La Sirene

      I hate celebrating Cinco de Mayo. All it is, is a day for all non Hispanics to perform stereotypical acts and eat tacos. Me saying this as a black woman is frustrating...but I'm also sitting here eating a burrito myself. The same sogginess of the thing weighs in my hands like it's a scale. I wipe it from my wrist, the grease trails down. It feels like Vaseline. Likes kind my mother used to smother me with before school in elementary. I set it down on the plastic lawn chair beside, which is covered with a blue towel. My mother wanted to decorate the house for the day..but it's literally only one day. And who celebrates this holiday in Haiti of all places? The answer is my mother. After sending me to the states for over a year, she thought it would make me happy if she celebrates American holidays in our home. In truth...I never picked up on or admired American holidays. But to comfort her, I let her do this. On the contrary today was a bad day to publicly celebrate. My picked afro and white toes say otherwise. These won't save me from the sirens, also known as La Sirene. She is the most powerful of Lwa. Oddly as horrific as she is to the children, I would like to think I resemble her. It is said she lures sailors and swimmers into her tide, sitting upon her rock in the middle of the ocean singing the tales of magic; her voice so enchanting they have no choice to go to her. Her being beautiful and having a beautiful singing voice is not why people fear her. After luring them in she drags them by the feet into the sea to her palace where she teaches them all kinds of magic and voodoo, all without speaking. She only sings. At least this is the tale I tell myself, the old usher women at church tell me differently. They tell us she sweeps kids from their legs and drowns them so deep in the water they have not even the slimmest chances of getting away. That she takes their lives away. Yet we have a feast and celebration for her in the month of December, showering her with boats full of goodies and the finest meats a house maid of Haiti couldn't dream of touching. All foolishness for them to say she's horrible yet praise her. Through all this, that is not what's troubling me today.

  She was spotted yesterday by children playing in the lake. I often used to go there fully submerged in the water I almost drowned myself. I was never afraid of the crooked tales the usher's told me, I only listened to my dear mother. A trait- the usher's said- that would get me killed if she continued to spread such 'Americanized' fables. I want to see if what the children said was true, was she really seen? And in such early times of the year? I'm curious. I pick my burrito up again, and wrap it fully. My mother looks at me from under the shade of her sombrero. Her sunglasses take up half her face. "ki kote ou prale, sweet child of mine?",she sits up and says. Where are you going sweet child of mine. She might be trying her hardest to celebrate other holidays but she still holds on to our culture. By refusing to speak English. I smile at her huge sunglasses, seeing my reflection in them. Somehow I'm darker in the reflection. "mwen pral nan magazen an, I'm going to the store Mama." She may not speak English but I do, although involuntarily. I got so used to translating for myself in the states it became extremely difficult to break away from the habit. I push my hands up from beneath me, to aid me scooting from the chair. The cheap plastic burns my hands, it's been baked under the sun. She takes off her sunglasses. "You're going to the lake."  Her stare burns me to the core, her brown eyes flash. I nod. I know she's serious when she breaks to use English. "You will not go. We live right next to the lake, you can wait. We have company." She reclines back, her smile smug. God forbid iet this woman out argue me again. Which she is good at. I smile. "I'll take the company to the lake then. It's hot and the lake is coolest on the hottest days." She slides the shades completely off her face. She waits. She's contemplating a retort, hopefully she can't find one. My wish comes true as she nods. I jump up and down, my soles burn on the concrete. "Mèsi mon amou, thank you my love", I bend over to kiss her brown cheek. "And put on some shoes! The lake floor is slippery, you know what the church women say!" I look back at her. I forbid her to start believing the tales of decrepit women who sit in shacks with spells of love and death. I run into the house, my feet padding the tiled floor of our shack. "Nou pral, lake!" I scream at the top of my lungs. Around this house people act like they can't hear unless you scream like a cat in heat. As predicted they come trickling where I am, by the back door. My brother's and one neighbor. All of them boys who look down at me. I despise the thought. "We can't go to the lake my sweet sister the sirens-" " Kisa yo pral fè? Eat us?", I laugh. He is the only one in this house that speaks English fluently, for he spent two years in the states. My oldest brother who's seventeen who somehow acquired tattoos and dreads... something that is forbidden in Haitian and African homes. He rolls his eyes at me, as if he reads my thoughts. I walk past him out the front door, not waiting for him or the others. 

  Instead I run,so that I can leap into the lake only a few feet away from my house. As close as it is I could swim in it everyday. I practically do, sometimes we take a boat to school when our feet tire. My feet plunge into the water, the green murkiness of it engulfs me. I hear the splash of siblings jumping in too. The copycats. I kick my feet to break through the surface of the water but they won't move...I kick again. My foot is caught under a log. I kick more fiercely this time, trying to use my left foot to release the other. It's under there tight. I can't hold my breath any longer, but I force myself to. I use my hand to sweep it through the water to single it but it causes a simple wave. Like a wave created by wind not by a girl getting drowned by a log. I open my mouth, and scream. How stupid of me! To scream underwater and lose precious air. Hopefully the boys will notice I'm gone and search for me. Something claws at my ankle. I look down, my nose bubbles. Claws scratch at me, like skinny logs of themselves brushing my leg. I scream again and shake so violently this for sure will alert them. It creeps up my leg and as it does I see that it is fingers not logs. The sirens. But this can't be... their fake. A fable the usher's tell us to keep us children in line. I wish it were, for this thing seeping up my leg like a disease is very much real and I can't get away. The claws wrap around my waist and even under the murky water I feel the goodness of it's bones. As I open my mouth to scream again it yanks me down into the darkness.