You Can Say That Again

*Flash fiction Island style

I

Jesus saves!  I cast you out in the name of Jesus!  So screams the preacher man slamming his palm against foreheads to drive out demons.  Not more than a few feet away from the pulpit, an eighteen year-old member of his congregation claps her hands and shouts hallelujah!  

Jesus' name is again invoked a few days later as they lay sweating and groaning in the back seat of a rented car.

-See me and come live with me is two different ting


II

The girl is pretty in an unrefined way, brash and loud and totally unselfconscious.
Baby powder coats her neck, chest and back, visible in her low cut top.  

Her rival, five years her senior, cuts her eye in contempt. 'Country booboo,' she thinks. 'She look like fish ready to fry.  Plus she skin ashy and she look like she doan know how to use hot-comb.'  

Despite her belief in her superiority, her man doesn't come back.

-Puss and dog no have de same luck


III

The little boy is a-tremble with anticipation and fear.  Mustn't get caught.  He was in for a good lickin if he was.  Ah but the alluring scent of the mangoes on the vendor's tray―promising tongue-tying sweetness, is more than he can bear.  He can already feel the weight of the mango; his teeth ripping into the gold-green skin and into the pulpy flesh―feel the juice spurt into his mouth.

'Watch de tray,' his uncle had said before going down the road to the local shop to get himself a beer.  'But don't you eat me mangoes, dey is for sale.'  

'Jus one,' the little boy promises himself glancing anxiously down the road.  Then two mangoes later, 'jus one more.'

-You kyaan put mongoose to watch chicken