University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2010 Contact Brittany Osbourne University of Central Florida Part of the Creative Writing Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Osbourne, Brittany, "Contact" (2010). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 4448. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/4448 CONTACT by BRITTANY OSBOURNE B.A. University of South Florida, 2007 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2010 © 2009 Brittany Osbourne ii ABSTRACT This fiction novel focuses on the Sankofa philosophy that we as human beings must learn from our past to better understand our current existence and future; however, sometimes we choose to ignore or suppress the past because remembering it may be too hurtful. When we forget what happened yesterday our outlook on today and tomorrow becomes distorted. Contact is a novel that attempts to explore how “living in the now” alone becomes problematic because the past—if not remembered—will come back to haunt you. The erasure of the line between Diasporic Africans and their African past is the primary theme explored. The writer deconstructs how living in the now is indeed living in the past because the past and present, in the life of Tufa, become one. Reincarnation serves as the vehicle to explore this theme. Tufa, known for her aberrant behavior, is the reincarnation Afua Ataá—an Ashanti woman who survived the Maafa, or Transatlantic Slave Trade. Past love, hate, dishonor, rivalry, pain, and hope complicate the “ordinariness” of Tufa’s teenage life. The novel is divided into a prologue and eight chapters. The bulk of each chapter follows Tufa’s current life and ends with a vignette told by five African women, one being Afua Ataá. Each vignette paints in broad strokes the landscape and historical moments of the Maafa. The present becomes complicated when traces of the Maafa seep into Tufa’s life. Some of these traces are culturally specific rather than unique to Tufa. However, other traces are uniquely shaped by Tufa’s former life. People from her past disrupt her current life by their presence. Their disruption takes many forms—some of it brings pain and some of it brings joy. By reading Tufa’s story, others may find the strength to confront their past when it makes contact with their present. Like Tufa, we must confront the pain in our past to experience its joy. iii To the millions who fought and whose remains sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic. May your spirits rise again in the hearts and minds of those who survived. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PROLOGUE: WINDY BIRTH ...................................................................................................... 1 Rattle, Rattle, Rattle.................................................................................................................. 11 CHAPTER ONE: ABNORMAL .................................................................................................. 13 Nana Day and Night ................................................................................................................. 30 CHAPTER TWO: FIRE ............................................................................................................... 33 The Dead Talks......................................................................................................................... 51 CHAPTER THREE: SIGN........................................................................................................... 53 Broken Screams ........................................................................................................................ 70 CHAPTER FOUR: BLIND .......................................................................................................... 73 Unlucky..................................................................................................................................... 95 CHAPTER FIVE: FISH TALE .................................................................................................... 97 Splash...................................................................................................................................... 118 CHAPTER SIX: SPOOKISM..................................................................................................... 119 Enemy ..................................................................................................................................... 133 CHAPTER SEVEN: KEY .......................................................................................................... 135 Madness .................................................................................................................................. 173 CHAPTER EIGHT: REUNION ................................................................................................. 175 Forgive.................................................................................................................................... 210 APPENDIX A: WRITING LIFE ESSAY .................................................................................. 211 APPENDIX B: BOOK LIST ...................................................................................................... 217 v PROLOGUE: WINDY BIRTH The baby folks called Tufa was born on a day when the realm between the living and dead was thin. Tufa, the name her Daddy gave her, was short for two and four, together twenty- four. Twenty-four meant wata in the gambling game back home and he could not stop babbling Tufa, Tufa, Tufa when streams of it dripped down his woman’s thighs. So much wata, that’s all he could see. Don’t let the baby drown Jah, he had prayed, as he left his woman to find help. His woman was alone. Only the wind kept her company. The wind was ancient and far from home. It found comfort in making an infinity symbol, by swirling around the woman’s sprawled thighs. It never touched her but wanted to. It could easily be mistaken for a draft wafting through the open door. That’s how the wind liked it. Ulrica took no heed to the wind as her toes curled and back arched off the mattress. If she listened closely, she would hear the heart of the wind. It beat like a talking drum in the distance, but her screams drowned it out. Her sweat-glistening thighs parted wider; her cries were the only sound that could be heard from Camp Building Seven. The wind retreated from the screams and floated over the empty bunk beds where three hundred West Indian men stretched out their weary bodies. It settled over boots caked in black muck from the Belle Glade swamps. It cooled the metal of knee and shin guards that spared many legs in the fields from a fatal machete swipe. It dried the cane juice, fresh blood, and salty sweat on rusty machetes. On the kitchen counters, where electric hotplates piled up, it danced. Soon the wind was drawn back to the woman. It found a spot next to a portable television on a bed beside hers. It settled on top of dirty sheets and waited. 1 Sheets. They balled in Ulrica’s fingers. No matter how much she screamed to God or pushed until tears rolled down her high cheeks, the baby simply would not come. Helplessly, the wind watched. To evade her screams, it wanted to flee through the open door. However, something kept the wind there. Something inside the woman’s stretch marked belly that had yet to be born. The screams never abated. The wind groaned and fled to the window. It searched for anyone who could soothe the mother with their presence, something it yearned to do but could not. The vendor called Crazy Dollymon pushed a shopping cart toward the building, hummed “Buffalo Soldier,” and stopped to yank the caster wheels out of the gluttonous mud. When the wind spotted the vendor, it blew on the door. Crazy Dollymon, like most vendors, flocked to the work camps to sell anything and everything to the West Indian farm workers that chopped sugarcane. However, unlike most vendors, Crazy Dollymon was well…crazy. Although his shrewdness could make a worker buy his own crusty drawers, Crazy Dollymon arrived at camp when least expected and least wanted. As Ulrica’s stomach grew, the wind had watched the vendor. It had blown the vendor’s shopping cart into a pool of mud when Crazy Dollymon sold toilet paper to a worker that nearly messed himself as he raced to find a private spot in the fields to release his bowels. When a group of men complained to the camp manager about not receiving any meat in five days, Crazy Dollymon had barged into the meeting selling a pregnant raccoon covered in tire marks. The wind had pushed Crazy Dollmon’s face into the raccoon’s belly for the affront. The wind blew and blew on the open door but it would not budge. In the threshold, it decided to wait. The vendor rolled his shopping cart past the shotgun-styled camp buildings. 2 Camp building one…two…three. The closer the vendor rolled his cart the louder the wind moaned. Four…five…six. Crazy Dollymon stopped singing when his locs fanned around his face and dirt