Barnabas J. Ramon-Fortune
Trinidad, West Indies
Barnabas J. Ramon-FortuneTrinidad, West Indies |
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Barnabas John Ramon-Fortune was born at Arima, a small town in the island of Trinidad in the West Indies, on 11th June, 1917. Arima is the last foothold of the indigenous Caribs whose place in the island and in the region is now only cultural and historical. The word "Arima" means "water". He is the eighth of nine children of Desiderio (1877-1951) and Eugenia (nee Going) (1875 - 1966). |
CinderellaThe clock strikes midnightand the magic ends: the fairy tale is over and the truth offends. The coronet, the necklace and the gown and shawl of ermine trimmed with eider down to tinsel and to ashen rags have turned; only a slipper, left in haste upon the stairway, overturned, remains unchanged and fancy chaste. The streets are all deserted, save for mice scuttling for safety through a broken wall as Cinderella draw her tattered shawl around her shoulders' but she feels at once that this will not suffice to warm her body or to quell her beating heart which is as cold as ice! Back to the ashes of her fireplace back to the dust from which she came before her fairy touched her with her wand and put a blush of beauty on her face, changed all her drabness to magnificence, set magic to her name so that no longer could she be the same she goes and crouches trembling in a corner! Than she, what other soul could be forlorner! O, frightened soul, my little Cinderella, don't you remember that you left behind' a slipper onto the stair? You did not disappear and leave no telltale sign to show that you were really there: the lovely maiden of the fairy tale! Even now, the heavenly prince is out in search of you, your slipper in his hand, to slip upon your foot and take you back with him to his own land! |