🎶SESAME, LET ME EAT— A New Wave of Musical Prose with Caribbean Soul 🎤📖 🎸

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"Sesame": A Mirror in the Steam
New Short Story – Political Allegory Meets Dub Studio Realism

What happens when a Bulgarian songwriter walks into a dub studio in Kingston?
Sweat, smoke, and metaphor. In my latest story, “Sesame,” we travel from the sticky heat of Jamaica to the slow-boiling steam of post-Soviet disillusionment. But this isn’t just about escape — it’s about looking into the mirror we avoid.

A notebook, a guitar, and the ghost of Ivan Vazov.
Coxi asks a simple question. Stan answers with rhymes, rebellion, and reflections on authority, betrayal, and the illusions we call democracy. It’s about the hamam — not the building, but the condition. The fog we live in. The warmth that lulls us into obedience.

“Say ‘Sesame, let me eat,’ and the stew is yours—
But ask too loud, ‘Who runs this feast?’...”

This is political satire with rhythm, layered with references — from Elin Pelin to dub riddims, from Eastern Rumelia to the modern precariat.

Read the full story here and let me know what you think:

SESAME, LET ME EAT

The heat in Kingston was sticky, suffocating, all-encompassing, spiced with the scent of seasonings and gasoline. Coxi’s studio had no air conditioning—but it had soul. Rhythm clung to the walls, remnants of past improvisations and sleepless nights. Cables snaked along the floor, microphones stood like old sages, and a forgotten cigarette smoldered in the ashtray.
Stan sat by the window, where the fan spun with the strength of last hope. Stella adjusted her headphones. Nina stood with a cigarette, her eyes missing nothing.
Coxi was buried in the soundboard.
“So,” he said, his English softened by patois, “what’s a Bulgarian doing in a dub studio in Kingston with a guitar and a notebook?”
Stan smiled.
“Running from the hamam,” he said.
Coxi looked confused. Stella clarified:
“A Turkish bath. But here—it’s a metaphor.”
“You run from a bath?”
“From the feeling of being in one,” Stan said. “Where everyone pretends to purify themselves but just sweats in the same fog.”
“So, an allegory?” Nina added. “Not a temple—a hamam. Not enlightenment, but steam and self-delusion?”
“Exactly. And it’s not just a word. Vazov used it.”¹
“Who?”
“A major Bulgarian writer. He wrote that the regional parliament in Eastern Rumelia² used to meet in a former Turkish bath. So when someone ran for office, they were basically applying… for the hamam.”
Nina chuckled.
“Sounds like fighting for a seat in a sauna that never stops boiling.”
“Not just fighting,” Stella said. “Promising. Like Vazov described—not ideals or reforms, but roads, lower taxes, help for your aunt’s school. Sesame-promises. You open the cave, then vanish.”
“As long as you promised,” Stan nodded. “Nobody expects delivery.”
Coxi looked up.
“So that's how it is in Bulgaria?”
Stan’s voice stayed calm.
“In Bulgaria, we love to hate the one who asks. Especially if they ask: ‘Who is Sesame?’ or ‘Why are we always eating the same slop?’”
“And yet you write songs about it,” Nina said. “It’s not just escape. There’s pain in your lyrics—but also belief.”
Stan flipped a few pages of his notebook, then read aloud:
The twisted joy of being fooled again
is served today, fresh from the pan.
Ali Baba and the dream-crew in steam
push you forward, sell you the plan.
The cave is rich—with red gold, pain, and lies,
but anyone who dares to rise
will lose his turban, and his head,
and crawl instead.
“A song about betrayal?” Nina asked.
“No. About getting used to it,” Stan replied. “Like being slowly boiled in a pot. You stop noticing the heat. Sesame feeds you. So what if you're chained?”
“Why accept it?” asked Coxi.
“Because it’s easier to kneel than to dig your way out. In the hamam, no one expects change. Just steam. Just a show.”
He continued reading, now in tighter rhyme:
Say ‘Sesame, let me eat,’ and the stew is yours—
the people’s pot, reheated chores.
But ask too loud, ‘Who runs this feast?’
and you’ll get kicked like some bad beast.
“That’s about how future rulers are seduced,” Nina said. “They feast—then get leashed.”
Stan read on:
Sesame is a mighty brute
who guards your blurred buffet and loot
from truth, from summer's rising tide,
from children’s hunger kept inside.
“This isn’t just a song,” Nina said quietly. “It’s a mirror. Distorted—but true.”
“A mirror in the hamam,” Stella added. “You see nothing clearly—until you're steamed enough.”
Stan read the last part:
The precariat³ finds some excuse
to stop the fight, to cut it loose.
Then served again the same old slop—
and no one thinks to make it stop.
“Sesame,” he said quietly. “We all know that story.”
“We have the precariat,” Stella said. “That’s the people. We have Sesame—the figure of power. But who holds real control? Some post-Soviet elite? Eastern comprador class?”
“Kakistocracy,” Stan said. “Kakistadors. It’s their time now—an age where the least capable seize power not with swords, but with empty promises and bureaucratic arrogance.”
Nina exhaled smoke.
“So what do people do when Sesame devours them? Go back to him?”
“Sometimes not,” Stan said. “Sometimes they leave him in the mud.”
“How?”
“Andreshko.”⁴ A short story by Elin Pelin. A peasant abandons a tax collector in a swamp. Doesn’t hit him. Doesn’t kill him. Just lets him sink in his own authority.
“So there are such moments?”
“Quiet refusals. Small rebellions. They’re the start. Sometimes you don’t need a cannon—just mud. And exhaustion with hypocrisy.”
“What will this thing be called?” Nina asked.
Stan looked at her. Then at Stella.
“Sesame,” he said. “We all know that tale.”

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Footnotes:

1. Ivan Vazov – Bulgaria’s national writer, often considered the father of modern Bulgarian literature. His works critically portray society, politics, and national identity.
2. Eastern Rumelia – An autonomous Ottoman province (1878–1885) in what is now southern Bulgaria. The provincial parliament famously met in a repurposed Turkish bathhouse, satirized by writers like Vazov.
3. Precariat – A term combining “precarious” and “proletariat.” Describes the growing class of people with unstable jobs, few rights, and economic insecurity.
4. Andreshko – A satirical short story by Bulgarian writer Elin Pelin. A peasant tricks and abandons a greedy tax collector in a swamp. A symbol of passive resistance and folk justice.

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HERE `S THE SONG USED IN THE STORY:
https://shemzee.bandcamp.com/track/--727

TO BE CONTINUED

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