Baba Galleh,
 Thank you for your refreshing prose,it is
wonderful,pls keep on dazzling us with your unique
writings.

Amy



Caliban’s Theory



By Baba Galleh Jallow



The voice startled me. I turned around. I was sure I
was alone in the room and the door was closed. I
thought perhaps someone was passing outside. But the
voice sounded as if it was in the room. It was so loud
and clear. I had arrived at school 45 minutes early
and had gone into the classroom and sat on my chair.

"Well you must be surprised to hear me talk," it said
again.

I peeped under the table and walked to the door. I
opened it and looked outside, left right, in front. No
sign of any person. I closed the door again, fearing I
might be going crazy or having a hallucination. I had
heard of hallucinations but it had never happened to
me. I sat back in my chair and vigorously shook my
head. I plucked my fingers into my ears to see if I
would hear any funny noises in my head. Nothing.

"Well, well, well. You keep staring at me anytime you
come into this room and you are frightened out of your
wits when I talk to you."

The voice again. I got up and picked my book bag.

"No need to run, my friend. It’s me, Caliban, right
here on the wall. I won’t harm you. I can’t. Just
thought you wanted to talk because you look at me all
the time. Figured you’d be interested in talking
before your classmates come in."

I stopped, staring at the Caliban poster hanging on
the opposite wall.

"Caliban? Are you really talking to me?" I struggled
to keep from shouting or rushing out of the room.

"Yes, I am talking to you. Of course, no one would
believe you if you told them I talked to you. No one
shows any interest in me as you do. For all the many
years I have been hanging here. So relax and let’s
have a chat."

I sat back down.

"So you can talk?"

"How else would I be talking you if I couldn’t?" he
said. "Well, tell me. Why do you show so much interest
in me? You don’t stare at the other posters in this
room as you stare at me."

"That’s true, Caliban," I said. "I guess I am
intrigued by your story, the difficult times you had
on your island with Prospero, Ariel and the other
spirits."

"Ha! Prospero! The devil break his nose!" he cursed.
"Prospero stole my island from me after my mother died
and enslaved me by his magic - termites eat his eyes!
Would I were able to lay my hands on him! Or have a
single hour with that wench of his! He accused me of
trying to seduce her. If I had the chance, I would
turn his entire race into Calibans - the devil pluck
his eyes!"

"But Prospero is long dead, Caliban. How come you are
still alive? Or are you?"

"Dead? Prospero dead? Death is an illusion, my friend.
Maybe half-dead, I would say. He is at least
half-alive. You see him everywhere around you, don’t
you? If he were dead, he wouldn’t have been able to
keep me in this tortured position, these heavy logs on
my shoulders, these devil’s scales on my skin. You
think I was born like this, all green with fish
scales, stunted and ugly? It was Prospero made me like
this - may his entrails fall!"

"Me? Seen Prospero? How could I possibly see
Prospero?"

"Well, do you not see men everywhere with iron faces,
their noses turned up as if they are perpetually
smelling shit? Do you not see men on the streets, in
the train stations, the airports, the malls, the
offices - everywhere, pretending that they don’t poop,
regarding you as if you were some beast, monster, some
sub-human creature? Don’t you encounter such men all
the time? Well, they are all Prospero - the dogs take
his liver!"

"Well that’s an interesting proposition, Caliban. I
figure you would say then that you too are out there
on the streets, the shops, the offices . . . ?"

"But of course. But unlike Prospero, I am fully alive.
We are all Calibans. You, me, everyone who does not
look like Prospero - may he feed on rot! In this
world, there are only two people - Prospero and
Caliban. True, some Prosperos are more Prospero than
others while some Calibans are more Caliban than
others. But there are only two people. Us Caliban and
them Prospero."

"Us?"

"Oh, you are Caliban too, my friend and you very well
know it."

"Hmmn. Another interesting proposition, Caliban. But
tell me: where then do you place the Asians and
Latinos? They certainly are not Prospero; neither are
they Caliban. Aren’t they somewhere in between?"

"They ARE Caliban, " he said. "Maybe just less Caliban
than you and me."

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "You ARE right, Caliban. In a
sense, you are right. But why don’t you ever put down
those logs and rest your shoulders?"

"For the same reason that you can’t put down your
burden," he said.

"My burden? I’m not carrying any burden, Caliban."

"Or yes you are," he said, emphatically. "All Calibans
are carrying a load on their shoulders. Unlike mine,
yours is invisible but you feel its weight
nevertheless. Some of us carry it with pride and
refuse to feel burdened and sad as Prospero would wish
us to be. Some of us sink under it; take refuge in
drugs, or some other self-destructive habit. Some of
us try to become Prosperos by replacing our flat noses
with pointed plastic ones, like that rat of a singer
who now has no nose. Poor guy. And some of us end our
lives in despair. You see it every day, my friend,
don’t you?"

"Yes, Caliban. I see it everyday. It is very clear
what you are saying. You certainly are very
knowledgeable and intelligent. You are not the Caliban
Shakespeare shows us in his play."

"Ha, Shakespeare! He’s just another Prospero. But I
don’t blame him. It is all that devil Prospero’s fault
- the buzzards peck his lungs! He stole my island and
subdued me with his magic and made a slave of me. He
made me work like an ass and gave me the cramps and
the pinches whenever I dared talk back to him. He
hated the very idea that I could talk like him. He
claimed to teach me language - may bees sting his
green heart! He did not teach me language. He taught
me his language, the fool! I already had my language
before he came to my island."

"He certainly was very unfair to you, Caliban. He
refused to see that you were human like him."

"He still just reluctantly accepts me and you as human
beings because he is forced by the law to do so. Once
a devil always a devil! Did you see all those terrible
names he called me?"

"Yes, he was very harsh," I said. "You certainly are
not a beast or a monster. I’m just sorry that you
could not get rid of him as planned with Trinculo and
Stephano."

"Ha! I was a fool to trust those drunkards. They gave
me wine and loosened my tongue. And I babbled all that
nonsense about submitting to them and helping them
kill Prospero - the dog pee in his mouth! And what
terrible names those idiots called me! Devil, delicate
monster, weak monster, credulous monster, perfidious
monster, drunken monster, scurvy monster, puppy-headed
monster, abominable monster, ridiculous monster,
howling monster - they almost monstered me to death,
the devil take them! And then in their drunkenness,
they botched the assassination plan and gained us all
the cramps and the stings and some time in that hell
of a cell! Would I had never met them!"

"But Prospero forgave you, in the end," I said.

"According to Prospero-Shakespeare," he corrected me.
"If he had forgiven me, would he give me these green
scales, these fat red lips, this flat head, and have
me stand barefooted on these sharp rocks, carrying
these heavy logs forever? Look around you. Who else in
this room is like me? But I will meet him in hell, and
I swear I will ram these logs down his ghoulish
throat. But hey, I hear someone coming. So, let’s talk
some more some other time."

The door opened and two of my classmates walked in. A
few moments later, Dr. Barbarese and the rest of the
class came in. We all went along and had a cheerful
breakfast at Tiffany’s, remembering good old Holly
Golightly and wondering what on earth became of her.
Every once in a while, I glanced up at the silent
Caliban and thought he was not so silent after all. I
kept repressing the urge to tell my colleagues that I
just had a chat with Caliban. They probably would have
called 911 and asked for an ambulance.






---------------------------------
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! MSN
Messenger Download today it's
FREE!¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤To
unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go
to the Gambia-L Web interfaceat:
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.htmlTo
Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to:
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-lTo
contact the List Management, please send an e-mail
to:[log in to unmask]¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤