The Firsts Among Firsts

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.
― Wayne W. Dyer

The duality of karma

This is going to be the funniest BTP (“Behind The Pen”) segment that I have ever written. I had so much fun creating the backstory for the main character of this story and, in a beautiful twist, I didn’t even use him that much. And yet, The Jamaican was still managed to pull all my test readers in within the few pages he was introduced in. I count that as a win in my book and for good reasons since I will be using him, again. But, of course, I’m getting ahead of myself. Allow me to explain how The True Colors of Karma came about.

If you remember back in 2018, we witnessed a long going pattern of black people having the cops called on them for the most mundane of tasks – using by white people, women more often than not. Now, though this is nothing new for the black community, the first time this type of practice was brought to my attention was when I read about two black men getting arrested at Starbucks for just…sit down (read here). Even I’m guilty of that; it’s a common thing at Starbucks. People go to Starbucks to use the WiFi. Needless to say, everybody on all sides was in outrage. However, I stood at a moment of inspiration.

Wishing that people can get their comeuppance at a much faster, satisfying rate, I began to imagine a being that could do just that. Inflict instant karma like that spell from Charmed and give that being a name that is as much of a mystery as his origin and the full extent of his power. I settled on the name “The Jamaican” because it sounds the coolest. Plus, “The Haitian” was already taken. Haha!

Wanting him to be the Cosmic’s embodiment of karma, I wanted him to be very detached regarding his feelings towards humanity.  It also wouldn’t hurt that he would have a certain sense of dry humor when talking about – and to – humans. I think I will do that for all of my creatures/beings/monsters. Being serious is something I do only when it’s called for – and it almost never called for. The more detached you are, the more humorous you should be is usually my approach to character creation. Plus, I wanted him to have a preferred type of target: racist people. That was me putting my little personal stamp in everything I write. Oh, how I do hate racism and prejudice. Especially when those said people have no shame in it; they are the worst of the bunch.

I have to give a major shoutout to James Willis. He did a wonderful job with being my creation to life. Martin and I only had to give him a few points about the character and he did the rest.  Mr. Willis, like me, is a teacher and a writer but also a poet and a musician. A damn good one, too. Please, follow him on Instagram. And, with that, I hope you enjoy the story.

You can buy the book on Amazon. The link is here.

You can also learn about it on Goodreads. The link for it is here.