The chile wun talk

Now I just felt like writing something random with no point at all today so here goes a little story. Gather round now I going to do this old time West Indian story teller style.

Crick crack break mi back. (According to the Trini folk that means is story time I starting. Bajans aint so fancy we would just say something like looka sit down I tryin ta tell wunna sumting.)

Now when I was in my program at University I met all types of people but one particular fellow stands out in my mind. His name was John (name changed to protect the innocent). John was this little mousy guy who looked like a 14 year old even though he was in third year of university. The proverbial 90lb weakling that got sand kicked in his face like in those Charles Atlas ads which along with ads for sea monkeys and cracker jacks were prevalent in the back of 1970s comics books.

I really didn't know much about John, just noticed him sitting quietly in class. He was sort of a friend of a friend but I never hung out in the cafeteria with the folks in my program (a bit too rowdy for me) so we never really spoke outside of class. All I knew was that John was rather strange looking and many of the bigger guys in our class picked on him because of his size, looks and his inability to defend himself which I thought was a bit unfair.

In speaking to my friends they all said "that fella John sort of weird" and they made fun of him. When I pressed for details no one could or would tell me anything really out of the ordinary that accounted for his weird status and since weird was all subjective in my program I was a bit skeptical. I mean hey I'll be the first to admit I'm missing a few screws so who was I to judge. That is until that one fateful day I had a conversation with John.

Somehow that day I ended up partnered with John in tutorial. I remember this annoying guy Sam (another name change) who I wasn't particularly fond of, sat in front of us and kept turning around to tease John about some incident from the previous summer when both of them had been part of the second half of our class who had gone on a field trip. We were all in a tutorial room sitting on stools in front of oversized drawing tables, with a bit of time to kill as the T.A went through stuff with individual groups. Eventually Sam tired of his teasing and John and I struck up a conversation. It started out normal enough. We were talking about our class and our marks and just stuff related to school in general. My initial thoughts were well now I see why its good to actually find out about persons for yourself and not listen to other folks belief. This guy John is an alright dude.

Suddenly the innocent conversation took a turn for the worse. John started talking about his childhood.

John: " When I was a kid my parents thought that I had learning problems"
Me: "Oh really? You mean like they thought you were developmentally challenged, like you were slow or something?"
John: "Yep."
Me: "Why was that, were you slow at school or something?"
John: "Oh no, no. But I didn't speak for about 4 years and they thought something was wrong with me."
Me: " Well ummm four is kind of late to start talking but I know some children who didn't speak till there were 3 , three and a half years old and it is a bit worrying to parents. I can understand how...."
John: " No, no. I didn't speak between the ages of 7 and 11"
Me: "What?"
John:" This was right after I saw the aliens in my backyard."

Hol up! Wait a minute. I know he didn't just say something about aliens?
What da??

Me; " Aliens? Oh you mean like illegal aliens, people who aren't here in Canada legal?
John: "No I mean aliens from outer space dressed in white. Actually they were glowing as well."
Me: " Ummm, ya sure dem wasn't like some spiritual baptist/tie head people dress up in all white coming from a baptism or something so?"
John: "Ummm no."
Me: "Ok then" I said as I nervously inched my way off the stool looking for the nearest exit "ummm if you say so"

John then proceeded to give me a detailed description of these glowing beings he saw in his backyard when he was 7 years old while I nervously looked around trying to figure out how to respond besides nodding my head and the occasional 'ok'.

It was one of the most disturbing yet laugh out loud funniest conversations I have ever had. I'm trying my best to keep a serious face while John goes on about his close encounters of the third kind. In my head I'm thinking "great work jdid, the guys said he was weird but no you had ta go and talk ta de poppit fa yaself. chupse! You couldn't take their word for it. Ok I can walk out of this one alive. Just whatever you do don't laugh. Whatever you do look serious and pay attention."

So I'm sitting there the model of concentration hanging on every word John speaks as he continues on telling me about how the shock of seeing the aliens left him speechless for 7 years. He also told me about how he started speaking again too but I forgot that part or I was so much in shock at the first part that I probably just never really really heard it.

After the class I asked one of the guys who knew John better than myself if he had heard the alien story. Apparently he had not. For some reason John had opened up to me alone. Disturbing!

Anyway John seemed to like me for some strange reason and so after that we became friends. I was still a bit weirded out and sometimes I couldn't help but crack a smile when I saw him but he was a good guy nevertheless and the important thing was that the alien story never ever came up again.

Jack Mandora mi nuh choose nun. (They tell me dat is how real story suppose to end so I dun)