Free Iron Balloons by Colin Channer

you cannot answer, like, “Bwoy, wha’ ’appen to you?”
    Questions like, “But whe’ de hell you t’ink yuh was going dem kinda hours deh?” And, “So yuh never hear me a call to yuh? So yuh tu’n big man and cyan do wha’ de hell yuh like now?” Questions that nobody in the world can answer like, “Eeh? Eeh? Eeh?”
    And then your mother asks you the most difficult question of all: “So yuh ’member wha’ happen to yuh?”
    You shake your head and tell her that you don’t remember one thing. And the moment you shake your head, it starts to spin faster and faster. It is spinning so fast it is ready to take off. It’s on the runway. It has full throttle, you can hear the engines roaring, the engines roaring, the engines roaring …
    Yes! Yes! You do remember. Your father with his head in the truck and the engine roaring and “Nice” and “Yuck” and ratchets and sockets and bubbles and … and how could you forget? The most incredible thing in the whole wide world. And the story bubble is big, big, big now, and it is so full of wanting-to-tell that it is ready to bus’, and it does, and so you tell them about the sound that you heard and how you followed it into the bush and how you went softly, softly when you got near because you saw it was a goat. That big fat goat that belongs to Mas’ Arnold in Spring Gully, and how the goat was lying down on her side and crying, “Mmeeeer-mmeeeer,” and straining like she want to doodoo but it wouldn’t come out. Crying and straining and crying and straining and then, how, all of a sudden, this slimy thing like a big piece of Jell-O that someone forgot to color in just pop out, and how you could see something moving around in the Jell-O, and how it had you there like a piece o’ rock just a stand up and a look and cyaah move. And how the mommy goat lick up the bag, lick it and eat it, and then how the thing that was inside come out, and how it was all wet and looking just like a real goat but small, small. And how the mummy goat start lick it now, and how it wobble around like it couldn’t manage to stand up, and then it did and then it start to suck—just like Mary Janga when she was small and still like a human being.
    And then you finish and you look up and you see your father, your mother, Nurse Lawes, and Mary Janga with a really-listening look on their face and all the pajama children are around your bed too and now one of them seh, “Fe real?” and another one seh, “Wow!” and then, for just one small moment, there is silence—your father has no more questions in him—not even Mary Janga is making a sound. Everyone has listened to your incredible story. Everyone. It’s amazing. It’s stupendous. It’s … incredible.
    It’s night now.
    All the parents have gone home and all the pajama children are in bed. You can hear the nurses talking softly and laughing at the end of the room. You can hear the trees moaning and creaking and tapping on the window behind you and you think of scary stories. You wonder how it is that scary stories always seem so stupid in the day but the moment night come down they don’t seem stupid at all. You think they must have some magic in them, and if they have some magic, you think, then maybe they have some realness in them too.
    You feel alone and scared.
    You don’t want to feel alone and scared. But you do.
    You think maybe a mango will stop you feeling like this.
    You switch on the lamp next to the bed and then you see the bag Mary Janga left for you.
    You open it. Inside is Floppy Florenzo the Rabbit. Floppy Florenzo the Rabbit is lime-green with bright pink ears that glow in the dark. You quickly turn off the light and stuff Floppy Florenzo the Rabbit under the cover. You shake your head and think, That little girl is something else.
    Floppy Florenzo the Rabbit smells of Mary Janga on the porch talking to her dollies, and your mother’s tender hands and your father finding you at cricket and carrying you