SandScript 2021

OH, ANTIGUA
Courtney Armstrong
The air smelled like lemons. The scent so powerful it was as if strips and spools of yellow
rind twirled in the clouds above. Lemongrass. The natives had to burn it or else it would
devastate the landscape, the way absinthe swirls into an oily stain on artisan glass. Puffs
of smoke dotted the mountainside all the way down to Monserrat. Leaves the size and
shape of elephant ears fell from the dome of dense trees and lay on the ground, discarded
trophies lucky enough to be missed by the spreading fires, only to be scooped up by
happy tourists and smuggled into Chanel backpacks when the guides weren’t looking.
Black pineapple, the gold of Antigua, cut up into the smallest of cubes before the long
hike back down to the bottom. Sticky juice stippled their chins, smoke stung their eyes, and
they looked up at the sky as it squeezed citrus rain upon the mountain for the very first time.
The air is quilted with smoke. It burns our eyes and stains our clothes, two-ply anger
that penetrates our souls. Stupid lemongrass. Brought in by tourists who sneered at our
handsome terrain, unable to see the bronze rivers of cursive that flowed through the sand.
So now we must burn our land, scorch our hands and singe the hair on our arms to keep
the grass from smothering it, from suffocating us. The old trees discard their leaves, futile
and furious effort to hide the soil before the enraged blades devour more. And the tourists
scoop up that fallen foliage to take back to their homes, trophies that they don’t deserve.
They guttle our fruit and smack their lips. They do not notice the beauty, the spirit, the
music of our Antigua. And they certainly do not notice the rain that falls from our very souls.
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