The Hag Lives On

I'm not a news buff.
Investigation, Reporting, Statistics, Political Debate-frankly, it bores me. I pick up the Nation every day with a sigh. Nothing. Nothing. Same Old. Same Old.

I do the crossword.

Today, for example, breaking news- in the last 3 years food prices have gone up 25%. Thanks be to the economist who gave that up because I had no clue- I've been eating air for 3 years...
Then our Lord Bishop admonished some Dr. Evil song lyrics. I love you Dr. John but common- you hadn't heard it until now? Is the choir too loud 'cause IZ has been trying to find a reason why a next man would lie with a guy name Stephen for over a year now...
What else, what else- no prosecution for foreign police. Big surprise there- everyone knows how vigilant we are at addressing our local boys' indiscretions...
And of course- Darth Vadur giving the nation the ol' thumbs up- can't go a week without those dimples of optimism.

No- I don't much like the news. It's boring. And if there's one thing I can't suffer too long- it's boredom. I am an addict for good narrative. I like drama, I love passion. I adore divine irony. And my most favorite thing is the moment of ah-ha when it all lines up in perfect pleasure.

Last week I crossed the street to hear some tales from ago. The raconteur indulged my habit and told me a story of the Old Hag. Old Hag, he said, takes off her skin at the crossroads and goes out on a moonlit night, unseen, to suck blood. The belief is that if her skin could be found, lime and salted, she would be unable to re-enter it and her vampiric binges would come to an end. But no one has ever found Old Hag's skin, he concluded.

The story didn't make a lot of sense at first. If she took off her skin, how could she be unseen? I mean, what of her bones-surely she would appear skeletal? Why does she need the skin anyway- why not just suck blood? Why can't a pile of skin be found? And lime and salt? My raconteur got fed up and answered something like "Oh Fuckin' Hell, It was just a story to stop the children from playing marbles so they would come home before dark."

But the story has been making me think...
....think of the country and the news and the constant cry for transparency and I've been doing a little exegesis. Bare with me-

The Old Hag takes off her skin so that she can't be seen but of course she can. We all see but we don't. We only always know the bare bones don't we? The flesh of the matter is so carefully hidden behind bogus inquiries and missing documents. Though the rattling bones make plenty noise, they're rather difficult to hold on to. The Hag continues her treacherous path lit by that big bright spotlight in the heavens while we are left pondering her motions in the dark.

And she continues to suck the blood. My blood, your blood, the blood of the nation. It is the necessary sacrifice on which the Hag flourishes. Still through our blood we become part of the Hag; whether we like it or not, we are accountable. Therefore, we become complacent, we let the Hag take what she wants, or worse, we allow the Hag to absorb us completely.

There are some however, some, who refuse to be sucked, trying desperately to locate the skin before she gets to them. They struggle to purge the nation of the Hag by drawing out the blood from the flesh using the lime and salt of the earth. Lime and Salt- the traditional, distinctly 100% Bajan antiseptic.

Yet still, the skin cannot be found and maybe it never will.

The Hag has wisely left the skin at the crossroads knowing that when we arrive we will easily fall victim to our convictions, our righteousness, our certainty that we know which way to go, we know which road to take. And of course, we don't.

The Hag lives on.

So sure are we- that we know what's best- that we fail to look down and see the Hag's skin lying right there- at our feet.