Last Sun­day, I was read­ing the news­pa­pers (I get hard copies on week­ends be­cause I am old-fash­ioned and they’re se­ri­ous­ly handy with the mos­qui­toes) in my pa­tio. My cat, Oreo, was fight­ing me for space on my footrest (I keep my feet up while read­ing the news­pa­pers in case I see a deal I missed at the su­per­mar­ket and feel like kick­ing my­self), when I start­ed feel­ing the ef­fects of the weath­er­man’s Red Sa­hara Dust Alert.

Oreo, who was born black and white, and is a girl with a boy’s name (I ex­plain to peo­ple that hav­ing been spayed, she/it can be called “Michael” if any­one want­ed to) start­ed look­ing grey and brown. I blinked and blinked, but there she/it was—grey and brown Oreo—non­cha­lant­ly lick­ing her/its nether parts while I tried to blink away emerg­ing il­lu­sions.

But the dust won’t go away. Then I saw be­fore me a ris­ing mist above the brown and pur­ple cher­ry tree, and an emerg­ing fig­ure—short, bald­head­ed, ear­rings, and with calves the size of preg­nant cows. “BC dat is you?” I asked. No re­sponse. On­ly this ghost­ly fig­ure hov­er­ing and back­dropped by a bunch of strug­gling dou doux man­goes.

I had just read one of the most ab­surd news­pa­per columns about Xmas and had re­freshed my Blue Moun­tain cof­fee. I gulped it all in one go. Then I heard this voice: “You! Yes, you … not the cat!”

“Me?” I heard ste­ups­ing. “Yes, you.”

Now, cof­fee can be a rather pow­er­ful drug. Fol­low­ing a talk by “Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials” on the evils of il­lic­it drugs at QRC 50 years ago, some of us dried ti-marie bush for days be­fore cut­ting, wrap­ping, and smok­ing it. But there was this one guy who tried sniff­ing the fumes from roast­ed cof­fee beans. He end­ed up with one GCE pass. One. Think about that.

But this was not the cof­fee. I ac­tu­al­ly heard a raspy voice from above the cher­ry tree. Oreo paid no at­ten­tion—one leg in the air (as if she didn’t care) and her/its tongue dili­gent­ly com­mit­ting the gross­ly un­speak­able.

“You,” went the voice, “like too much bac­cha­nal! Ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, your col­umn shall be used to help peo­ple ad­dress every­day needs.”

“But Mas­ter (I couldn’t think of an­oth­er ti­tle … though “Bro” might have worked), aren’t there im­por­tant mat­ters of wider pub­lic con­cern to be ad­dressed? Eth­nic cleans­ing? The mur­der of ba­bies and chil­dren? Geo-po­lit­i­cal in­trigue? In­ef­fec­tive gov­er­nance? Cli­mate change? Re­li­gious hypocrisy?”

“Shut up!” Oreo paused mid lick. I heard the chick­en go “cluck cluck” be­fore run­ning away (I have a chick­en, it ap­peared out of nowhere a few months ago with a young­ster who has since mys­te­ri­ous­ly gone miss­ing).

“Ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, an ad­vice col­umn shall be pub­lished every week in this space.”

“But, but.”

“Shut up!”

“For in­stance, here’s some­one who needs re­al help. There’s this guy who thinks that a ban on us­ing fire­works and bust­ing bam­boo in his neigh­bour­hood at this time of year is in vi­o­la­tion of his hu­man rights. Ad­vise him!”

Oh, that’s easy. “Dy­na­mite. In­side the guy’s house. Clear out the women and chil­dren first. Then wait for the blast. Let the neigh­bour­hood kids with their puny sparklers take that!”

“Umm. I don’t think so. Let’s try an­oth­er one. A thief has just cleared out a fam­i­ly’s fridge (ham, turkey, pastelles gone!) and run away … belch­ing and laugh­ing loud­ly. They sus­pect he is hid­ing in their an­noy­ing neigh­bours’ house. These peo­ple play loud mu­sic late at night and the sick­en­ing smell of cook­ing oil hangs in the air for days.”

“Sim­ple. Dy­na­mite. Two sticks. That should smoke him out!”

“But what about the neigh­bours?”

“Kill two birds with one stone. It’s prob­a­bly not their prop­er­ty any­way. Get rid of the thief and the un­want­ed neigh­bours in one go. I like this. Give me an­oth­er prob­lem to solve.”

“Wes, I don’t think this is work­ing out. Maybe we should stick to less com­pli­cat­ed mat­ters. Love, per­haps?”

“Yeah. The fire­works of love. What a blast. I can do this. When do I start? Next week?”

“I have an idea. Why don’t you kick off the New Year next week with some­thing on why Cari­com re­mains the on­ly vi­able re­gion­al so­lu­tion to the full range of de­vel­op­men­tal chal­lenges in the re­gion?”

“But I thought you said …”

“Hush, my friend. Hush.” At that stage, the dust cloud rose to meet the gloomy clouds. Oreo want­ed to use the lit­ter box. I got up and reached for a half-eat­en pastelle and a fresh cup of cof­fee.