No pain like this body.

• Author: Ladoo, Harold Sunny
• Position: Fiction - Excerpt

The rain didn't care about Tola. Rain was pounding the earth. Ma and Balraj saw the drops; they looked like fat white worms invading the earth from above. God was trying to tie the earth and the sky with rain drops. The whole of Tola was dark and dismal.

The wind didn't care about Tola. The wind was beating the rain and the rain was pounding the earth. There were no lights in the sky; all that Ma and Balraj saw were layers and layers of blackness and rage. The choking sound of thunder came from the sky zip zip zip crash doom doomm doomed! Then the lightening moved as a gold cutlass and swiped an immortelle tree beyond the river.

Balraj twisted as a shadow with fright, lie did his hands so, and his feet went so, and his lips shook as two dry leaves shaking in the wind. His teeth were hitting each other as dry bamboo twigs toorot toorot tat tat toorot. He breathed hoosh hash hoosh hash as a carpenter's saw.

Ma sat with her back resting against the heavy mango trunk. She sat just as a piece of old cloth rammed into the corner of two tapia walls. The water ran down the mango trunk and fell on her back clat clat clat, then it ran behind her back and the tree and fell inside the drain.

When the lightening struck the tree in Tola Forest, Sunaree, Rama and Panday stood up like pillars in the trace: they were afraid; their hearts were beating dub! dub! dub! They tried to see the forest, but they barely made out the long mango tree. The rain was falling as if God was cleaning out the sky with water and rage. They stood together and prayed, but the rain drops touched their skins as needles, and they felt fear and pain covering them up. It was painful, but they had to move on. They were still running south along Tola Trace; they ran until they reached the long mango tree, Ma saw them.

Ma was shocked. She thought all the time that they were safe inside the house, safe from the wind and the rain, safe from Pa too. Ma called out, "Where all you goin chirens?"

Sunaree and Panday ran under the tree. Rama stood on the trace and watched the mango tree fearfully. "I not goin under dat tree," he said. "Dat mango tree leanin...