The taxi was suffocating. At any moment Sophie was sure she would pass out. Though curtains of rain terrorised the outside, inside she was burning up. Why did so many taxi drivers have dry-weather cars in a tropical climate? She knew the answer would not be forthcoming but she continued to be perplexed by this anomaly. She had been sitting in this taxi for more than half an hour before it started to rain. Now as she looked outside she saw a piece of rainbow try to attach itself to the fearsome sky. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough sun to give it the light it needed. No one else was in the car. She wondered how much longer would she sit in the boiling heat before she tried to save her life. As she contemplated this, three men approached the car and opened the doors.
” Go over pretty girl.” But this man could be her grandfather who him calling ‘pretty girl but Sophie decided to keep her mouth shut. At this they all piled in, pushing her to the corner and bringing a bit of the outside with them. They were large men. The one at the front blocked out half the view and the two in the back with her made the heat even more oppressive. Immediately they both cracked the windows, letting in some of the rain. She could not bring herself to ask them to close them back much less look at them. She suddenly felt like she was not supposed to be there, in a car with three men.
“Driver yuh nuh ready!” The impatient call of the one to her left mirrored her sentiments. After all, she had been sitting here now for more than an hour!
“One an’ ready, one an’ ready!” the deafening monotone of the driver enlightened all in the vehicle to the fact that he was not ready and if that did not alert them to this fact then certainly his pointed stare-down while he was screaming like a banshee did. It was this call of “one and ready” that had convinced her to take this taxi, along with the impending rain. Now she knew she had been duped by that promise and wondered when the taxi would leave and where that next one would go.
“Small up yuh self.” Sophia realised she was apparently preventing someone from coming into the car, but still the worrying question. Where would this person go? She did not have long to find out. Just as she realised it was yet another man, the driver revealed his intention.
“Listen, yuh might have to sit in someone’s lap”.
“Driver, she look like she ready to jump out, let we just fix up, so him can come in.” This voice of reason must have seen the horror on her face. Imagine sitting in a stranger’s lap and then having to pay full fair. A stranger’s lap! “Jesus take the wheel,” she thought, dumbfounded by this new ordeal. How did this day seem so long? Sophia was certain that if the men in the car did not kill her then the slow pace of the afternoon would. All she wanted to do was go home and have night come and done, so she could wake up and find out if she really was a big dufus. Finally, the taxi left the stand.
As the taxi sped along she became aware of being in danger. Here she was, a lone female in a car with five men. Sophia began to have visions of her broken and battered body being found, after being abused by these men. Her poor mother would be devastated! She could imagine how everyone would suffer, all because she stayed in a car with these five men. She wondered why she had to find herself in these kinds of situations. She thought of getting off before her stop when they passed people along the sidewalk. She knew that she did not want to die here, like this.
“Relax my girl, nobody won’t do you anything. Why you lookng so nervous.” His laugh was a bit too velvety smooth. She could feel the blood rush to her head suddenly and knew she was about to blackout. She tried to breathe in some fresh air but was attacked instead by the stench of garbage bubbling to the top of the open drains on Thomas Road. Everything was pressing in on her. It seemed her vision was failing her. Everything was becoming a blur and the people she now saw standing on the roadside seemed ghostlike.
“One stop driver!” She wondered if the desperation she heard in her voice was her imagination too, or was it real.
“One Stop driver!”
“Wait nuh! You want me to stop in the road or what?” Praise God, she had reached her stop. She did not care if the driver was upset, she just wanted to get out, quick. She was finally out of that car. Never again, she told herself. As Sophia went home she reflected on her near miss.
“Boy, I have to be more careful, you can never be too careful.”
“Miss. You don’t pay yeh enuh.”
Embarrassed, Sophia turned around and quickly dropped the fare in the driver’s outstretched hand whipped back around and sped off quickly toward her safe harbour. Boy, this was truly a day! As she went she wondered if this was a sign that tomorrow fortune would smile on her and bring her sunshine after the rain. tomorrow could not be worse than today.
