Krik? Krak!: The Missing Peace

The dust rose in clouds around him, clinging to the lapels of his khaki uniform.

“No one told me that there had been a coup in Port-au-Prince. I was still wearing my old régime uniform. My friend Toto from the youth corps says he didn’t know if I was old régime or new régime. So he shot a warning at the uniform. Not at me, but at the uniform..."

“No one told me that there had been a coup in Port-au-Prince. I was still wearing my old régime uniform. My friend Toto from the youth corps says he didn’t know if I was old régime or new régime. So he shot a warning at the uniform. Not at me, but at the uniform..."

“No one told me that there had been a coup in Port-au-Prince. I was still wearing my old régime uniform. My friend Toto from the youth corps says he didn’t know if I was old régime or new régime. So he shot a warning at the uniform. Not at me, but at the uniform..."

Sometimes our boarders were French and American journalists who wanted to take pictures of the churchyard where you could see the bodies.

“She is like us. The only régime she believe in is God’s régime. She says she wants to write things down for posterity.”

“One day you will stick your hand in a stew that will burn your fingers. I told her to watch her mouth as to how she talks to people. I told her to watch out for vagabonds like Toto and Raymond.”

My whole body felt taut and taint-free.

My grandmother’s face softened as she noticed the sheen of cleanliness.

“My old eyes are not what they used to be,” my grandmother said, in the shy humble voice she reserved for prayers and for total strangers.

“I don’t know. She was dressed for a very fancy affair.”

“Under God’s sky, you do this to people!” she hollered in a brazen Creole.

“We are doing that poor indigent a favor burying him,” he said.

Her voice was weighed down with pain and fatigue.