Tezen: My Lovely Friend

By: Frantz Jean Baptiste

Narrated by: Torii Alaniz

The best days of my first year as a teenage girl were my encounters with Tezen, a lovely fish who always called me by my first name, Alicia, in the land of Haiti. I still remember our conversations, each of us desperately wanting to discover the universe of the other. There was a mystery somewhere for both of us to unearth. How do humans live? How do fishes live? Our questions sounded similar because our worlds were each unknown to one another.

Nevertheless, a thinly-veiled uncertainty on both sides kept this relationship from blossoming at first, a relationship which I now dream of reliving for its intriguing fairytale charm. In the morning, at noon, and at night in the old village, known as Les Cayes Jacmel, with only the murmuring music of local birds, the villagers knew the time to wake up, the time to eat, and the time to go to bed. The sea is just over 300 yards from my house. During the night, I imagine the atmosphere outside between the fish moving in the sea, the wind's song expressed through the trees; all this seemed magical to me. It was marvelous.

Surrounded by this every night, my imagination found meaning in the steady rhythm of the waves and the harmonious sound of fish jumping all night long. For this, I composed a little song about this extraordinary friendship with Tezen, a company that will impact the rest of my life.

Immersed in this nightly festival of nature and creatures of the ocean, I constantly dreamed of witnessing it one day for real. But as a budding teenager, I was forbidden to leave the house at night. So, tormented by my imagination, I decided to go to the seaside to satisfy this youthful curiosity every afternoon around 5:00.

In Les Cayes Jacmel, I had no friends near the village of Corail, where I lived. The legends often told in the evening, before bedtime, about werewolves' metamorphosis into animals fright me to walk after 7 pm. Besides, my parents were strict, which was why I found a way to fetch some drinking water quickly on my way home from school. The spring known as Nan Kreson is not far from the sea, accompanied sometimes by my little sister Minouche who was only nine years old. It was not Minouche's company that interested me; what I needed was a friend of my age with whom I could share my dreams.

©2022 Francois Frantz Jean Baptiste (P)2022 Francois Frantz Jean Baptiste