"Peace of Mind" by Akyiaa Wilson

From TRUTH BE TOLD's September 25th, 2025 show ("Scary Monsters!") Akyiaa Wilson's "Peace of Mind" tells the story of a terrifying inheritance possibly being passed down along generations of a Caribbean-American family….

Akyiaa Wilson is an actor, writer, comprehensive personal aesthetics professional, andcardigan fetishist, born and raised in Brooklyn. Cute baby pics at akia-wilson.com. 

TRUTH BE TOLD was created by Susan Kim and David Zellnik and each episode was produced and scored by Eric Svejcar. Logo designed by Joseph Zellnik.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello, and welcome to the final episode of Truth Be Told Season 1: Love and Monsters. Each of these 14 episodes has featured one story performed at Ensemble Studio Theater in New York City as part of the live event Truth Be Told. This story night was created by Susan Kim and David Zelnick and has featured members of EST and Friends who tell heartbreaking, embarrassing, hilarious true stories based on a theme. This seven-week season draws from our first two sold-out nights, one called First Love, First Lust, and the other Scary Monsters. Since this is our last episode, we are thrilled to announce we have planned season two set to debut in September 2026. Truth Be Told, Love and Theater. We'll draw on stories from two more nights of the show. Our first with the theme The Moment I Knew, and the second on a subject near and dear to our hearts, The Theatre. Again, we will be sharing 14 stories over seven weeks. Do hit like and subscribe and follow us so you don't miss a single episode. But now, without further ado, a return from one of our favorite storytellers, Akia Wilson, who is telling a tale of a terrifying inheritance that is maybe being passed down along generations of a Caribbean American family.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Exercise, engage, eliminate. I remember her. I was about seven years old, visiting my family on the island of Tobago, part of a Twin Island nation and a literal tropical paradise, 6.8 miles off the coast of Venezuela. She was quiet, unless she was yelling at us or chasing us with her cane. I remember she seemed tough. I remember being afraid of her. I remember she did not remember my name from day to day. Eyes sometimes blank, sometimes calm, sometimes full of rage. Who are you? Akiah. I mostly stayed out of her way. I remember my grandmother laying out her food for breakfast at the long wooden, impossibly heavy dining room table. I remember her being clean, baby powdered from knees to neck, and dressed in one of the many house dresses my mother had packed in our suitcases, hair tied in a scarf. My mother's mother's mother. I could not really fathom what that meant at that age. I lacked scope. All I knew is that she was ancient and that her room smelled like Detoll, a British disinfectant, and Tiger Bomb, a Chinese lineament, Alcolato Glacial from Curacao, a weird green liquid meant for splashing on and cooling oneself down, and curry. Sandalwood soap. I mean, it was the perfect amalgam of all of the cultural influences on Trinidad and Tobago. I remember her in the green faux leather easy chair that decorated the porch, in which it is rumored my oldest sister was born, but that's a story for another time. Looking, staring, uh sitting, taking a breeze. Not in the house, too stuffy. The porch, the table, the cane, the sunshine. I remember my grandmother fussing. You know, she seemed stressed. My grandmother was never stressed. She was all easy smiles and feeding chickens and sweet hand-grated chocolate tea served hot every morning. Watch her. Don't let her go down the stairs. Out the gate, down the hill. She's trying to get back to Darrow Spring, Rhong the Road, True de Gully, to she house, where she used to live, where she's from. Well, there's no one there. The house is empty, is rented, is occupied by your cousin. Sometimes she doesn't remember. She lives here now. Now we sit. We gaze. A mango? Coconut water, uh, some hops with tea, some cricks with juice, something to pass the time. I run inside to get some from my grandmother, and by the time I get back, she's out the gate, down the steps, halfway down the hill. Bring she back inside. I remember she took my small hand, not fighting me, and she we shuffled back inside. Close the gate, hide her slippers. Protein, calcium, ginkgo, gastro. When I came next, she was gone. Well, to be fair, I knew she would be. I heard the phone call in the night. I heard my mother weeping. The oldest living branch on the matrilineal tree, withered and fallen. And I blossomed, coming of age over the years on biannual voyages to tread the soil my mother was nurtured in. My sisters and cousins and I growing boobs and liking boys and graduations and sweet 16s until the year I noticed my grandmother's lively rolling gate had become kind of a shuffle. And she began to forget. We said we were going into town, to the beach, to Auntie Morrell's hotel. We said we told you. Don't you remember? I could forget that. You see where I put the matches? The pot spoon? The powdered milk? Is you a move, Miss Lipper? My pocketbook, my M M Ting. Put it down right there. Where gone, no? She's getting smaller, quieter, and her laugh is missing some of the high notes. When I see her next, it's in New York. And she's shuffling outright now. She needs support. When she holds on to you to get from the couch to the bathroom or the bedroom, it feels like she's holding on for dear life. Seriously, it almost hurts. It hurts. It hurts. I am in college and Granny lives with us now for months out of the year. You know, she has appointments and pills and all kinds of physical diagnostics, but I wonder if they can see what I see. The light in her eyes is dimmer. I hear the word senile every now and again. Let's just say Caribbean people aren't big into investigating brain disorders, whether they be emotional, intellectual, otherwise. A child having trouble at school is not right. A woman who can't seem to return to herself after having a baby is low. And when you get older and you start to wander, to forget, to think you're somewhere else, well, that's just how it is. You know? And maybe it's just a normal part of aging, but maybe it's not. And I wonder if her chickens miss her. I wonder if our grandfather misses her. I wonder how long she's been gone. Disproportionate, up-to-date, lifestyle change, social ties. It's Thanksgiving, junior year. I get on the bus in Syracuse, and by the time I make it to Port Authority, my brother-in-law is waiting for me. Weird. Granny had a fall. She got confused. Thought she could go outside. Forgot she was in New York, you know, no clothes to wash, no tea to make, no chickens to feed. They only keep her for a few hours. They do a few tests. She is physically unscathed. But when she comes home, she's not the same. She's not responding to her name as readily as before. And she never tries to get up anymore unless you pick her up. Her eyes are more dull somehow. And now it's my mother's turn to be anxious. She comes home from work at night looking more tired than I have ever seen before, anxious for the laborious ritual of coaxing my grandmother to eat, convincing her to bathe, and putting her to bed when she insists she just woke up. Creatine, calcium, ginkgo, gastro. At Christmas, when I come home, she barely turns her head when my mom says, Who is that, Edie? You know who that is? She laughs a little but doesn't respond. My mother presses her again. Tell me who it is. It's a Kia. Granny, it's a Kia. It's me. It's me. It's me. Patch. Protein. Probiotic Pilates. Patch protein. Probiotic Pilates. Patch protein probiotic Pilates. Summer post-college, and it's time for my grandmother to go back to Tobago. For good, home, finally. We've arranged for round-the-clock carers, and my mother is going to train them and stay for a while. Granny isn't moving from her chair anymore, my sister says. One time when she was sitting on the couch and my sister was in the shower, I guess she went to reach for something and sort of slowly tipped over and rolled onto the floor. When my sister found her a few minutes later, she was just sort of laying there, unable to get up, yes, but sort of not even trying. She needs to basically be carried from room to room. And the doctor says a part of her brain that's responsible for motor skills is probably damaged now. At least she'll be back in her yard on her hill in her life. Magnesium, mobility, lift heavy, eight hours sleep. Cube British West Indian Airways plane sound. They are on the island for 24 hours when we get a phone call. My grandmother has had a devastating fall. A broken hip. Keep her comfortable, rapid decline, peaceful transition. She was trying to get out into the yard. In the end, she died because she forgot she wasn't strong enough to walk. She forgot she couldn't walk. Complex choreo. Duolingo, words with friends, shoot the bunny. Shoot the bunny. Oh. Lately, when I talk to my mom, she sounds as if she's experiencing a low-grade panic attack at all times. Like, even if you ask her a simple question, she's immediately worked up. She needs explanations, instructions, directions, patience. She's lost a few tea kettles by leaving them on to boil until well after the water was gone. She's left her keys in the door outside overnight. She says she forgot. It's no big deal. She's fine. She's fine. And I just want to know what's going on in her head. What it feels like. Does she realize she does not want to talk about it? Even to whisper its name as though it were an incantation, as though to say it would be to call it out of the shadows. Louis Body. Friendle Templar. I know I have what my great-grandmother and grandmother and to some extent my mother did not have. I have information, research, resources. I have the privilege of time to think about how to fortify myself against the monster lurking just around the corner. They sacrificed mightily to give that to me. And I am armed to the teeth. I've got my torch and my pitchfork, and I am just hellbent on running this monster out of town. I think I'm doing all the things. But sometimes, sometimes, sometimes I'll be out to dinner with my mom. And after she's handled the menu, like it's the first one she's ever seen in her life. She'll say something like, So I was on 34th Street, and I'll interrupt her because I know she just said I was on 23rd Street. 23rd Street. And she'll get mad at me. Why would I say that? I was on 34th Street. Well, you just said that. I did not say that. And I'll stop dead, mid-argument, because I don't want to fight with her. And she seems so adamant. The fear creeps in. And I start searching her eyes for what? The first hint of dullness? And then I freeze. Because was it 34th Street? Is that what she said? I realize I'm not sure. And I'm I'm really I'm really afraid and confused. I'm af I'm afraid. I'm afraid. I'm I'm afraid I don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Akia Wilson is an actor, writer, comprehensive personal aesthetics professional, and cardigan fetishist, born and raised in Brooklyn. Cute baby pics at AkiaHyphenWilson.com. Truth Be Told was created by Susan Kim and David Zelnick, and each episode was produced and scored by Eric Svaikar. Since this is our final episode of season one, we want to give a special shout out to our sound engineer and composer Eric. Eric is a pianist, composer, music director, and occasional podcast producer whose musical, A Midsummer Night's Dream, recently premiered at Skylight Music Theater in Milwaukee. He is a leading expert on obscure rock musicals of the 1970s. We also want to give a special thank you to Truth Be Told's home in New York City. The Ensemble Studio Theater was founded in 1968 and has grown into a company of over 600 actors, directors, playwrights, and designers. It develops and produces original, provocative, and authentic new plays and supports company members across their entire artistic journey. Finally, we want to thank you, the listeners, for supporting us. And remember, till next time, Truth Wants to be known. Yours too.