seaweed from the resort sands from morning till night for a lousy $5 a day. His sister, Miranda, danced at The Pink House. She also pleasured those lecherous tourist husbands who managed to sneak away from their wives while they were being pampered at the resort spa. And daily, his sun-wrinkled grandma sat on a hard wooden stool in her dusty little hill-top pottery shop hoping the mini-mokes might bring her a souvenir shopper or two. 

No, these tourists would never be happy for long. They would return to their fancy homes and expensive cars after a week or two of baking themselves under the Bajan sun, show off their peeling tans and tell everyone back home how good it was to leave their troubles behind and get away. Except whatever troubles they had would still be there when they got back. Their ultimate dreams would still fail to satisfy, even if they were fulfilled. Would these tourists ever know how lucky they were? He didn’t think so. The apprentice was young, but he already knew it took “not having” to appreciate “having”. 

The apprentice sighed, sweating beneath his hat. He had been working on improving his magical healing skills since he first realized he had them when his weary mother took ill. He nursed her back to health. His skills were good, but still not strong enough to take his loved ones away from here. That was the one thing that would make him completely happy. He couldn’t do that for his family yet, but perhaps he could at least teach these tourists a thing or two about appreciating what they have.

The apprentice put down his clippers, wiped his brow, and concentrated. His powers were for healing, but there was also another side to those powers. It was that somewhat darker side on which he now focussed. As he did, he felt himself growing angry at the tourists and his own limited powers. His brow furrowed beneath his sweat-stained hat. There was a churning, a rumbling growing within him as he summoned and directed his magical powers skyward.

Suddenly, a lobster-pink Shirley looked up at the sky and shrieked:

“Shit! Aww shit no! Look at those damn clouds moving in? Our sun has disappeared. Don’t tell me it’s going to rain on our holiday! We paid a fortune to come here. This is going to spoil everything!”

As Shirley continued to wail, the winds picked up and black clouds moved down from the mountains and across the pool. Half-filled plastic glasses blew off the tables, littering warm steaming patios. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. The skies opened drenching everything and everyone beneath them. The tourists scrambled to grab their iPhones, Raybans, Gucci beach bags, and sandals, knocking over chairs as they fled the angry storm. 

Up in the dried-out hills, the islanders stood in the rain and welcomed its revitalizing wetness on their hot, upturned faces. Oh, how they’d prayed for rain to water the parched earth and their wilting crops. They felt blessed.

And the young apprentice shaman smiled. His powers were indeed strengthening.