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j.s. Clark poetry january 2025

“Is that a birthmark?”


You’ve kissed every shade of melanin on my body.

And never wondered why a hue was born.

Until now.


Curiosity is flattering

After all, desire is the dream of knowing


The dream of knowing love

The dream of knowing a lover


As far as you know now, every spot on my body was completed at conception

A divine design unmarred by clumsy falls and cruel hands.


So, I hesitate.


Not wanting to shatter perfection.


Perception.


My skin collects memories of pain in pigment

I am at my core, a nostalgic being


These markings are curated on my surface

Like masterpieces of a gallery

Viewed but never known


But as a creator of art

The maker of my marks

I owe my audience truth


“No, It’s a scar”


 Honesty is blissful in our world

Laying in your arms


The birth of the scar delivered from my memory

Transferred from my skin to your mind

By your fingertips


Caressing the outline of my creation.


J.S. CLARK (she/her) is an essayist and poet known for powerful explorations of vulnerability, love, growth, trust, and resistance. As a queer Black Brazilian-American writer, her intersectional identities deeply influence her work which seamlessly blends personal and collective experiences. Clark’s essays and poetry offer raw honesty and profound introspection, capturing the complexities of human relationships, framing sensitivity as a strength, telling stories of truth, and highlighting the transformative power of love. Her unique style and perspective make her a refreshing new face in contemporary literature, inspiring and connecting with diverse audiences through her compelling literary voice.

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Decolonial Passage is honored to announce the nominations for next year’s Best Small Fictions Anthology.  This list includes writing published from January to December 2024.  Congratulations to the nominees!

Flash Fiction

“A Striking Space” by Katie Coleman


“Fufu, Sardines, and Tomato Sauce” by Sabrina Moella


“Memory/I send myself” by Wangũi wa Kamonji


Prose Poetry


“I Come to You by Chance” by Richard De-Graft Tawiah

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eleanor jones poetry january 2025

how did Grandpa Brown get his land?

one hundred fertile acres incited

centuries of silly questions

like “were mules included?”

truth faded into mystery,

answers, hearsay

from dead voices.

Great Grand Lee of native blood whispered,

“do what white folks say,

and they won’t kill you.”

his life, our land depended on smiles and waves.


we were not warriors.

land rich. impoverished.

what remains?

battered boards,

remnants of our homemade 5-room shanty.

grouted well

that nourished 16 children, livestock, cotton.

pine trees

rooted in proud carolina soil.

dusty roads

with boot prints bound for northern highways.


after Grandpa died, i never returned to the farm.

in my mailbox, form letters from profiteers

begging for land or timber.

is there guilt in selling one’s homeland?

truth discovered it is not my land. it is God’s land.

no guilt or commandment in a smile. only life.


Eleanor Jones is an African American with Catawba and Monacan Native ancestry. A communications executive and equestrian, her Southern United States poetry and prose have been recognized internationally through contests and publications sponsored by Sun Magazine, Current Words Publishing, Maryland Writers’ Association, Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and Wingless Dreamer Publishing. Eleanor’s nonfiction has appeared in Essence, People and The Washington Post. Check out her new Instagram @eleanorjjjoneswriter.

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sabrina moella flash fiction december 2024

When Grandma died, I made fufu for the first time in years, even though I’d hated the taste of it as a child.

I bought cassava flour downtown in an African store where I hardly shopped. Had to ask the owner to point me to the correct aisle — twice — because I couldn’t find it on my own. How embarrassing.

Back at my place, I rummaged through cupboards for half an hour in a quest for a spatula that could serve as a fufu stick.

After eight years living in my fancy apartment, in the fancy neighborhood of my big fancy city, I’d accumulated an assortment of cute kitchen utensils, none of which could be used to make an African recipe from scratch. I had no pestle and mortar to pound yams, no knife big enough to crack coconuts, no pot large enough to make peanut stews.

It was too late to drive back to the African store, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of the owner for a second time, so I settled for one of my big wooden spoons. It was made of deep brown acacia. Normally, I only used it to sample batches of dairy-free pesto or fine Italian Bolognese, but it was long and looked strong enough; I figured it could work.

When the fufu was ready, I didn’t bother setting the living room table or turning on the TV. I didn’t check my cell phone. I knew what my voicemail was like. Full of messages from people (colleagues, neighbors, ex-boyfriends) sending their short and polite condolences, not because they shared my sadness — none of them knew Grandma — but because they felt like it was the right thing to do.

I brought my plate to the dining table and lit a wax candle. We’d often do that back home whenever there were power outages. A bunch of us grandkids would gather, sit on plastic chairs around a rectangular table, then wait for Grandma to bless our food while silently praying for the day when our uncles and aunties would get their shit together and finally pitch in to buy their mother a generator.

The fufu was fuming but I didn’t wait for it to cool down. I scooped a first plate and ate it with thick tomato sauce and a couple of sardines canned in oil, just like Grandma liked. A simple but filling meal. After washing it down with a ginger drink that I’d had the good sense to buy at the African store, I went for a second plate.

This time I ate with my hands. Slowly and intentionally letting the juice of the tomato sauce mix with the oil of the sardines and melt the fufu paste. I kneaded a bit of that soft fufu between my fingers, blew on it to bring it to an acceptable temperature, then chewed and swallowed without hurrying, like our elders do.

I don’t know if it was the gravity of the moment, the many memories of Grandma rushing through my mind or that feeling — unbearable — of missing a home I’d probably never go back to, but suddenly it hit me. That combo — the cheap fufu-sardines-tomato-sauce mix that a younger me had complained about — was delightful. A world-class meal. It tasted like red soil, dry seasons and warm climates. It tasted like cousins’ daily fights and late afternoon reconciliations. It tasted like Grandma sitting on her plastic chair watching us from the corner of her veranda. It tasted like heaven.

I sank into my sofa chair; inhaled and exhaled gently. Then, for the first time in a very long time, I allowed myself to cry.


Sabrina Moella (she/her) is a Congolese-Canadian writer based in Toronto. Born in France from Congolese parents, she grew up in Paris and started writing as soon as she was old enough to hold a pen. Her interests include topics such as immigration, womanhood, body image and family lineage. She self-published her first novel Fifteen is for Padded Cups in 2021. Her first fiction podcast series A Song in the Sky/Nzembo Ya Bénie was launched in 2024. She is currently working on her second novel. She can be found at @sabrinamoella on social media and on her website sabrinamoella.com.

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stephenjohn holgate short story december 2024

Nah bruv, you should be talking to me, still. Not them man who did all kind of foolishness and got caught and sent back after four months in Harlesden or Moss Side or Handsworth. I never really done nothing wrong and they still shipped me out to this place. Fuckery, innit?

Still, could be worse, I could be like one of them man that don’t have any family left here. Sometimes you see them walking around like zombies. All cracked out and thing. Nothing else for them to do, it’s not like anybody likes them. I used to think the British didn’t like outsiders, but I was wrong. This place don’t like outsiders. They don’t even like man from the next parish over. They tolerate tourists cos they come in with a little money and thing. But man like me. We are at the bottom of the shit heap, I’m telling you.

Yeah, I was born here, but I left when I was two and only came back for one holiday when they buried my nan. I didn’t know shit about this place before they sent me here. I thought it was paradise. Before they deported me, I thought well, I got family here, it’s warm, at least it won’t be so bad.

I was wrong. Fucking wrong.

When I first turned up they had me in that little deportee house where they just about have electricity and you got to share some little room with next man. One man was in that place crying like a little boy the whole first day. I was like, you need to turn the volume on that wailing down, bruv. It’s not no-one’s funeral, you’re still alive. Shut up, you get me.

Still, pure noise so we booted him out of the house for the day until he calmed down. Two twos, we hear one big old bit of noise outside and when we look out the window there’s like five or six people just thumping him up out on road. I was like, what is this? Man runs down the street and back into the house and hides in his little room and starts bawling even louder.

That was when I first realised that this place might not be the paradise I thought it was. Still, he might have done something to somebody out there, you know? That’s what I thought at the time, didn’t want to believe that this place was gonna be difficult for me.

They didn’t want you to stay in the house so there was just about enough electricity for a little lamp in your room and a shower. A cold shower. That might not sound so bad considering it’s always warm here, but when everything else is shit, a cold shower is what can break you.

I only stayed there a couple of weeks, until I moved out here with my uncle. But in that time it was a madness. I seen two man get into a fight that nearly ended in a stabbing, I seen a man get chased by a woman with a machete, fucking thing looked like sword, and no-one helping him, I seen a crowd of people chase someone who they said was a thief and they beat him with bits of board and stuff they found on the roadside until the police come and take him away. I seen crackheads and drug dealers and teenagers with guns, mad people walking the streets and everyone ignoring them like they might catch something if they go near, people dressed in white packed on the back of pick-up trucks singing religious songs loud over Tannoy speakers as they drive past kids sleeping on the roadside. Bruv, this place ain’t no paradise. Especially the city. Nah, that place is messed up.

When my uncle come and picked me up, I was so happy. It was like escaping hell. I don’t know what happened to the mandem I left behind. None of us had phones, some of them didn’t have no family here, they might have just kicked them out to make way for whoever is getting off the plane next. Nuff of them man were getting involved with shotters, smoking crack and whatnot. Nitty behaviour.

I’m telling you, bruv! These streets is rough. When I was a younger, we used to do some foolishness for the olders on the estate, run this bag here, carry this thing there, all for one little cheeseburger from Maccy’s. But down here, especially in the city? Life ain’t worth a packet of crisps. And because we come in now sounding different, not Black in the right way or some shit, we have to go to the bottom of the pile. Even when I go market, I hear people talking about me. Talking about my kind and how it’s people like me that are causing all the trouble going on in the country.

I know some of the mandem that get sent back here get involved with criminals, but them dons who give them guns was here before the deportees returned. It weren’t like we come down here and set up a whole criminal organisation that never existed. But that’s the way people are, innit? Looking for someone to blame and we was the last ones in so it must be us.

That’s, like, the worst part, get me. In England all the newspapers and thing always running a bruvva down. It’s always immigrants coming here and doing this, or if something goes wrong how dark your skin comes before they say your name. Asian lawyer caught in drugs raid. African businessman in tax avoidance shame. Live in that country twenty years and wake up to them reminding you that you don’t belong in size forty-two font on the front page of the newspapers.

And then they send you back home, or what they calling your home, some place you can’t remember, that you only ever seen in faded, sepia photographs that your nan and grandad have locked up in the guest front room and the people who sort of look like you start telling you that you don’t belong here neither.

I’d like to know where I’m supposed to belong. Like, where is my fucking home, yeah?

All this for some traffic offences. As if running two red lights and failing to pay couple parking tickets means you should be sent from the place you’ve lived for twenty-five years to some next place where you was born but can’t remember.

Look, yeah, they took me to the detention centre, Home Office and that said I don’t really have no ties to the country because I ain’t married, don’t have no children and don’t own a house. How can I afford a house in London? I don’t know no-one that owns their own house. Still, before I could say nothing or call no-one, I’m on a plane headed back here.

Then when I reach the place where they keep us it’s ramshackle. One bruk down place that had roaches and all sorts. I left, cos I ain’t staying in that place. Some of them man stayed cos they ain’t had no options, at least I had family I could come live with. I knew them from when my mum would send us home for holidays. And family look after each other here, even if they are always in your business and think they can give advice when you ain’t ask for it.

At first, yeah, people was cool. They would say good morning and all that, ask about London and thing. Then they heard the story that I was one of them deportees and people changed. It was like I had some disease. People started crossing the road and avoiding me. Making up their faces like they smelled shit. I heard them talking to my auntie and uncle and complaining loudly about England was sending back home the dregs of society and how we were England’s problem and we shouldn’t be sent here.

Like I wanted to be sent to this place. It’s nice for a holiday, but fucking hell, I like having electricity and water that don’t go off for the whole weekend, you get me? Yeah it’s warm, but I had central heating back home. Home. Fucking hell. Home feels a long way away.

So I left one place where they say I don’t belong and come down here and hear people saying I shouldn’t be allowed back, telling me I’m England’s problem cos they created me. Fuckery, innit? Bruv, where am I supposed to go and live and find some peace?


Stephenjohn Holgate lives in Aotearoa New Zealand and writes fiction. He is a member of Writing West Midlands’ Room 204 writer development program and HarperCollins UK Author Academy 2023. His story, “Delroy and the Boys,” won a 2023 Pen/Dau prize. His short story “The Skull of an Unnamed African Boy” was longlisted for the Guardian/4th Estate 4thWrite Prize. He can be found @mistaholgate on social media and his Substack is Jack Mandora Story.

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P. Aubham edouhou poetry december 2024

Kɛl, bula pɛ ngur nɛ nam

Sister, go back to the abandoned village with me



P. Aubham Edouhou was born in Makokou (Gabon) and is a Bekwel and Ikota speaker. He graduated in Letters (Portuguese-English) from Pelotas Federal University (UFPel) in 2019. He has a Master’s degree in Letters (Language Studies) from the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG) and is currently a doctoral student in Letters (Literary Studies) at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) where he studies Kandian (African) Literature in Kandian languages. He promotes the hieroglyphization, coptization and meroitization of Kandian languages. Find him on Facebook at Obam Edhuu.

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albrin junior short story november 2024

If you’re willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;

but if you refuse and rebel,

you shall be devoured by the sword;

for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Isaiah 1:19-20


“We are about to close sir.”

Elvis swiveled back to see the docent of Kelvingrove Art and Gallery Museum standing over his shoulder with a broad smile.

“Thank you,” he nodded. She walked away.

Since Molly got pregnant, he dreaded returning home at night. The setting sun was a reminder of the potential horror he would endure, and every night was a different kind of drama she blamed on hormonal imbalance. “Like you’re the first person to ever be pregnant!” he grumbled beneath his breath.

Elvis waited until the last person left the building before standing to leave. He flashed a smile to the docent as he walked past her holding on to the tip of his cap.

“Aye, he’s a gentleman now,” said the security man to the docent. “Why d’ye think he stays here so late?”

“Scared tae go hame,” she replied and shifted her gaze to Elvis as he walked down the stairs. “Probably got a naggin missus waitin fer him wi a fryin pan.”

“Aye! I feel for him, but I think mine’s is shittier. I’ll be goin’ hame to some charcoal tea.”

They both burst into laughter.

Elvis turned back, casting a long sad gaze at the museum and saw the pair laughing. They stopped at once, waved at Elvis, and feigned a smile. Elvis managed to wave back wondering what about him made them laugh.

He looked at his wristwatch; it was a little after 5pm. He shook his head and thought to go sit at the Kelvingrove’s Café but remembered coming across Molly’s best friend, Emily, the last time he was there. When Molly questioned what he was doing there when his shift had ended and asked if he wasn’t was supposed to be home, he’d lied and said he was with his boss.

He got into his car and drove down Paisley West Road to Cardonald, stopping to park in front of Jisto Misto, a small independent restaurant that served classic and contemporary dishes. The place was small and cozy, simple and welcoming, just as the owner and chef, David Brudnybn. Elvis had worked there as a kitchen porter when he first moved to Glasgow after absconding from Birmingham. Since arriving to the United Kingdom, the restaurant was the first place he was treated like a human being and not seen as Black.

“Elvis!” David exclaimed as Elvis walked in, “Alright!” He bumped his fist in a spirited fashion.

“It’s me in the flesh,” said Elvis feigning enthusiasm.

“I can see that! Just give me a few minutes. Let me do something in the kitchen.” He turned to a waiter and said, “Serve him anything he wants. It’s on the house.”

The waiter approached Elvis who sat at the far end of the restaurant away from prying eyes. Three months of working in the kitchen, and he still couldn’t name any of their dishes, except for Collin’s Italian Spaghetti. His mind was, however, too preoccupied to eat.

“A martini would do,” said Elvis to the waiter. “Thank you.”

He shifted his gaze to the Jisto Misto hoarding carved against the wall, grey and lit, its elegance adding beauty to the feel of the restaurant. His drink arrived just as David returned to sit with him.

“Yo my man, what’s up?” David asked.

Staring at David, Elvis contemplated telling the truth or replying with “fine” — a lie which had become a common response. He feared if he spoke the truth, the wind would blow his whispers to Molly’s ears and everything for him would be over. Molly was his last hope at cementing a better life or at least what would appear to be a better life compared to where he came from.

“I’m fine.” He feigned a grin.

“Alright!” David nodded. “And Molly? How’re she and the baby coming?”

“Fine,” Elvis responded in a low drone, then without warning, he burst into silent tears. “I am not fine David. I am in deep shit.”

“Fuck! What’s wrong? Talk to me.”

“I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Anywhere mate, anywhere.” David leaned forward.

Elvis sniffed, mulling over words to tell the man sat opposite him that he was an illegal immigrant and his love for Molly was conditional. He heaved a deep sigh and gulped down his martini for some form of courage but found none at the end of the cup.

“I’ve become an illegal immigrant and can be deported at any point.”

David’s eyes widened. “How did that happen?

Elvis looked into the cup; it was empty. He needed more than courage to tell him he was in this situation as a result of his stupidity, an eagerness to make quick money.

“Does Molly know?” asked David killing the silence.

Elvis’s phone rang. It was Molly. He silenced the phone with urgency and cursed under his breath. “Shit!” He looked around for any familiar faces then back to David who was staring at him in bewilderment.

“Are you okay?”

“No. Yes. I got to go.”

Elvis rose and started away leaving David agape.

In less than fifteen minutes Elvis was at Hillhead unlocking the door to his house. He walked in and met Molly sat on the couch in silence which he thought odd considering her routinely welcoming him with screams and questions of his lateness and whereabouts.

“Hey babe.” He made to kiss her protruded stomach, but she shoved his face away. “Are you okay?”

Molly folded her arm and looked away. Her countenance since Elvis arrived had been unpleasant. He followed her eyes and noticed his travel bag laid on the couch and his belongings scattered all over the sitting room.

“What is going on?” Elvis asked.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” Molly asked.

Elvis winced. “Shit!” he exclaimed beneath his breath as he ran for the bag. “The letter!” He dived into the bag hurling the remains of his belongings until he reached the bottom, shaking the bag for something to fall out. He set it down looking terrified.

“Looking for this?” said Molly behind him.

He turned around and saw a familiar envelope on the center table. “Fuck!” he mouthed.

“Yes. You’re fucked.”

“Babe—I know you’re mad, but let me explain.”

“Explain what?” she scoffed. “You don’t even know what’s in the letter.”

Elvis opened his mouth to talk but found the words couldn’t come out.

“Go ahead,” Molly said. “Read it. I would love to know what the letter says.”

“Babe I don’t need to…”

“I said read the damn fucking letter!” she shouted, making a fist.

Elvis nodded.

“I’m trying hard to protect the baby,” she said rubbing her stomach. “So please just read the damn fucking letter.”

Elvis picked up the letter and cleared his throat. He looked at Molly, hoping she’d have a change of mind, but the anger on her face suggested otherwise.

“Dear Elvis Osahon,” he began. “This is to inform you that…”

“Won’t you at least let me know who it is from?”

Elvis scowled, concealing his distress.

“UKVI.” The tone of his voice was losing strength. Molly nodded and urged him on. “This is to inform you that we have withdrawn your right to live and work in the United Kingdom…”

Elvis paused as those words flushed his memory with recollected thoughts of how he could have avoided this letter, avoided Molly. “This is as a result of the University of Birmingham informing us of withdrawing your admission offer due to lack of attendance and tuition payment. You are hereby advised to…” Elvis stopped reading and slid the letter into his pocket. “Babe, let me explain.”

Molly’s face was livid. “You know I crosschecked the date the letter was sent. Isn’t it funny that we moved to Glasgow just weeks after that? And all of a sudden, you declared you wanted to have a baby with me.”

“Molly, you also said you wanted a baby.”

“No!” Molly shouted standing to her feet. “Don’t even go there, Elvis. Don’t!”

“The same want, just different reasons,” said Elvis in a fading tone.

“I want to be a mother. But you want a child with me to secure your stay in this country.”

“No,” Elvis said, shaking his head with impatience. “You’re an erratic junkie no white man wants anything to do with. You chose me because I am Black and can be used,” he retorted, “and if we’re being fair, you started using me before this letter ever arrived.”

She struck Elvis’s face so hard it sent a wave of shock down his spine. He paused a few seconds, holding his face, and when he lifted it, his right eye was sore red.

“I know you’re mad, but please can we just talk this out without cursing and fighting?”

“You lying bastard! ” Molly set out to hit him over and over again. As he stood allowing her to vent without impeding her punches, he closed his eyes disappointed that his secret was finally out, and he wasn’t sure what would happen next. With Molly, he wasn’t sure of anything. Her reactions made him feel worse than a cheating husband, like he had betrayed the very core of their relationship; yet in his guilt, he knew they had both betrayed themselves. Regardless of her fitful nature, he was sure she loved him, and he loved her, he always did — in a complicated way — until the letter from UKVI came. Then his love for her became selfish. He became focused on remaining in a land in which he was never welcomed in the first place.

Molly began to slam her feet against the couch.

“Molly please. Just stop. You’re hurting yourself and the baby.”

“Baby!” Molly exclaimed then burst into sudden capricious laughter. “You no longer have a baby.”

“Molly,” Elvis said with a sense of impending danger. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, don’t.”

Molly looked over Elvis’s shoulder with a humorless smile. Following her eyes, Elvis swiveled. She was staring at the kitchen. She made an attempt to run into the kitchen, but he clogged her path.

“Molly, whatever it is, don’t do it. Please, I beg you.”

“It’s too late for that,” she yelled, trying to circle round him. She made a run for it, but he grabbed her, and she yelled in pain.

“The baby, the baby!”

Elvis set her free attempting to rub her stomach from worry when she hit him hard on the face and dashed for the kitchen, renting part of his cloth in the process. He was still tending to his face when she returned with a knife.

“Babe. Why are you holding a knife?”

“Is it this baby you speak of?” she said, lifting the knife to her stomach, poised to drive it in. “You won’t have it. We won’t give you the pleasure of using us to remain in this country. Go back to where you came from, Monkey.”

“Molly, think about this. You’ll hurt yourself too.”

“I don’t care.”

She lifted the knife, ready to drive it down when Elvis shouted.

“Okay, okay, okay. Fine, I will leave, just don’t do anything to hurt the baby.”

“Just leave and never come back.”

“Yeah. Yeah. At least let me get my stuffs.”

Molly looked down at his scattered bag and clothes and nodded. Elvis bent to gather his things, and in one moment of Molly looking away, he leapt at her, grabbing the knife but cutting her arm as he overpowered her.

“My hand!” Molly screamed. “You fucking bastard! You want to kill me!”

“It was a mistake, I swear it.”

“You’re not getting away with this.”

Molly grabbed her phone, dialed a number and held the phone to her ear.

“Who are you calling?” Elvis asked.

“What do you think?” Molly replied without looking at him.

“Molly, drop the phone. You know my life will be over when they get here.”

“I don’t care,” Molly said with a broad malevolent beam. “Hello,” she said into the phone. “I have a crime to report. My partner just tried to kill me—”

“Shit!” Elvis cursed, looking about in disarray. He shifted his gaze to the car key on the table beside Molly, then ran out the house with the knife in his hands.

Elvis sat alone in the busy concourse of the Buchanan bus station. He stared as the world around him moved in a hurry whilst his came crashing down. Staring long at the Wincher’s Statue, he thought back to the beginning of the decline of his life which began at age sixteen back in Nigeria: when his mother could no longer give him pocket money for school, when he didn’t read along with his classmates because he could not afford to buy the class text, when he had to carry tray along the minor arterial highway after school to sell bread so he and his mother could eat. He was amazed the day Bashiru, their neighbor’s son who had left five months prior, returned home driving a tear-rubber Camry. He couldn’t help but wonder why Bashiru’s parents, who claimed not to know his whereabouts, didn’t scold him. Instead, along with other neighbors, they dashed out praising his accomplishment at such a young age, and collectively prayed his business would continue to thrive so he could change his parents’ lives for good.

“What business are you into?” Elvis had asked Bashiru after the charade came to an end.

“The business of being smart and fast,” he replied.

“And in five months you bought a car?!” Elvis exclaimed. “Introduce me to your business.”

Bashiru laughed. He looked at Elvis from head to toe and could feel his aura of ambition. “If you say so. Have you heard of Yahoo Yahoo?”

“Yahoo Yahoo!” Elvis reiterated in awe. “What is that?”

Bashiru laughed at Elvis’s innocence.

“Take a walk with me and I will tell you everything you need to know,” he said.

Six months later, Elvis bought his own car, renovated their old house and put his mother on a monthly salary. A couple of years later, after the success of his yahoo-yahoo ventures began to dwindle, he gathered the remains to sponsor himself to study in the United Kingdom with the belief it would be a greener pasture, promising his mother before he departed that he would make her proud. He arrived in Birmingham to find the green pasture wasn’t so green, and that his yahoo enterprise could not thrive, a realization which came after he had squandered the little money he had. “School is not for me, I need to make money,” Elvis convinced himself.

“Hey, you okay mate?” a security guard, in reflective jacket, nudged Elvis out of his thoughts. “You look lost,” the guard said.

Elvis feigned a smile and shook his head. “Thank you, I am fine.”

He watched the guard move back to his post, leaving him to his loneliness. He returned his gaze to Wincher’s Statue, trying to imagine the story behind the sculpture. He found himself thinking about his mother and home. There was no home to go back to, neither was there one to look forward to; he had come to terms with his fate. The fault was not in his stars but in himself. He thought to close his eyes and whisper a prayer to God; perhaps God in his mercies shall come to his aid. But at a second thought, he reckoned his remedy lay in himself, which he wanted to ascribe to heaven.

Rather than let his story end in the ink of another, Elvis decided he would write his own ending in his own ink with the hope that his story would not merely headline the Metro to sell the papers, but to deter others from making his mistakes. All may not have been well for him, but all would end well.

He brought out his phone and typed,“Sorry how things turned out, would have wished it differently. I did love you from the start, maybe complicated, but love you I did. Till we meet again.’”

After a minute of indecision, he sent the text to Molly. He took one last look around the concourse, then closed his eye to inhale the cold night air. He removed the knife from his pocket and started for the center.

“He’s got a knife,” a woman shouted, pointing at Elvis.

Elvis quickly grabbed the woman beside him who was attempting to run to the other direction. He put the knife to her neck.

“Just do what I say and I won’t hurt you,” Elvis told her. She nodded in terror, and lifted her hands in surrender. “Keep moving till I say stop.” The woman obeyed. “Stop,” he told her on reaching the center.

In a matter of seconds, the concourse was nearly empty except for onlookers in the distance capturing the scene with their phones. The security guards stood in disarray contemplating their next action.

“Stay where you are or I will hurt her!” Elvis raised his voice at the guards, and then whispered to the woman, “That is an empty threat. Don’t be afraid.”

The woman gulped saliva. It was hard to believe a man with a knife to her throat.

“Please don’t hurt me,” pleaded the woman with a shaky voice.

“I won’t. I promise.” Elvis took the knife off her throat. “You can put your hands down,” he told her.

The woman nodded and obeyed slowly. She took a look around the concourse. All eyes were on her and Elvis. She swallowed, took a quick peek at the security guards, then shifted her gaze back to Elvis. “Will you let me go then?”

Elvis shook his head.

The woman sniffed her tacit tears. “Why are you doing this?” 

“Do you have kids?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she answered, concealing the terror in her voice. “Just one.”

“And are you proud of him? Or her?”

“Him,” she nodded. “Yes, I am proud.”

Elvis displayed a wide grin. “I have one too. Technically, still on the way.” He forced a laugh. “But I swear I love him, or her. Even though I did it for a selfish reason.” Elvis put his hand over his face in an attempt not to cry.

From the corner of her eye, the woman saw one of the security guards signaling at her to make a run for it. She shook her head slightly, swallowed, and refocused on Elvis.

“I fucked up,” said Elvis, between tears. “I really fucked up.”

The woman looked closer at him. She saw the sadness in his eyes, the puddle of tears hidden behind his cornea.

“You still have time to make corrections.”

Elvis shook his head. “That boat already sailed.” He burst out crying and placed his head on the woman’s shoulder. “Do you think my mother will be proud of me after she sees this?”

The woman lifted his face, searched his eyes, and with sincerity said, “A mother will always be proud of her children regardless of their actions.” She cuddled his face. Two police officers arrived pointing their guns at him while the guards kept the onlookers at bay.

Elvis turned the woman towards the police and held his knife firmly to her neck.

“We have you surrounded,” said an officer. “Put the knife down and kneel.”

Elvis ignored him and whispered to the woman. “At my signal, you’d break free and run left. Do you understand me?”

The woman nodded, her dread having returned.

“What direction?” he asked the woman. She made to point but he stopped her. “Stop,” he tapped her. “Just move your head that way if you understand.”

The woman turned her head to the left and back.

“Good,” said Elvis. “Now run.”

The woman broke free from his grip and ran to her left.

Elvis smiled and swiveled to the officer who shouted, “Go down on your knees!”

Elvis took a step towards the officer, who without hesitation, fired one shot to his arm, then another to his chest. The knife fell, then Elvis. And just before he hit the ground, he imagined hearing the uncultured cry of a toddler. He landed facing Wincher’s Statue and smiled. In an instant, he pictured himself arriving home. His travel bag landing on the floor as his mother ran into his open arms. Little by little, the life in his eyes withered. Nothing in his life became him quite like his taking leave of it.


Albrin Junior is an award-winning author, poet, scriptwriter, and director. His novel, Naked Coin, a historical-fiction, action thriller, was runner up at the Akachi Ezeigbo Prize for Literature and won the Lagos Book House Award for Book of the Year in 2020. Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Albrin holds a BSc in Geography and Regional Planning from Ambrose Alli University and an MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow where he was also honoured with the African Excellence Award. You can discover more about his journey at www.albrinjunior.com, on LinkedIn, and at Internet Movie Database. Across all social media, including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and twitter/x, find him at @albrinjunior.

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Decolonial Passage is honored to announce the nominations for next year’s Pushcart Prize Anthology. This list includes writing published during the 2024 calendar year. Congratulations to the nominees!


Poetry

Byron Armstrong – “We are Music”

Ada Chinara – “Gliding”


Short Stories

Musu Bangura – “Night Watch”

Nwafor Emmanuel – “You Are No Longer Welcome Here”

Michael Ogah – “Forgotten Memories”


Essays/Memoirs

Eraldo Souza dos Santos – “Everything Disappears”

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kamaria muntu poetry november 2024

O you couldn’t buy this incredible night beyond tender,

wouldn’t take nothing for the glory of it

the incense, the food, the fire

remembrance squared in golden frame.

We are here to know you beyond a funeral of clutter

beyond a dessert of thieves, beyond

the oppression of earth stationed dreams ——

here is where we break bread

here is where we play cards

here is where we pound our fists

here is where we down our wine

here is where we lay out the cloth

to spread the bounty in

a house of tables


Here is where we place the centrepiece of life

the brass hued glow of our every breath

here is where we figure the time we must eat and sip

the undercurrents in our warmest conversations

here is where we repeat like the ones before us

but right here in front of us now

as we offer libation with their eyes and contours

as our countrymen seam us in death shrouds

as we bring the scissors and the bandages

the liquor and balm for our mangled backs

our roughened sores

here is where we gobble the turkey

and lay our heads down in the midnight hour

while our loved one’s sleep

in a house of tables.


Here is where we take the minutes

at the meeting place

as we draw plans to stave off darksome shadows

sheeted white

imploding in our conscious wake

like ashes of our beloved children, boiled

and hailing over hallowed congregations

via fires direct from hell


Here is the good linen I tell you to cover the water spot

as we feed the living with communal potluck,

Hoppin’ John and hog maws,


            sweet potatoes and greens,


as we oblige the mirror of ourselves in ourselves,

keepers of our secrets, colours of our flesh

as we implore our gods as to the ways of our murderers

and the whys of our own self hatred

as we shine the wood and flick ashes in trays made by little ones

in a house of tables


Here is the universal thing,

favours of anniversary, christening and homegoing,

teaching grandfather to read by lamplight

the back and forth, the generations

the way we propped up that one short leg with the encyclopaedia,

a conceit handed down from mother to daughter in

a house of tables.


Kamaria Muntu is an African-American multidisciplinary artist whose poetry and essays have been published in Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology for the African American Literary Tradition, A Lime Jewel: An Anthology of Poetry and Short Stories in Aid of Haiti, Phati’tude Literary Journal, GIS Watch, Fertile Ground: Memories and Visions, Intersectionality in Social Work: Activism and Practice in Context, and The Journal of Pan African Studies. She has read at arts festivals and literary venues throughout the US and UK. Find her on Instagram at @kamariamuntu.

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serhat tutkal flash nonfiction november 2024

I prefer to be considered a particular person, although I’m from Nowhere.  Where I come from doesn’t exist. This creates a confusing situation since logic dictates that everyone come from somewhere. It looks like I defy logic. I come from Nowhere. It has been told to me many times, by many authorities, and government officials, and all sorts of serious people in their decent suits. I see no reason to doubt them. I’d rather doubt your logic.

Strangely, I don’t have a language. People where I’m from speak in a nonexistent language. It has been stated by many experts and authorities, and there is no reason to doubt them. But I also don’t speak much of the nonexistent language. I speak some existing languages, but I cannot call any of them my native language. As a result, I have no language of my own. I borrow other people’s languages. I speak weirdly with my unusual accent and occasional pronunciation errors. I guess everyone assumes I must be speaking well in some other language. I don’t. To me, every language is a foreign language. Every word I utter is borrowed. I have no words of my own.

I speak in these foreign languages in my head when I take walks. They become entangled, creating a creole language that would be unintelligible to nearly everyone else. Maybe that is why I like talking to myself. I also like walking. I usually combine these two favorite activities of mine.

If I have to move from one place to another, I always prefer to walk. I enjoy walking the most when it isn’t directed towards the aim of arriving somewhere. Because when you aren’t walking towards somewhere, it can be said that you’re walking to Nowhere. So, I know that if I don’t walk towards a specific place and I still insist on walking, I’ll eventually arrive Nowhere. And that is where I’m from. I go out and walk aimlessly, secretly hoping that I may eventually visit my hometown: Nowhere. I miss Nowhere. All these somewheres have been tiring me for quite some time now. They are very noisy and full of unpleasant faces.

I never get to visit my Nowhere though. Sometimes I find myself in Nowheres that are not exactly like mine. I may see nonpeople there, sitting on both sides of the long street that runs through Nowhere; but they won’t be sitting on short stools. That is how I know immediately that this isn’t my Nowhere. They may drink something, but it won’t look like black tea. They may speak some nonexistent languages, but I won’t be familiar with them. “I’m at someone else’s Nowhere again”, I say to myself when this happens. It’s still good to visit Nowheres even when they’re different than mine. The familiarity of Nowheres is usually nice. But not always. Not when I see an intruder, for example. The intruders are also all too familiar to me, but there is nothing pleasant about them.

The intruders are actual persons in a Nowhere full of nonpeople. There are always some of them in Nowheres, but you usually manage to avoid them. They come from somewhere, you see, and they speak existing languages. They tend to wear nice uniforms. They are hostile to nonpeople wherever they find them. They can smell us. It doesn’t matter that I’m not from this particular Nowhere. Nonpeople are nonpeople. The intruders know that. They don’t like being in a Nowhere. They take it out on us.

You can also see these intruders in existing places. That is where they come from, after all. They look at us with disdain, they can tell that we are one of the nonpeople. They know we come from Nowhere and we don’t belong here. We don’t belong anywhere, except for Nowhere, obviously. They make us feel that. They talk about their somewheres, and their somethings, and their someones with absolute confidence. We can’t talk about our Nowhere, and our nothing, and our nonpeople with the same confidence. We become silent. Our weirdly pronounced foreign words become reserved for our conversations inside our heads. Until we decide to write them down.

Let us nonpeople take long walks whenever we can. It may get us Nowhere.


Serhat Tutkal is a Kurdish academic. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at El Colegio de México in Mexico City. He has a PhD from Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá) with a dissertation on the legitimation and delegitimation of Colombian state violence. He teaches courses on armed conflicts, dehumanization, racism, colonialism, and qualitative research methods. Find him on Mastodon at fediscience.org/@SerhatTutkal and on Bluesky at serhattutkal.bsky.social.

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michelle smith poetry november 2024

A Black man is born

not expected to thrive

disposable in ’Nam

not expected to survive


In the bushland encampment

he bled the same red

shed tears of sorrow

when his brothers returned dead


Heard their mothers’ screams

hoped for a safe return

yet the privileged alongside him

had a different reason to yearn


For their welcome home

heroism was revered;

those who looked like him—

the n-word they’d still hear


Treated as subhuman

he toils fiercely to earn less

his soul roughened at its edges

must persevere in righteous quest


Restrict him to the ’hood

deceptive paths down which he’s led

send him to the slammer

where he’ll find his unseemly bed


Emancipation? False liberation—

no glory, just strife

as he’s stripped of the prospect

to forge a purposeful life.


Michelle Smith is an award-winning poet and writer. Her essays have appeared in The Sun and Ms. Magazine. A member of the Authors Guild and the Dramatists Guild, her monologue Ode to Jesse was performed in 2024 in collaboration with an award-winning choreographer. Her awards include First Place for humor prose in the 2021 SouthWest Writers competition and First Place in 2024 for poetry. She earned high recognition in the Writer’s Digest 2023 Poetry Competition and the 2019 She Writes Press and SparkPress Toward Equality in Publishing novel competition. You can find her at www.theebonyquill.com and on instagram at thequillster.

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olubukola Odusanya poetry october 2024

And we carry ours. 

Our cross is an emblem of suffering and shame, 

Pain specifically carved for us to carry. 

The wood was cut down from an old tree, 

A tree that was scrambled after by thieves.

Our cross carries memories of what it means to be less than human, 

Its lore sounds like the swishing of whips before it breaks skin, courage, and bravery. 

Our cross is embellished with charms of generational suffering: 

A gold chain that our great-great-grandfather got from barter at the slave market. 

Our great-grandmother’s wrapper, where she kept the money she got from selling her father’s land, 

To have a slice of the white man’s intelligence in her family. 

Our grandfather’s journal, where he emptied his confusion about being black and the need to be like the white man. 

Our father’s degrees and accolades, which he swore he sacrificed his entire life to get. 

Our family heirloom of a life lived on another man’s terms. 

Heavy chains of capitalism looped together by a history of compliance and resistance. 

We carry our cross as Jesus said, 

We carry our cross as the preacher said. 

We carry our cross down the aisle, in a white dress, 

The piano sounds like shrieking heavy industrial metals; old and weary, 

With thousands of eyes staring at us, 

Anticipating if we can make it to the altar.


My Mother’s Essence

There is fight in my blood. 

I am told it is from my journey across the seven seas. 

The scars on my back don’t tell half of the tale that the eye saw. 

Still, I have kept the essence of my mothers in my chest. 

It teaches me to love the earth, 

For like it, I am brown and carry the capacity for growth. 

It tells me tales of dancing around the fire under full moon nights, 

Where mothers told folklore and the men played draughts. 

It reminds me of my mother’s unyielding faith in her creator—even if he was carved of stone. 

It sings of my skin, luscious like camwood,

A beauty that shines with the luminosity of coconut oil. 

Beads on my hips and feet applaud every step I take. 

It shows me love and passion, 

A fire started by a few coy looks yet committed till the end. 

It shows me the divine feminine resting her head on the thighs of her masculine,

It shows me a society where goods were left unattended without fear. 

It shows me a time when words were oaths, 

And the fear of God made humans act decently. 

It showed me strength, 

How our men dug holes in the earth and reaped bountiful harvests, 

And our hands delicately weaved and carved,

It tells me of really sunny days and heavy rains. 

It tells me of resilience, faith, love, and duty. 

It tells me that I am enough.


Let us dance

The maidens have come out to dance tonight, 

Waist beads gyrating to the intoxicating sound of talking drums. 

Anklets are adorned on our feet, while our legs create a symphony. 

Today we celebrate in the face of uncertainty. 

They say death shall come tomorrow. 

When it comes, we shall beat the drums so loud that death will dance with us. 

We shall soak the soil with hot gin; 

Even sorrow shall be intoxicated. 

The movement of our hips will leave death entranced. 

The melodies of our voices shall pique the sun’s curiosity. 

Down it would come to shine its light on us, 

Its reflection against our skin blinding our enemies. 

Prophecy said our waists held the answers, 

So tonight we shall dance. 

We shall let joy seep into us till we are lush like dew on green leaves at dawn. 

We shall become one with our creator, 

Ushering in a new season, 

As we let waists gyrate to the beat of the drums.


Olubukola Odusanya is a poet, fiction writer, and illustrator. She holds a
B.A. in History from the University of Ibadan. She is passionate about
writing stories that document the richness of her culture and sparking
conversations to improve the African psyche. Find her on instagram and twitter/X @bukolathecreato and on Medium at Olubukola.A.

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mthabisi sithole poetry october 2024

I am living on a love borrowed

in a home I’m too broke to own


See how the filth fills the acres of cold

day-by-day, like voices queuing for a vote;

arguing the best of the slaughterhouses’ regime?


Our bodies accrue roadside in a tally

of insanities born of tenements Jozi East

like city deep, stories the same –

leaving me nostalgic for rondavels again.


The coalitions are dead set on fumigating the being

of senses, reason & dream till there are no brighter days.

All around, necklaced freedom

plays favour-the-least-of-the-grim.


Meanwhile borrowed warmths,

and the occasional bluest of skies,

push past the greys, that is…

the hope of broken homes


Mthabisi Sithole,a poet and writer based in Johannesburg, South Africa, has presented poetry performances through various platforms including TPO x Chris Soal’s 2016 Fees Must Fall intervention, Lephephe Print Gatherings 1, Urban Zulu poetry, and Word Art – Young Voices poetry series. Mthabisi’s published work is included in publications such as Teesta Review: A Journal of poetry, Ja. Magazine, Best New African Poets 2019 Anthology, Yesterdays And Imagining Realities: An Anthology of South African Poetry (2020) and the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Anthology (2023). Find Mthabisi on Instagram at @nodiction and on Facebook at MthabisiSithole.

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eddie bennett poetry october 2024

Given the history of the Black Being,

there is a need to address the pain off of which society has been feeding.

Its history is full of trauma, negation, and neglect.

This is the reason for its deep-rooted mental unrest.

The denial of its pain on the American terrain has further influenced its ability to remain sane.

Become sane?

Move further away from the insanity of a society that denies its humanity.

Its relationship with itself is managed by another.

This depraved entity turns it into the “other”.

It becomes inferiorized by that which deems itself superior.

Drafted into an existential war of contrition with the nature of its existence.

Falling on the butt of “upright” swords on society’s hegemonic floor.

Attempts at the corporeal obliteration of its ontological core.

The pretense it has been indoctrinated to hide behind diminishes its self-concept, further

denigrated in a society rife with moral contempt.

Unable to uproot its identity from the society that denies its murderous intent.

Given the history of the Black Being,

there is a need to address the pain off of which society has been feeding.

The healing that society has been denying that Black folk have been needing.

Begging and Pleading.

Kneeling and Bleeding.

The keys to behold their own cathartic realizations,

the achieved goal of accepting the gifts of their emotional reparations.

To be the redeemed of an earth that denigrated and sullied its ontological, epistemological, and metaphysical conceptualization.


Eddie Bennett is a transformative poet and writer. He is a Washington, DC native who enjoys writing poetry as a mental health practice for wellness and creative therapeutic expression. He also uses poetry as a way to advocate for others to begin to use different forms of creative expression for their own therapeutic benefits.

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arnold edwards short story october 2024

Jackson Snell lived for his morning coffee, his routine, his ritual. Growing up on a truck farm with his parents, younger brother, and sisters in rural Alabama, he cultivated this penchant for morning coffee. It traveled with him to Chicago, some forty years ago. At sixty-seven years of age, it stayed with him. This daily routine fortified his resolve that his decision to accept a transfer forty years ago was the right one.

Now he lived in East Lake View, not a swanky neighborhood, but lovely nonetheless. As he walked through the doors of his neighborhood coffee shop, a warm greeting waited as it did every morning.

“Hey, Jackson, how are you this morning?” asked the young barista.

“Jest fine, Mindy, jest fine. How ‘bout y’all?”

“Can’t complain. The usual?”

“Sho’ ‘nuff. Like they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But maybe this once get me one of them lemon squares today.”

“You got it.”

After paying for his coffee with a generous tip, he settled into his favorite window seat. The morning traffic on Clark Street punctuated a smile across his face.

He settled into city life with such ease it surprised him; he made friends and grew to love it. It took a while, but he managed to even switch his allegiance from the Braves to the White Sox and didn’t find the designated hitter rule the evil he always thought it to be.

His smile broadened as his mind drifted back to those hard scrabble days on the farm. It wasn’t a longing for the good old days, but it was for the change his life had taken. Like they say, ‘Life is good’.

Retired now, he found his life a lot more than good — morning coffee and this afternoon at the zoo with his grandkids. What could be better? Life was damn good, he thought.

While he sat contemplating his life and how good he had it, he didn’t notice the attractive, matronly woman enter the shop, go to the counter and order tea. Jackson paid no attention to her, until she sat at his table directly across from him.

A quick glance around the shop revealed a half dozen empty tables, but here she sat right opposite him at his window table. She placed her purse to her left, grasped her tea in both hands, and took a deep sip, closing her eyes to enjoy the warmth drifting down her throat.

Looking up, Jackson saw an attractive older Black woman, not as old as himself, but north of fifty. Soft, hazel eyes, no make-up, a pale-yellow blouse with no jewelry completed the picture.  Her smile beamed, yet it seemed shallow and forced.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but do I know you?”

“That truly saddens me, Mr. Snell. Of all the folks that done crossed yo’ path, surely, I thought you’d remember me; Viola McBee.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I have no recollection of that name, or such a lovely face.”

“Well, maybe this will jog ya’ll’s memory some.” As she reached into her purse, Jackson took a sip of his coffee. When he looked back up, Viola McBee dead aimed her small .25 automatic at his face.

She pulled the trigger twice. The impact of the shots threw Jackson out of his seat and onto the floor. Viola McBee nestled her gun onto the table and resumed her tea.

Two hours later she sat in an interview room at the thirteenth precinct.  Her hands folded demurely on the table in front of her, her expression calm and unruffled, at peace. As the detectives watched her, the only items that seemed to be missing were white gloves, a pillbox hat, and a bible.

Detectives Frank Lintelli and Martha Stanton observed for a while. Viola said little more than to confirm her name and address.

“I don’t get it. Mr. Snell was overheard telling you that he didn’t know you, yet you shot him to death. I don’t get it.”

“Mr. Snell misspoke. He knew me, he just didn’t remember me.”

“I still don’t get it,” said Stanton. “Did you know he was planning to take his grandkids to the zoo later on today? What if they were there?”

This seemed to jolt her back to the present. She stared at the interrogators. “I would have waited.  He had grandchildren?”

“Yes, but thanks to you, they don’t have a grandfather anymore.”

“It would seem so, but they didn’t need this one. No, not this one.”

“The family will never be the same. Never.”

“Happens to the best of families, don’t it? Look, I done what I done and ain’t gon’ apologize for it neither.”

“We’re beginning to get that, but the question still remains: why did you do it?”

When the words were out of the detectives’ lips, Viola’s eyes averted theirs, tears formed in hers, the hazel color shrouded with moisture. She reached into her blouse and brought out a small, unsealed envelope and plopped it on the table.

“This be my answer to your ‘why’.”

Martha Stanton handled the envelope as if picking up a double-edged razor; she gingerly opened it.  Inside she found a folded, yellowed newspaper clipping — a small article and picture. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. Lintelli reached over and took it from her hand.

“Jesus!” he said.

The article was an explanation of the picture. It was a lynching in Coffee County, Alabama, August 1968; White people standing around; men, women, children as if at a Fourth of July picnic. Drinking from cups and bottles, smiling, eating snow cones. No caption, no explanation under the photo, just two figures circled.

A black man hung from a tree; his neck elongated, his tongue purpled and swollen, bulging out his mouth, his pants pulled down around his ankles, the lower half of his body drenched in blood.

“They done hung my Daddy. That be August 1968. Them circled pictures be Mr. Jackson Snell and his buddy, Caleb Potter.”

“They lynched your father?”

“Yes, suh, they surely did.”

“Why?”

She threw both detectives a glance that revealed to them how stupid their question was.

“’Cause it was 1968, Coffee County, Alabama.  Cain’t you read? That’s all the reason they needed, but they did have another.”

Lintelli glanced once again at the photo. “Why just kill Mr. Snell? I mean it looks like there were a lot of participants here.”

“Maybe ‘cause everybody there didn’t rape my Daddy’s eleven-year-old daughter, his only daughter; only Jackson Snell and Caleb Potter.”

Viola’s bottom lip quivered; the tears poured out now. “They raped me. They yanked me off the road. I was comin’ home from the store. They took me back in the swamp and took turns.

“When they had they fill, they let me go, tellin’ me they’d be back when I got older and learnt some things ‘cause they loved them some dark meat. I can still hear them laughin’ as they drove off.”

“I tol’ my Daddy and his mistake was he went and tol’ the sheriff. That sheriff went and tol’ them dirt farmer Snells. Next thing I know is they breakin’ in our house and draggin’ my Daddy out.”

“As they was draggin’ my Daddy out, my Mama held me back. I was cryin’, screamin’, and beggin’ them not to. That’s when Mr. Jackson Snell turned, smiled, and winked at me. That’s also when I knew this day would come.”

She lowered her head, gazing at her lap, then slowly raised it to face the detectives. “So, you say, Mr. Snell had grandkids? Well, I ain’t got none. Aftuh they done what they did, I couldn’t have no kids. No kids fo’ me meant no man evuh looked my way. It was like I was marked since I been eleven. Yes, suh, marked. No man wanted me, but they was no man I wanted aftuh they done, what they did.”

Both Lintelli and Stanton sat there, stunned as if hit by lightning, not knowing what to do or say.  After a somber silence, Stanton spoke. “Ms. McBee, I don’t know what to say. I… “

“Don’t fret about it none, sweetheart. I knew what I was doin’ and I knew what the outcome would be, so it ain’t yo’ problem. It’s between me and the Lawd. Hope She will understand.”

“She?”

“One of my last remainin’ hopes fo’ forgiveness.”

As if on cue two uniforms came in to escort Viola McBee away and back to the holding cells.  She turned one last time before exiting through the door.

“You might wanna call the Coffee County Sheriff’s Office and clear up a missing person’s report for them. They can find Caleb Potter’s body down by Bryson Creek. That’s where they took me that day.”

“Also tell them they woulda been another, but the devil came up and snatched that sheriff befo’ I could.”

As she left out the door, the detectives sat, each in their own way, trying to define justice and its true meaning.


Arnold Edwards is an author, retired teacher, and coach. He graduated from Quigley South Seminary in Chicago. He holds a BA in history from Southern Illinois University. He has sold eight short stories and is currently working on three novels. He has authored two full-length screenplays and several teleplays, a few of which were for now-canceled shows and three in search of a series. His published stories appear in Black Lace Magazine, Cricket, YAWP Magazine, Downstate Story, Gemini Magazine, Frontier Tales, and Mystery Tribune.