Chasing Sugar

Since we have arrived here it has been a smooth machine of luxury. The kids are picking soft shaped pieces of glass that have been washed up on the beach by gentle waves. The palm trees are humming in the wind swaying side to side. Yesterday I ate raw seafood on the beach that I bought from a man with a bag full of it. In the evening the locals dance while we watch. I can hear them every night as I lay awake in the moonlight when they go from dancers to happy drunks settling their romantic debts.

There was an hour of rain on the second day. Heavy drops, soaking the dry sand and everybody’s clothes. There are no umbrellas here. Nobody wants to carry them.

Oh Scandinavian hate you blossom wildly on icy meadows.

I’ve had to buy an extra suitcase to make space for new indigenous artifacts. They are made to accompany minimal art and Eames furniture. Or to call a godly wrath of erotic power. Religious commercialism with handy side effects for the sophisticated and perverted modern human. These are the objects we store in bunkers during wars and take out when peace comes around once more.

There has been plenty of war here. We used to own these places. Its funny to think about white men in clean clothes running around here chasing sugar. We couldn’t make it work so we tried relentlessly to get rid of these places, according to history. However, as any sane person living in a tropical wonderland we wanted to get paid to leave. So we sold everything to USA so they could park their warships.

Other countries didnt sell their new lands. Too much sugar to be chased and when there was no more sugar they just sat there and soaked up the sun.

Some places we can’t get rid off, not yet, but with the prospects of black gold and the power of skewed anthropology maybe we will be able to re-establish our borders. But this is the future and we are talking about the past. The present is hard to talk about as we are sending our sons through sandy dunes in the dark, alone without their mothers and girlfriends, heavily armed and trained to survive or die with a purpose.

Now its dinner time here. The kids have collected their soft shaped glass, a cricket and some beautiful banana leaves. Its more seafood and coconut rice. Its more cocktails and the locals are starting to move about as the sun is setting over the blue ocean. A pianist is playing “Sail Away” by Randy Newman. I put my hand on the old piano and sing along to my favorite line “You’ll just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day”

Anders Scrmn Meisner

March 28th, 2016