As life continues to unfold here in Guyana, a discombobulating feeling of blurred timelines appears to be encompassing our daily lives. The populace, at times, must be wondering if it has been bundled into a time machine gyroscope, and then suddenly catapulted back into stark reality at the dawn of each new day, as though one has just stepped off the Space Mountain rollercoaster at Disney World, in Florida.
Head spinning and wobbly legs create a disoriented feeling, as ‘Where am I?’ thoughts flood one’s faculties. Am I an extra on the set of Back to the Future? Is this John Steinbeck’s famous novel Cannery Row? Am I in Equatorial Guinea? Is this another sequel to the sci-fi movie The Matrix? Or is this a fairy tale, with a never-ending tea party, or the continuous counting of sheep?
Space Mountain, the iconic indoor coaster, with a wimpy top speed of 27 mph and a seemingly never ending series of twists and turns, relies on a back drop of complete darkness and special effects, rather than conventional big drops, to create the popular thrill ride. The loud screams coming from those brave enough to venture aboard Space Mountain are silently echoing here, as the uncanny feeling of being watched seeps into the mindset.
Pleasant dreams of new found mineral wealth, comprehensive medical health systems and facilities, and a world renowned educational structure drawing waves of immigrants from our immediate neighbours, are savagely interrupted by images of the luxury cars and opulent palaces owned by the son of the leader of Equatorial Guinea. Fully awake, one realizes it’s no longer a dream. Equatorial Guinea, the richest country per capita in Africa exists, where a handful enjoys the blessings bestowed by Nature, while less than 50 per cent of the population enjoys access to clean drinking water.
Cannery Row, a short street in the town of Monterey, California, on the edge of the Pacific, is the back drop for Steinbeck’s classic novel set in the time of the Great Depression. The author introduces us to all and sundry, including Mack and the boys, a small group of jobless men without family or money, who generally spend every day discussing various schemes and taking it easy.
It’s the Fourth of July, and Doc, a marine biologist and a central character in the book, bets a friend a quart of beer that Mack and the Boys, who, are sitting on a log facing away from the street where the annual town parade is scheduled to pass, wouldn’t even turn their heads. Half an hour later, as the parade passes, not a single member of the derelict group budges, despite the blaring band. “They have seen it all. They don’t have to look again,” Doc acknowledged
Prior, to making the bet Doc had made the following observation to his friend.
“Look at them. They are true philosophers. I think that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else.” (Cannery Row was first published in 1945).
In present day Guyana, as Mack and the Boys already know, even a visit to the set of Back to the Future, cannot remodel today’s scenario. The Past is the Future, and the Future is the Past. Time slots are interchangeable here. Nothing really changes, other than the sequence of one’s dreams.
