Ashes of Barbados 

first published May 10, 2021 by Hecate Magazine

Sitting on couches draped in towels to catch Mildred’s hot flash sweat, I interrupted with forewarning.

“We can’t hear,” Faith hissed and landed a slap on my thigh.

We had been watching the American tv pundits’ coverage of the latest celebrity gaffes and mass shootings. They hushed me when I told them that something was coming; dismissed it as my usual morose paranoia. Grace’s fussy cries had rung in my head all night and I knew a storm wasn’t far behind. 

###

La Soufrière arrived in the form of windblown ash, from just over 100 nautical miles away. The volcano had erupted and precipitated its celestial powder over everything that was ours. Auntie Mildred scampered the perimeter of the house cleaning and covering her fragile vegetation with damp muslin cloths. Faith and I watched from the semi-opaque window slats we’d been cleaning. Uncle Earl stood in the veranda and smoked his pipe before leaving to get his daily papers. He spent the rest of his day reading about the ash before rinsing it from the car and the gutters.

“As if we needed another reason to hide inside or cover our faces,” Mildred said as she stomped her garden shoes on the mat by the side door. “What’s next? Lord have his mercy.”

Her entire upper body was draped in comical layers of colored clothes that enveloped her petite frame. When she stepped onto the covered porch, only her mauve eyeglasses hinted at her humanity and made her recognizable. I watched her shake and strip down to her underthings before stepping inside.

“Do you think the plants will survive?” I said, perched in the doorway. 

“Not for me to say. I did what I could.”

Faith and I had spent the day busied by repetitively futile cleaning tasks. We changed and washed the bedding, vacuumed every soft surface, wiped down every hard surface, and even replaced the towels on the couches. The only thing left in a halo of grime, was the cellophane wrapped bassinet in the corner of the living room. It had waited there for weeks; before the ash, for my hollow hands to tend it.

### 

We had cleaned the entire day and into the early evening. By nightfall, my chest ached and throbbed. The milk felt like two rocks under my skin, grating and grinding my ribs to dust; leaving little dirty piles on everything inside. Mildred kept trying to get me to express it, relieve the pain.

“That milk is hardened and sour. If you don't make haste, it's going to burst and burn a hole in your heart.”

Like usual, Uncle Earl peered above the top frame of his glasses and nodded in silent agreement. She had a way of explaining the world according to her own sensibilities, a blunt mixture of folklore and prophecy.

“I hope it does,” I said, dragging the wet rag across the table for the third time.