Advent Summer: The Year 2005, Montego Bay; Metropolis by the sea.

On the calender, summer isn't officially here. But I say it is. Welcome to the city where the breeze is briny and sea is always at your disposal, and the sands there always cradle your step.

Mango trees tempt passersby with the promise of fruit to come, the gravalicious (avaricious) plot which ones they'll be taking in the coming weeks. Naseberries begin to bear and of course litter my yard. If I were the enterprising type I'd be selling my produce down the road by now. Alas it isn't so, I'll continue to dream of dollar bills and coins and languish in the exhausting heat.

Summer here is hot and humid. The mornings are bathed in a blaring sun, where most things are too bright to look at and every pair of eyes you make contact with on the street a squinted (quint, if you speak the native tongue, I prefer quint). The asphalt on the streets are wavy with broiling oasis/marage type of look. By midday, the hills near Bogue and Pitfour, are beginning to blacken with clouds. The horizons on the sea, the coast that takes you to Negril are teaming with cumulunimbus clouds that always posture as though there is a coming storm. The air and breeze gets drastically cool. And usually at roughly 2pm the rains come.

Depending on where you are, you'll people huddled up and sheltered under any piece of awning or eve of buildings... in the heart of town waters will course through the streets and drains, like blood through veins, and you'll hear in certain places the very quiet quenching of parched earth and almost melting asphalt. It is a sort of siesta... as huddled vendor take time out to talk instead of the chorus of marketing jingles and ploys in attempt to seduce passers by into more than likely an unnecessary purchase. Taxi men will burn their spliff and their Craven 'A'(the cigarette of choice outside of Kingston). The bleachers who had been playing a sly game of hide and seek with Mr. Sun will take the reprieve to make their rounds; hair products, creams etc.

In the residential areas outside the humming or even throbbing heart of this unusual metropolis you will find children who just finish school, those who just made an early skip, and those who finished their shifts at twelve all frolicking in a most "Winnie the Pooh" adventure type of sense, through water, trees, building paper boats set sail in small coursing streams or drains. Shoes will have been long since place in school bags and pants legs rolled straight up to at least shin height. The neighbourhood bars will be refuge to those dying for a drink and a draw since 10 am, but never had an excuse to.

At roughly 6pm the streets fill with those who are making the trek home (if not in Mobay, then to Lucea, Falmouth, Sav, even Ochi and St. Bess) or simply free from desks and computers and ready to forage the concrete jungle for a roadside dinner, alcohol and sex. As the night persist you'll realise that the rains were temporary reprieve from the heat and humidity. The skies are deep blue and in this city, scantily dotted with stars (more than Kingston though). Street sides and bars begin to erect the outdoor speaker towers (espcially on a Friday night) and people discard their customer services persona(what little of it they have) and let liquor and marijuana become there guides into the rest of the night. Street sides are filled with the come around girls who are looking for some sucker to fool (no pun intended).

As you step out of the heart of town, the bars and streets take on a vintage appeal. Bars stop carrying the name "bar" and acquire the esteemed title of taverns or pubs. The crowds usually range from the mid 40's to even the late 80's. The dim light will hide the years on the faded glam madams of what seems Montego Bay's and even Planet Jamaica's golden era or Pax Xaymaca, if you were ever to believe all the "pub chatter". At night no matter where you are it is highly probable that you'll see the Cornwall Regional Hospital ( The hospital that has the privilege of being the largest in the Caribbean I believe- "thaz to poke at all non-Jamaican readers"). MoBay's HipStrip is teaming with "touristy" activities and I'm probably there at the distinguished and rustic Sports bar, MOBAY PROPER.