Anthrow Circus

MORE BY Denise Campbell

Jamaican-born, US-based, Denise Campbell is an international communication consultant, content strategist, and travel and culture writer providing strategic communication planning and content development for such industries as international relations and development, media, healthcare, and technology. Formerly, she was head writer and communication lead at the Geneva-based Convention Against Torture Initiative, a UN-supported organization charged with global ratification and implementation of the UN Convention Against Torture. Denise’s fiction has been featured in the Caribbean Writer Vol. 27 and awarded the anthology’s David Hough Literary Prize for her short story “Where Dreams Die,” an excerpt from her debut novel Journey to Land of Look Behind. Denise has a bachelor’s in political science and English from New York University and a master’s from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Service and from American University’s School of International Service. She is fluent in Spanish and conversant in French.

Where Dreams Die

FICTION BY DENISE CAMPBELL
IMAGES BY KAMI RICE and JC JOHNSON

“Wake up, Indigo! Time to start this journey you come here for.”
Aunt Mercie’s singsong call rushed in with the sound of the rooster crowing. We woke to a washed-out, downcast morning. But by the time Salome and I loaded the crocus sacks of groceries into the back of the pickup, the sun had put in an appearance. She’d landed in Kingston two nights before and had to make the trip with me to visit my sisters—Samira in Bog Walk and Claudine in Lional Town. Salome and I had grown up on the same street in Norbrook, in the hills of Kingston, and gone to high school together before attending universities in different parts of the world. Even so, we were bonded friends for life in the way Catholic high school compatriots often are.

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