By |

otsile sebele seakeco short story april 2024

I was struck by the complexity of South African society as I stood in line at Home Affairs. Around me were a number of people who asked where to go, what to do and amidst that, was a lot of chattering. The intercom hailed for a who-and-who to report to the staffroom, while the lady seated opposite us eventually exclaimed, “Next!” I marshalled myself to one of the front desks to her inviting, “Good morning,” followed by “Your ID number please.”

My ID, license and a few other cards fell victim to a thief whose only gain was a couple of rands and who, perhaps, had no intention of disorganizing me to the extent that he or she did. I gave the woman my particulars, answered a few questions, and then returned to where I was instructed to sit. Next to me was a man, and in front of us were two Colored women.

I caught a disturbing whiff from the man next to me. His discomfort suggested that he was aware of his odor. I tried my best to let him feel comfortable and, in a way, to let him know that I knew that life sometimes forces us to lose control of important things that qualify us as functional human beings. I wanted to let him know that it was okay and undoubtedly forgivable to lose interest in or to forget the value society places on good hygiene, especially when one’s life is consumed by more compelling issues than bathing.  

It started getting busier, the queues got longer, and the row I was in moved at a snail’s pace. The Home Affairs we were in was in the township. It was attached to a police station and a few government offices. While eavesdropping on the women’s conversation about their acquaintances, families, and lives, I kept raising my eyebrows at some of the alarming and funny things they said. I could almost picture some of the characters and events they mentioned as individuals I knew and lived with and as things I had witnessed in my neighborhood.

As the morning progressed, a white man and his daughter walked in. They went straight to where they were instructed to sit by the security guard. Heads turned in their direction, and a stillness overcame the room as they settled in. It was obvious that they had sensed the sudden silence and the attention they’d drawn. The daughter looked in our direction while she lent a smile to everyone. Her glance was poised, and her eyes seemed to acknowledge an interested yet unwelcome audience.

It was hard not to look in their direction or to feel the awkwardness their presence caused. I took a moment in clandestine fashion to peek at the entire room. I was not surprised to find everyone’s eyes fixed on the white man. He was very tall and muscular and by no doubt of Afrikaner descent. His focus remained on his phone, and not once did he lift his head unless he had something to say to his daughter.

The activity continued — everyone followed the security’s instructions and listened attentively to the tellers. In moments when my eyes weren’t fixed on my cellphone or I wasn’t listening in on the two women’s conversation, or caught between the two, I sat back, closed my eyes, and allowed my mind to wander off. It was in between these moments that I noticed another white family of four walk in. Unlike everyone, the mother, father, son and daughter walked in brazenly without noticing the security guard at the door. They walked across the room in search of a place to sit.

I sensed that everyone wanted to see if the security guard would confront the family to direct them to where they needed to sit, something she had done quite firmly all morning. We all looked in anticipation while hesitation overtook her before she finally decided to approach the family. The white woman, however, had already left her seat to speak to one of the tellers. “Hello, we’d like to make and renew our passports. Jim here has been chosen to represent South Africa at the Under-16 cricket world competitions in Australia.” She was loud enough for us to hear what she said and for us to look between her and the security guard to see what would unfold. 

To our disappointment no drama transpired. Instead, the security guard waited for the lady to finish until she escorted her and her family to the correct seats. They shared a warm exchange, and everything was back to normal. I sat there waiting to be called to the last post. It was extremely hot, and I had forgotten to bring a bottle of water. The man next to me mumbled that he couldn’t wait any longer, so he took off, and I occupied his seat.

I didn’t know whether to be relieved that I was a step closer to completing the process or to feel sorry for him because he would have to come back again. By the sound of it, his predicament was whether to miss work for a few hours with the risk of his site manager noticing that he was absent or to work without a temporary ID which might see him not get paid at the end of the month. It was a terribly sad story, but I took up his seat with little regret and waited patiently for my turn to be called.

I was finally done. I stepped out of Home Affairs to a buzz of activity. It was unusual for me to be anywhere else but at work. I relished the feeling while I tried to map out my next stop. In the distance, I saw the father and daughter hop into a beautiful huge bakkie with wheels the size of a small modern car. They didn’t say much to each other, but both looked relieved like everyone else that exited the building. 

Kids close-by pointed at their vehicle with great admiration, and adults like me couldn’t resist following it with our eyes until it was out of sight. A dream car of note, I sighed and immediately turned around in view of my surroundings. They weren’t as inspiring or beautiful as what the bakkie had signified in my heart. I lit a cigarette and stood for a while watching people go into the police station, leave Home Affairs and others, like me, hang around.

I left the premises without having figured out why I felt the way I did at Home Affairs. However, when the second white family drove past me, it was then that it occurred to me that despite my daily interactions with countless white people, their presence in today’s setting seemed to take away a lot of what they usually embody in other spaces. In retrospect and to my surprise, I suddenly forgot about the degree of influence, authority, and power they generally assume in the worlds I inhabit, especially when subjected to the security guard’s command.

I pondered on the moment a little more until I realized that the silence and awkwardness that characterized the room was a culmination of the disbelief of seeing white people in the heart of our township and having to come to terms with the possibility that they, too, could endure what has become such a norm in much of our lives. Before then, it was hard to imagine that they could also stand in long queues, sit on skewed and broken chairs, or tolerate having to wait hours on end to get something done, when what often stood as a reflection of their livelihoods was comfort and ease.

I immediately juxtaposed this with the security guard, a black middle-aged woman, who I suppose holds very little authority in society when she exits Home Affairs. Unlike the two white families, with one set to travel overseas and the other with a stunning vehicle, it was difficult to look past her — childlike in her discolored uniform — as someone who could ever experience what the two families espouse. My thinking was eventually interrupted by a long hoot from a passing taxi whose conductor almost convinced me that I had called out to it because in fact, I could have done with a lift.


Otsile Sebele Seakeco grew up in Kimberley, in the Northern Cape, South Africa. Added to his love for dogs and fiction, he is a poet interested in creating works of art that enable him to reflect, grapple with, and speak life into the reality of existence.

By |

byron armstrong poetry april 2024

Calloused hands cleave sugarcane

outstretched to Caribbean sun.

Fires of resistance forge

weapons from master’s tools.


Exiled from tribes and gods,

through slave castles to plantations,

we revolt to revel in a history

hidden within outlawed drums.


Onyx angels trouble the water

under a voiceless ocean.

Down by the riverside,

Water breaks like hearts leaping from slave ships.


We sing Soul into existence by

freeing our holy ghosts.

In America, voices rise

above lies hiding gospel truths.


Sarah Baartman is a woman in a zoo.

Her captors have forgotten their mother.

Proud buttocks attached to hips

that birthed nations, an oddity on display.


Josephine Baker is Sarah’s reckoning,

Impundulu’s plumage electrifying crowds.

Snaking hips now become an infatuation.

J’ai deux amours, both Black and women.


Black magic invokes ancestors

speaking through us in tongues,

code-switching suffering into

chariots coming forth to carry us —


home is Jim Crow incubating culture in the stuff of nightmares.

This seed bears strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.


Big Mama’s hound dog howl

shakes cobwebs off Elvis’ pelvis.

Long tall Sallys go tutti frutti

for rock’s white king.


Blue-eyed soul’s sleight of hand

makes King Richard feel Little

but say it loud Mister Brown,

‘I’m Black and I’m proud!’


Soul power plants seeds

for Black Power now.

Funkadelic spectacle brings

one nation under a groove.


If Paris is Burning,

The House of Baldwin has set it aflame.

Let Joseph Bologne compose a melody

with the fire next time as muse.


Punk meets Rudeboy

in old Brittania,

a London calling that doesn’t Clash

With gangsters in a ghost town.


Oku Onuora’s reflections in red

migrate colonial class struggle.

Linton Kwesi’s dread beat an’ blood

is chocolate magic hidden in ganja mist.


We are moving culture people

even after our forced exodus,

we get up, stand up for our rights,

to sing redemption songs.


Tonight Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou

will cut a rug.

Uncle Jimmy will catch a vibe as Aunty Toni

stalks the dance floor.


Earth-toned limbs and elastic bodies

vogue into Harlem living rooms.

“We will house you,” says Mother at the ball

like Madonna with child.


We paint the message of our plight

like hieroglyphics on new pyramids.

white lines blow away, but

redlining remains a sign of the times.


As public enemy number one, it would take

a nation of millions to hold us back.

Within this terror dome, we fight the power

and try to shut em’ down.


This lemonade is bittersweet

yet quenching our thirst for a renaissance.

Tina was simply the best

So Beyonce had a suitable prototype.


Come forth Orishas through our ancestors as ebo.

Write Sonnets in Adinkra on our minds so we remember,

we are music rooted deep as the foundations of a nation

where our bones are bricks for monuments to liberty once denied.


Sunrise Symphony

A cacophony of cooing birds chirp daybreak through shuttered windows.

Rhythm rides sunlight scattered between curtain slits in situ.


Sza croons smooth awakening with soulful aplomb, and I

connect consciousness to the chaos of kids clomping on concrete.


Rubber soles squeak step and scratch slide across sidewalks,

with wanton abandon these careless kids collect scuff marks on new kicks.


The elongated beep of garbage backing up bellows a beware.

Gears grind dust while mechanical movement swallows detritus into itself.


The gaping maw mashes solid matter made malleable as

an attentive mama bird regurgitates food into chirping chicks.


Scared mice scramble, skittering behind thin walls,

my loquacious feline scratches plaster, mewling feral discontent.


Gravel-throated exhalation punctuates the ceremonial performance

of fluttering wisp of blanket announcing serene shedding of twilight.


Uncovered extremities crack while crawling from their extraneous cocoon.

Mattress warbles a spring-loaded whine as I shift lumbering mass out of idle.


Flat feet creak the floors of this venerated Victorian,

as I trod tenaciously toward toothbrush territory.


Turning bathroom taps triggers pressure tremoring pipes,

evacuating an element essential to eliminating the end of existence.


I hack up phlegm to emancipate lungs from belabored breath,

a primordial brew like one-celled organisms ovulating through osmosis.


Shaving my epidermis with unskilled precision that slits skin,

bleeding a truth that betrays the solipsism of lighter shades,


A denial of equal existence disassociated from the divine.

A skin displayed in human zoos and prisons perceived lesser.


My mirror meditation doesn’t reflect what bluer eyes have shown

through white knuckle-clutched purses and locked car doors upon approach,


The spritz of pink spray tans around plastic plumped lips,

Stealing features like African masks pilfered for Picasso paintings.


While Kardashians run through Black men like O.J. fleeing the police,

carving away ethnicity under the knife to live anew in Black women’s bodies.


Black men run from the police to flee the cries of Black women grieving,

high-pitched siren wails drowning out muffled gasps and lovers’ mourning.


A symphony muted by screaming teapots, the clink of a swirling spoon,

and the pin-drop drizzle of honey in a steaming cup of the blackest tea.


Byron Armstrong has been awarded literary grants from the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for The Arts. He was longlisted in the Top 100 of the 7th Annual Launch Pad Prose Competition. His work is published in Heavy Feather Review and The Malahat Review. A son of Jamaican immigrants, his feature writing exploring sociopolitics and art has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Whitehot Magazine, and Arts Help, amongst others. The recipient of a 2022 Canadian Ethnic Media award for best online article, he resides in Toronto, Canada (Tkaronto) with his family. 

By |

Jassy Ez flash nonfiction april 2024

“It’s okay, we’re talking about those Black people. You’re different.”

“You can’t possibly be cousins with her (with your dark hair and brown skin); you   look nothing alike.”

“I know that you think he’s cute, but Koreans don’t go for darker-skinned people.”

“You’re so beautiful and olive complected.”

“She’s an Oreo; more Black than White. She talks White.”

“What’s up with your hair?”

“Your Mama doesn’t know how to do your hair; you shoulda let me do it.”

“Do you feel like you’re more Black or White?”

“What are you?”

“You look exotic; where are you from?”

“My Dad doesn’t know that your Dad’s Black; he thinks you’re Mexican, so it’ll be okay.”

“There’s not supposed to be a Black person in this show; it’s not historically accurate! Oh, sorry. You’re half. That shouldn’t offend you, right?”


Jassy Ez, or Jasmine Ezeb, is an English Literature instructor in New Orleans, Louisiana. She enjoys teaching World Literature to her students and witnessing their light bulb moments as they make connections between old myths and modern-day society. She has a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from the University of Holy Cross, and she was awarded Best English Student at her graduation. When not working, she likes to spend time with family and friends, explore small bookshops, and record audiobooks.

By |

ada chinara poetry april 2024

Rocking in the dark and silence again, 

two heads nuzzled against my breast, 

eight limbs flail out from beneath, 

an octopus gliding through the sea.


 

I know they’re old enough 

to be put straight to bed

yet here we are 

night after night 

squeezed into this glider,

once sea green

now a mossy grey, 

lulling us to the beat  

of a mesmeric sway.  


There was another glider 

in the Special Care ward 

where I sat and rocked 

my newborns light as feathers, 

me with a heart weighted

and ready for flight.

In that glider I soothed tiny bodies,

stroked downy heads, 

inhaled sweet breaths 

and prayed 

and cried 

and sang 

over my daughter 

and my son.


And there was the nurse who said 

there was something wrong with my boy— 

his tiny body didn’t move right

his cry wasn’t right, 

and he wouldn’t be right. 

But the baby next door 

had just the right cry, 

an intelligent cry 

is what she called it.

And that baby was white,

and my boy with his pale skin 

and navy eyes and wispy hair 

only looked the part—

except for his nose, 

round as the sun, 

harbinger of Blackness 

to come.


I knew she was lying, 

but I had to stake my claim. 

So I asked the doctor, loudly

if anything was wrong with my boy

(I made sure she was nearby).

“No,” he said, “not at all,”

and she didn’t come near me again, 

because I was that bitch.  

She left me to glide  

on my private sea 

with two hushed, sleepy infants 

born strong but early 

nestled in the crook of each arm. 


My foremothers glided 

on a rockier sea 

surrounded by the stench of death 

on their way to hell 

where their worth was measured

in profits not theirs.

Arms and wombs and spirits full   

of children not yet separated, 

did they too sit hushed, in stunned 

silence and darkness,

waiting, praying for renewed life 

or release from this earth?


And there was Solitude, 

insurgent mother from Guadeloupe, 

captured for abetting a slave rebellion. 

They waited until she gave birth 

to take her life. 

Did she rock her baby through the night: 

its first and her last?

Did she glide to a realm 

where they could be free?


Another nurse came at night 

when the ward was still.

She whispered that my babies 

were strong and smart 

and ready to go home. 

She saw her children in mine 

and offered a wordless pact. 

There we were:

two midnight women,

conjoined in solitude,

conspiring in the dark 

over babies to be freed. 


And I suppose that is why 

we retreat to this glider 

night after night.

It has long been this way:

Black mothers and children, 

gliding, hoping, praying, breathing. 

Nestled together in darkness 

and in silence, 

awaiting the peace 

alighting at dawn. 


We Bar at One O’ Clock

I must have circled the earth that year

in Trinidad under the blazing sun:

my sinewy legs trekking

up Mount St. Benedict for a breeze, 

and down to Curepe for doubles with pepper.

I ran across Maracas beach,

then sprinted to the maxi taxi

that carried me to Chaguanas, 

and on to Enterprise, 

where Abigail’s mother whispered,

“lean on the Lord,” 

when I nearly fainted from the heat 

one Sunday morning. 


Walking home I passed We Bar

where men gathered, imbibing the spirits 

the church had traded for grape juice. 

And I stopped, for a moment watching 

the rude bwoys and natty dreads 

who watched me constantly:

watched my legs in perpetual motion

up and down Eastern Main Road,

offering me smiles or sly compliments 

muttered at half breath,

but never a drink or a dance,

for I was marked in their eyes 

with the sign of the cross:

a good girl not to be touched. 

It wasn’t true, but no one 

has greater faith than men 

in a bar at midday.  


There was one dread

who had long studied me,

the chasm between us buckling 

under the weight of his gaze 

that I never returned. 


But that day I lingered, 

watching him from the doorway 

as he danced by himself,

lost in the medley of Marley. 

It was one o’clock in the afternoon 

and he moved as though time had stopped 

and he had floated away,

far from the concrete of St. Augustine.

See him now in the mountains

dancing among the trees,

free as we are meant to be:

a rebel, soul rebel. 


I could not disturb his reverie

or shatter the myth of my being,

so I walked back to my room 

in the house across the street 

where the music from We Bar wafted

in with spirits mixed with sweat.

And in my room I danced,

alone and with my dread— 

if you’re not happy 

then you must be blue.


There are no saints or sinners,

there is just we— all of us 

capturers, soul adventurers

moving together, dancing alone 

at We Bar at one o’clock.


Ada Chinara (Ada C.M. Thomas) is Assistant Professor of English at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. She specializes in literatures of the African Diaspora in English, French and Spanish. A public humanities scholar, she has worked at cultural institutions including Penn Center in the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, and as a Public Scholar through the New Jersey Council for the Humanities’ Public Scholars’ Project. Her forthcoming manuscript, Aminata: Abbey Lincoln’s Song of Faith, will be published by Rutgers University Press.

By |

taylor mckinnon poetry april 2024

My brother said he’d seen so many dead bodies

And had so much                  death              around him

How could he weep for the poor faces of the Palestinians?

                        How could he weep?

But I’m not a man and I could never understand

What it’s like to                    need a man              to tell me

To will me into hope for the future

I said no words to my brother really

I just remembered the little boy

Who ran away from trains who

Had                 wonder                       in his eyes at the sky

And I remember all the                   death              that has surrounded me

That has got up inside of me

And I remember the faces of the Palestinians who do not ask for hope

They ask for their story to be told and to be heard

And I listen to the shrieks of their story in my ears and I listen

And I cry real tears as I feel the full weight of my people dying

Of our people dying

And I feel the fire of death in my veins

And I wipe my tears away so that I can wash the feet of my dead

While my brother remains in his room


Taylor Mckinnon is a Black woman and writer based in Boston, Massachusetts. She has a lifelong interest in literature which she has studied in English, Latin, and Ancient Greek. She loves all things horror and loves nature a lot even though she is allergic. Her poetry has been published in a gathering together, the Papeachu Review, the BLF Press Black Joy anthology, Solstice Literary Magazine, and several other journals. You can find her on instagram at dtturns. 

By |

eraldo souza dos santos creative nonfiction april 2024

One

Ai, Eraldo, I think people have always made me a slave, in one way or another. After so many years, how many?, I don’t remember…, Dona R. arrived at the puteiro and asked your aunt: Where is Nilva?

That was in 1971, I believe. Dona R. is still alive, you should go to Teófilo Otoni to ask her this before she dies. Your grandmother worked for her. She did the ironing, cleaned the house, that sort of thing. Your aunts and I worked in her house since we were small children. I worked for her until I disappeared and also when I appeared again, before your grandmother sent me to Rio. Dona R. went to the whorehouse, the whorehouse was full of men, she got your aunt out of there and made her tell where I was. That’s all I know. Your aunt had come back to town very recently. A gentleman saw your aunt in the whorehouse area and told Dona R. They went there with the police, but the police had to stay outside.

I think the house and the farm were near Feira de Santana, but I could be wrong. Back then, my hair was very, very long, but as they didn’t want to take care of it, they cut it short like yours. I couldn’t comb my own hair alone either. I was very small. I could only see the town when they took me to the farm in their car during the holidays.

I don’t know what they produced on the farm. It was a very small farm. I looked after the children in the family. They were four or five, I guess. Me? I was probably a bit older. They were already walking, and how they were walking…! All the time. And I had to go after them. Two children, that’s it. Every night they would take a piece of an old mattress and put it in that little corner of the room for me to sleep on it. There was only room for my feet if I shrank down, and I didn’t have a pillow.

I don’t remember what they all looked like. Up until I was 20 or 21, I could remember their faces perfectly. Today I only see shadows. No, I don’t remember their names. Everything disappeared from my mind. But if I close my eyes now, I can see your aunt’s face perfectly.

Two

A police car was there when we returned from the farm. The policeman was kind to me. He asked: Is your name Nilva? I said yes. I don’t think I was afraid. He said: I need you to tell me if you know some people. Then he went to the car, and your aunt got out of one of the back doors.

No, I don’t remember realizing that Brazil was going through a dictatorship. I know because you have told me and because since Dilma was elected, they’ve been talking about it on TV all the time, haven’t they? The dictatorship started the year I disappeared, is that it? Ai, I only started learning all these things when I became a dumb old woman…

I think I disappeared in 1968. I think I spent three years in Bahia, but your Aunt Nires said it was much, much longer. Seven, she says… I don’t know now. Could it really have been that long? Who knows…

It was because the policeman arrived with your aunt that I tried to run away. I remember trying to run across the street. I shouted, It was her! I tried to get away from her. The policeman immediately grabbed my arm. It hurt. He said I shouldn’t be afraid. Maybe it wasn’t a policeman, but someone from the Juvenile Court?

Your grandmother got out of the police car, she was there too. I thought I’d never see her again. That she had forgotten me. I didn’t even know where I was.

That was how I reappeared.

Three

It was a normal, white, lace dress that your grandmother used to make me wear on Sundays. The dress had disappeared, but when your grandmother decided to sell the house, your Aunt Nires found it in a box and threw it away. You know your aunt. She said the dress was grimy.

What she told me was that when I disappeared, your grandmother put a nail in one of the living room walls and hung that dress on it. She only took the dress off the nail when I reappeared. Maybe some kind of simpatia? It was just an old dress, and you love keeping old things. I can’t wait to get rid of all those papers in your room to make room for the books in the boxes. The albums must be there. By the end of the month I want to clean the house, this house is filthy.

She left at dawn that day and went to the street market to buy food with Mom. She came back and left at about 11, 11 o’clock, and told your Aunt Nires to let her take me to your grandmother to buy a pair of shoes. Mom’s orders, Nires wouldn’t say no. Then she took me to a place where there were only truck drivers. And we traveled from Teófilo Otoni to Bahia by truck.

I don’t know if she gave me to them, if she sold me to them… Perhaps “selling” is too strong a word… I don’t think anyone knows, will ever know what really happened. Your Aunt Nires doesn’t think she sold me… Whenever we passed a highway police station, she would gently lower my head so that the police wouldn’t see me. I didn’t think anything unusual was going on. I trusted her. I was used to going out with your three older aunts, I just couldn’t go out alone.

No, it wasn’t your aunt who drove the truck… It was a truck driver. Your aunt didn’t even know how to drive. Today, I think they did get some money in exchange for me… That’s at least what I think…

We arrived at a big house. Your aunt and the truck driver went in and talked to the couple who lived there. When the conversation ended, she said, Nilva, I’ll be right back. Then the couple took me to a room with a little mattress in the corner. A mattress from a child’s crib.

Then the next day, when I woke up, they said: Your sister’s gone and she’s not coming back. And I’m going to stay here? Then they said: Yes.

The bad thing was that it wasn’t just looking after the children. They put me in charge of waxing the whole house, too. Especially a large room where they kept things like old furniture. This room was also used as a garage. I used to clean all the house on my knees. That’s why, when your grandmother found me, my knees were so bruised, dark, to the bone. I never understood why they always asked me to wax everything all the time. I would put the wax on the floor, and the Black maid would wax it. The waxer was too big for me.

I liked it when they took me to the farm. I was freer there. I could eat fruits off the tree. The cooks treated me very well there. They were Black, too. Breakfast had cheese, bread, and cornbread. They would ask: Do you like this? If I said yes, they would always prepare it for me. Lunch was much better too, with chicken, pork, beef… Everything was very tasty. Maybe because they felt sorry for me… The other house also had a maid, but she was much more reserved.

I never understood why your aunt didn’t come back to pick me up from there…

Your aunt told the police that we had traveled there by bus. But when the policeman, I’ll never forget his nice suit, talked to me alone in a room, I said no that we had traveled by truck. He asked me, Do you remember the truck driver’s name? I said no… The truck driver had vanished, never to appear again.

Four

It’s been so long since I’ve seen these photos! Your Aunt Neuza, yes. She seems happy in these photos, right? I don’t know who the rest of these people are, they’re all whores. The bichinha loved to drink… That man must be the pimp, those are perhaps the clients. I think she preferred whoring because it was less work than being a maid cleaning a madam’s house. Or she really liked it? I don’t know. She loved drinking with these people. Your grandmother never said anything about it. She lived with us, for sure. Once she stopped drinking, she would suddenly start shaking a lot, looking sad. Then your grandmother would shout: Nilva, Tico, go and buy your sister a shot of cachaça at the little store! I would bring the glass from home. I carried the glass very carefully so as not to spill it.

She wouldn’t let me get close to my boyfriends. She threatened to kill all of them. She said to Dica once: If I see you together again, my knife will find you!.. When I came back from Bahia, I only slept in her bed, afraid that your other aunt would kidnap me again, at night. I loved running my fingers through her hair before sleeping…

Once she put alcohol on her own body and set it on fire. I think it was because she fell in love with a man who cheated on her. She spent a long time in hospital… Several parts of her body became wrinkled after that. She was very, very beautiful…

Once she was in the city center and got into a fight with a woman. She stabbed the woman several times. No, I don’t think the woman died… Neuza went home calmly. She hid the knife behind our big, old radio and went to sleep. Then the police arrived in the morning. Does Neuza live here? Yes. Can we talk to her? Yes. Then your grandmother woke her up. Did you stab so-and-so? Yes. And where’s the crime weapon? Oh, just a moment. She gave the policeman the knife, full of blood. She was locked up for a long time…

She died of that m-disease that I don’t like to say the name of.

Five

Imagine, if you’re the grandson of a German or a Swiss! Your grandmother was very beautiful. Black but with big blue eyes, you can imagine. And she spoke German. I think she worked for some German family? Remember when she spoke German to you? She was illiterate but spoke German! Crazy.

I don’t know who my father really was. All your aunts and uncles don’t have their father’s name on their birth certificates. Neither do I. I think each of us has a different father… You must meet Dona D., too, before she dies. It was her niece who bought your grandmother’s house ten years ago. She loves a good gossip! She knows everything but only plays jokes. One day she said to me: You have the same mark over your eye as your father. Could it be that my father, or your grandfather, is still alive?

Your grandmother always said that my father was J.L. He always hated me. He never lived in the same house as we did. He lived with another woman. I was good friends with his sons. I don’t know why they put it into our heads that we had to call him dad. Maybe he was Neuza’s father. Maybe also the father of that aunt of yours who stole me from your grandmother. I think he had her with another woman but didn’t want to take care of her, and your grandmother decided to adopt her. You know, we love to adopt girls in this family. She was the only white one among us.

One day his children and I went to play. G. ended up hurting himself on the barbed wire on the farm. We carried him to our father’s house. Your Uncle Tico ran because he couldn’t tolerate blood, a coward as always. Dad took G. to hospital and then told your grandmother that I had been responsible for the accident. And she gave me the worst beating of my life. He kept smoking that pipe of his while she beat me until I pissed myself from the pain. When G. was discharged from hospital, he said it wasn’t me. But it was too late. Your grandmother had decided to send me to Rio to work in the house of one of her sisters-in-law.

Six

I don’t know why the police haven’t arrested your aunt. I think your grandmother preferred not to press charges so as not to see her daughter spend a lifetime in jail… She got angry when we asked her about this. When I came back, your aunt was still living there, as I said… Life as usual. That’s why I used to sleep in your Aunt Neuza’s bed for fear of being kidnapped at night.

But one day she disappeared like dust. I think your Aunt Neuza threatened to kill her in revenge. Your grandmother looked for her for a long time, everywhere. In vain. Perhaps Neuza’s knife found her.


Eraldo Souza dos Santos (they/them/theirs) is a Brazilian writer currently based between Paris and São Paulo and a 2022 LARB Publishing Fellow. He will join Cornell University as a Klarman Fellow in Summer 2024 and the University of California, Irvine as an Assistant Professor within the Poetic Justice Cluster in Fall 2025. His first book, to be published in 2025, is an autobiography of his illiterate mother and a meditation on the lived experience of Blackness and enslavement in modern Brazil. At the age of seven, his mother was sold into slavery by her white foster sister. It was 1968—eighty years after the abolition of slavery in Brazil and four years into the anti-communist coup d’état, during the month in which the military overruled the Constitution by decree. By weaving in extensive archival research and interviews, the novel narrates their journey to Minas Gerais—where she was born—and Bahia—the Blackest state in Brazil, where she was enslaved on a farm for three years—to investigate why the family that enslaved her has never been brought to justice. It also narrates his grandmother’s journey to search for her missing daughter. You can keep up with Eraldo on Twitter at @esdsantos and Instagram at @era_o_eraldo.


By |

cls Sandoval poetry april 2024

I remember the old wives’ tale

repeated too many times

to me when I was little


Spit out those watermelon

seeds or you’ll grow a watermelon

So many of my friends imagined

that the melon itself would fill our

bellies making us appear pregnant


I always pictured the watermelon

outside of my belly, connected to

the vines wrapping ‘round and ‘round

in my gut like an out-of-use

garden hose



Walking by Charles Henry Alston

The Black folks are walking 

During the bus boycott

Just like in Alston’s depiction

Rosa Parks inspired them

When we read about Rosa Parks to our daughter

From her book, whether it’s February or not,

And when we read about the many other

Strong Black women who look like Evelyn


Our little one looks at each page thoughtfully

Pointing to the feet of the woman depicted

“She has shoes,” Evelyn notes

We affirm her observation


“And she has shoes”

“And she has shoes”

“And she has shoes”

She points out on every page


“Yes, baby girl.  Shoes for walking.”


CLS Sandoval, PhD (she/her) is a Pushcart nominated writer and communication professor with accolades in film, academia, and creative writing who speaks, signs, acts, publishes, sings, performs, writes, paints, teaches, and rarely relaxes. She’s presented at communication conferences, served as a poetry and flash editor, published 15 academic articles, two academic books, three full-length literary collections, and three chapbooks. She has recently published flash and poetry pieces in literary journals, including Opiate Magazine, The Journal of Magical Wonder, and A Moon of One’s Own. She is raising her daughter, son, and dog with her husband in Walnut, CA. 

By |

jasmine harris flash nonfiction march 2024

My momma, who woke up before the roosters crowed and before the early birds tickled worms from the earth, was always the last person ready. As I walked by her room before gracing my spot on the couch for the morning wait, she had on her robe and was just setting the temperature of her curling irons. The third time I checked, she was scrutinizing two almost identical necklaces. Holding one to her chest in front of the mirror, then shaking her beautiful black curls to and fro as she reached across the basin for the other. 

I remember bouncing on the edge of the couch, Bible gripped tightly, as Bobby Jones’ gospel played in the background. Pink peacoat layered on top of a pastel-colored dress, ruffled matching socks, gloves, and polished shoes. Momma assured us that rather than vain pageantry, our attire was symbolism of our adoration for the Lord. When she said this, I imagined angels seated like a panel holding large boxing-style score cards in their wings and watching each of us as we entered the sanctuary. Their task: to rank our attire in order of holiness. As I pondered their nodding in approval or blushing in disdain, I spun my head from the clock to the television so quickly it appeared the hands stood still. Nonetheless, we would be late to church once again.

Throughout the washing of dishes, and syruping all of our pancakes, and ensuring each hair on all four of our heads was in place, she licked her thumb. Swiping a lingering crumb from Leilon’s face, she was finally ready. En route, I begged to crack a window as our dusty van seemed oversaturated with my anxiety and momma’s bitter perfume. The ride usually took about eighteen minutes allowing either for a nap or several minutes of my wishing my mother were a more aggressive driver. She drove as if we were floating on clouds, cranking up The Clark Sisters’ Living in Vain as we coasted. My stomach could have easily competed with the world’s best on beam — tossing and turning in and out of knots. Fifteen minutes late and probably missing all of praise and worship, I struggled to place each foot in front of the other while entering the double doors to the church. Not a single thing would be different on the program; yet I scanned its contents, feeling as though I heard an ominous “tisk” and vowing to make up what we had missed later at home. Momma said God was our everything – a healer and a way maker. And we should be grateful for all He’d done for us — life, groceries, and clothes. But we were always late.

It never made sense to my tween brain. How could she love God so much, dedicate an entire day to honoring Him, but show up late every time? How could she be so rude?  How would God know we took him seriously as we slumped into the last pew of the sanctuary? During my Saturday night scarries — what I called my anxiety-filled dreams on Saturday nights –each church member would turn around in unison, heads shaking in disgust, as we dragged in like stale bread. How many points off would we receive on the scales of good and evil? How would God know I truly cared if we missed half the sermon or praise and worship? As I pondered God’s love evaluation system, questions bounced around in my dome like pickle balls at a senior center. I soon realized I’d left my eyes open, and my head was up instead of bowed during the benediction. How would I ever make it to heaven?


Jasmine Harris is a multi-genre writer and educational specialist featured in the Hidden Sussex Anthology, Prometheus Dreaming, Syndrome Magazine, and several others. She most recently served as the 2023 Arts and Science Center of Southeast Arkansas Arts in Education Artist in Residence.  Harris focuses her writing on celebrating Black culture and community, intersectional identities, and the evaluation of popular culture. She frequently quotes her inspirations as Maya Angelou, Ntozake Shange, and Tupac Shakur. Stay updated with her work and projects through her website https://jasminemharris.weebly.com or on instagram at dr_harris.

By |

zama madinana poetry march 2024

we sunbathe our hopes

at traffic lights


we are all zama-zama here

we dig & drill

our chances


we are all here

with our genocidal scars

tutsi & hutu


we seek for warmth

between the great rocks

of the drakensberg mountain


we all here to wash

our wounds

from the healing waters

of uthukela


we are all here

bathed in grey dust

of johannesburg’s deserted

mines


we are all here

with our tattered

dignity


scrubbing

the dance floors

of hillbrow brothels

with our big bums


we are all here

with no passport

no id

& no asylum



we are all makwerekwere here


selling fruits & vegetables

on kerk street


just to survive

just to survive


just to survive


funerals

here in ladysmith

rifles cough out

angry

waves of fire

coffins befriend

the weekends

o, taxi wars that never end

& taverns

are homes of violence

here in ladysmith

whoonga addicts

ravage & mutilate

grannies’ private parts


maboneng

soak me in the searing

sounds of bob marley

& baba mali


teach me portuguese

from the wet classrooms

of a brazilian lady’s lips


allow me

to swim in the blue lagoons

of her eyes

before we eat njera

or ujeqe

down fox street


maboneng

city of a million lights

at night allow me

to drown

my sorrows

in your hideout bars


& in the morning

burry my bhabhalazi

in a strong smell

of your rusty coffee shops


Zama Madinana is a South African poet based in Johannesburg. His work has appeared in The Shallow Tales Review, East Jasmine Review, Olney, Poetry Potion, Voices of Africa and other literary publications. Zama’s work focuses mainly on love, politics and social issues. In 2021, he won the third prize of the Sol Plaatje EU Poetry Award. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2022.His full-length poetry collection, ‘94, was published in June 2023.  In addition to regular performances and readings in Johannesburg and across South Africa, he has performed his poetry in various countries including Botswana, Mozambique, and Lesotho.

By |

thanh nguyen poetry march 2024

today, the well in my grandmother’s garden is empty.

I empty it.


In Vietnamese, nước  means water,

means country.


Nước sông trickles into my grandma’s orchards,

fills the well like a song.


engraved in sống is the word alive.


I wonder if the water I drained today

caressed the skin of the country it drowned,


whether it carried the boats that kept

us

                                                                           living.

                                                                either way, nước sống,

                                                                              tôi sống.

the ways that the water still keeps me alive.

heathen water,

Holy water,

human water.

That is to say,

my mother never lost her son,


and I touched my brother,

hair, lips, and flesh                              his wet body

      even when I did not know him.


from the muddy nước, a lotus blooms.

under our feet, a gourd made of human skin.


Thanh Nguyen (she/they) is a poet and musician from Atlanta, Georgia currently living in Amman, Jordan. Her writing focuses on colonial displacement, exile, and belonging. Outside of poetry, Thanh also pursues decolonial imaginaries as a project coordinator at a liberation theology center based in Palestine. Their work has been featured in Re:Visions Magazine and Silk Road Review. She can be found on instagram at @ttnpoet.

By |

yosra bouslama poetry march 2024

On the Uber ride home, I remember 

to scrape Arab from the tip of my tongue

just in time when the driver asks about the origins

of my name. Tunisian, I say. North Africa.

He nods, the whole continent floating black 

and indistinguishable in his fenced imagination. 

I have always depended on the ignorance 

of strangers. More so tonight when the headlines 

I saw last week are still blinking red and blue

in a corner of my brain: Victims reportedly were wearing 

the Palestinian keffiyeh and speaking in Arabic

 when they were attacked. I never read the full article.

If there’s more to the story, it only reassures 

the hunters, not the prey. Before coming to this country, 

I read about the cab driver killed for having 

a Muslim name, and I still came armed 

with a set of disappearing acts—skin light 

enough to pass. Unplaceable accent. My name

withheld whenever I sniff a bait. Tomorrow,

this fear, too, will be filed under Discreet lest

someone rattles the trap that keeps me here or asks 

about the distant shape of my American dream. 

The heart forgets, and in forgetting, it stays in place.


Denied Entry to Singapore

We’re sorry to inform you that your visa application 

was rejected. Consider this a bureaucratic take

-down-a-notch. Don’t kid yourself about the cost

of stamps. Six years in America and two 

graduate degrees don’t make you less third

world, less needy, less likely to crawl like a rat  

through clandestine tunnels. Just because we need to pick

your brother’s brain doesn’t mean we should heed the call 

of his blood, that your jungle-green veins 

can branch out long enough to climb over 

border walls. Feel free to plant a petition inside

the dimples on your niece’s baby cheeks, but all 

pictures will be plucked out like foreign weeds 

or like the petals of a forget-me-not darling, please.


Texas Winters

Everything is bigger in Texas, even the borders

          of my loneliness. This night, too, my candlestick

fingers are as luminous as the full moon glazing 

          the handrail’s cold metal. Only this time, I don’t

wonder about the shape of sadness splayed 

          on the freshly mowed lawn. I once rated 

my suicidal thoughts one on a scale from never to 

          all the fucking time, and the nurse 

practitioner showered my palms with brochures. 

          We laughed when I told you about it later. 

How I only meant it in a conceptual way. Only it wasn’t 

          funny at all, my cries for help always dipped 

in honey and wrapped in sour jokes. Back then, I mistook 

          every free drink for an invitation to string 

the hours of the night with a pink thread. Every bar 

          counter a gateway to intimacy. Where do 

the displaced go to find permanence? Would you have

          believed me if I told you I didn’t choose 

to want this place? That some silences are stretched

          too paper-thin to make the air squirm. It took

me years to topple the shrine I built for blue eyes. The homes

          I tethered to tourist hearts. Now I know 

the shades of brown that get the blood going. The exact

          hour of the night when it stops.


Yosra Bouslama is a PhD candidate in literature at the University of North Texas. Born and raised in Tunisia, she received a Fulbright scholarship to pursue graduate studies in The United States in 2017. Her research interests include African Diaspora Studies and Postcolonial Studies. 

By |

gorleku sampson tetteh poetry march 2024
Image by Gorleku Sampson Tetteh

Love is the blossom of the purple flower tree

in harmattan

So that birds and insects will feed

in the dry season

And for the humans, the lucky ones

to smell and feel the joy

Happiness is the grand rising of the sun

A lover only needs an army of one

A partner to walk the path with

together as one

When lovers come face to face with the cruelty of the world

may they continue to ooze goodness

Life is in the present

In books and in the stars

Pick the time to look in the books

Make time to look up at the stars in the sky

The words we speak, possess magic

What we feel is the truth

When we admire nature for what she is

beautiful, elegant and true

She becomes generous, giving to all freely

There is wisdom lying in nature,

It comes to those who seek

deep in their hearts

Did man exist before nature?

Were we before the stars?

Did the sun meet us here on earth?

There is wisdom, free to those who seek


Gorleku Sampson Tetteh is a Ghanaian and a landscape photographer from the Kingdom of Kasunya who is deeply in love with nature’s beauty. Through his lens, he captures the soul-stirring moments that connect us to the earth and fill our hearts with joy and wonder. He acknowledges how every sunrise kisses the land with warmth and color, and every sunset paints the sky with dreams. In the arms of untouched landscapes, he finds peace and purpose—a feeling he strives to share with all through his photographs. The images are a reminder of the magic that surrounds us and a call to protect the precious gift that is our planet.

By |

katie coleman flash fiction march 2024

Eleanor entered the Tate first thing in the morning, thinking only of her son and the chaos of the previous night. She rode the escalators up to the Mark Rothko exhibit. Sitting on a bench, she sucked an orange lozenge, while she took in the vast purple-red canvas. She pictured her son driving away with a loose bag of clothes erupting on the back seat. Her breath had fluttered in her chest, like a dragonfly with transparent wings. 

The paintings appeared like bruises fading in and out in their intensity. Eleanor had worn long sleeves for years and made it her job to inhale her husband’s fits of anger. 


She listened for sirens and wondered whether the police would arrive and twist her arms behind her back, spit her rights, and push her into their car. She might confess the whole thing or completely clam up; she’d had years of keeping quiet. Now she bought time for her son zipping down the M1. She had watched him last night throwing punches at his lobster-faced father. She watched her tormentor slip down the wall and slump against the skirting board, where his pink tongue lolled like an exhibit.


Katie Coleman is a British writer living in Thailand. Her work has appeared in Roi Faineant Press, Ghost Parachute, The Sunlight Press, SoFloPoJo, Bending Genres, Briefly Zine, The Odd Magazine, Ilanot Review, and more. She has received nominations for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes and can be found on Twitter @anjuna2000 and Instagram @kurkidee.

By |

Decolonial Passage is honored to announce the nomination for the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. The Caine Prize aims to bring African writing to a wider audience. The prizes are awarded for a short story written by an African national. The Caine Prize organization also helps emerging writers in Africa enter the world of mainstream publishing. Congratulations, Michael Ogah!

Short Story: “Forgotten Memories” by Michael Ogah

By |

michael ogah short story march 2024

In the world of storytelling, they say true fiction serves as a smokescreen for candid conversations. I aspire to be transparent with you, opting to feature my client’s authentic name as the protagonist in this narrative. Nevertheless, given the pending court case and the imperative to sidestep legal ramifications stemming from my fiduciary ties with the client—who happens to be a murderer—I seek your consent to employ the pseudonym Ùchèchúkwù instead.

******

Ùchèchúkwù Nnàbúènyí, a man in his late thirties, carries an air of perpetual gloom. His interactions with others, even close relatives, are marked by distant greetings and a reluctance to form meaningful connections. The aura around him seems tainted with an unspoken darkness, a quality that keeps people at arm’s length. Despite his seemingly pristine exterior, a closer look reveals the shadows of a gloomy and depraved mind. Ùchèchúkwù is a walking paradox, embodying self-righteous contradictions that repel those who fear the potential repercussions of proximity to his enigmatic and foreboding presence.

At the moment, “Forgetful” is his most fitting moniker, as he struggles to recall past events; they have become distant memories, hazy and elusive—a mirage beneath the sun over the desert sands. This would not have occurred had he not been involved in an accident, an incident that wiped his memory clean.

Once, he knew a girl, his wife, Óbiágèlì. Óbiágèlì was, and still is, beautiful, though his recollection is vague. What he distinctly remembers is a plump, purple ixora flower tucked into her hair on a summer picnic day—the light-brown shade of her hair, and the red color of her lips sparkling radiantly under the afternoon sun. However, her eyes elude his memory; each attempt to recall them results in shadowy, hollow dents painted black at the back of his mind.

Maybe he will never fully remember Óbiágèlì as she once was to him. Yet, he strongly feels that there was a time when he loved her senselessly. Occasionally, when he sees her, a tiny feeling of love surfaces from deep within, urging him to remember her as she once was. The reason for their separation remains elusive. Perhaps his forgetfulness has kept her at a distance, preventing her from falling in love with a man who cannot recall the depth of looking into her eyes. After all, what more does a lady desire than to be remembered, with the fondest memories cherished by the man she loves, the one with whom she shares a heart? Love, in its truest form, requires the ability to remember the color of a heart.

What she remembers from their shared past, she chooses not to bring to his recollection. Perhaps this new life offers him an opportunity to rectify past mistakes, to be a different man from the one who once cast shadows on the canvas of their relationship, creating a portrait of pain by pulling her ponytail, tossing her upon the upholstery, and molding his fists into her frail body like an unrelenting sculptor shaping unforgiving clay.

Ùchèchúkwù is on a wheelchair. Every evening, Óbiágèlì ensures she visits him with pictures—photos of their seven-year marriage. These snapshots encapsulate memories, from their honeymoon at the Obudu Cattle Ranch in 2001 to photos of her baby bump just before the tragic miscarriage, his bachelor party, and many more; each image representing a distinct moment in their former lives

There she stands, by the vents, silently observing him take his medicine.

“Drink up, Ùchèchúkwù. Hurry, hurry, hurry!” the nurse instructs. “I see you’ve been discarding some of the drugs into the sink. Don’t think I haven’t been watching, Ùchèchúkwù. You can’t fool me. I’ve got my eyes on you.” She smiles, then walks over to the next patient seated on a wheelchair.

I won’t do this to him. How could he bear the weight of his own actions once the memories resurface? Óbiágèlì murmurs beside the window, her gaze fixed on Ùchèchúkwù as he wheels himself toward the balcony, the sun descending behind the rocks.

In her hands, she clutches an album filled with memories, a visual aid to help rekindle his lost past.

“Hey!” She calls out, waving, though he seems miles away even though he’s right in front of her. “The doctor says you’re making excellent progress. Soon, we’ll leave this place together. Wouldn’t you like that? Going home?” She squats beside him, her eyes searching his expressionless face. Ùchèchúkwù’s hair is a disheveled afro, silver tendrils curling along his receding hairline. His eyes, however, remain vacant, as if unable to acknowledge her presence.

“I brought more pictures to help you remember.” Dropping her handbag on the flagstone floor, she retrieves a photo album, placing it on his lap. She envelops his right hand with hers, guiding it as they turn the pages together. His gaze shifts from the horizon to the album.

The photograph captures their wedding anniversary, Óbiágèlì wearing a worn beach hat.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha,” she laughs, reminiscing. “I remember this one. It was our very first anniversary, spent in The Palms, Lekki. The year we were in Lagos for your junior sister’s omugwo, remember?”

Ùchèchúkwù tilts his head, his expression revealing no signs of recollection.

As Óbiágèlì turns the pages of their photo album, Ùchèchúkwù notices the flicker of light in her eyes fading with each leaf turned. In one picture, they stand alongside his mother in front of Trinity Gospel church, presumably on a Sunday. His mother’s hands are folded in a pious manner, while Óbiágèlì gazes intensely at the camera, as if silently pleading for salvation through the lenses.

“Was I good?” Ùchèchúkwù mumbles, barely audible.

“What did you say, Ùchèchúkwù?” she asks with politeness.

“I mean…” He nervously nibbles his fingernails, abruptly closing the album, and spits out the chewed remnants. “Was I good… to you?”

“Y—yes. Yes, you were,” she responds hesitantly.

“O.K.,” he mutters.

Later that night, when Óbiágèlì returns home, she retrieves a sealed plastic plate of frozen jollof rice from the freezer, placing it in the microwave. As it defrosts, she slouches to the foot of the kitchen cabinet, tears streaming down her face.

“No, you weren’t, Ùchèchúkwù. I wish you were good to me, but you weren’t. You hit me, Ùchèchúkwù. You hit me!” she cries, clutching her shirt and sliding her vein-stricken arms to her nape, interlocking her fingers and bobbing her head in sorrow, confusion, and depression. Tears fall to her jeans, leaving them damp, like she’s been crawling in the rain. Silently, she wishes he would remain lost, vulnerable, and forever forgotten. However, that’s not who she is. Tomorrow, like every day since the accident, she will visit him again, armed with relics of the past, hoping to rekindle his memories.

******

Considering Ùchèchúkwù’s amnesia, Óbiágèlì contemplates reverting her surname back to Nnaji. The doctor had informed her that a full recovery from his head trauma was unlikely, and given the chance, she wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate everything that reminds her of him as she prepares to file for a divorce.

She reaches out to a solicitor friend, Beatrice, for guidance on the process. Beatrice explains, “All you have to do is state, ‘I am abandoning my previous name. I will use my new name at all times. I require all persons to address me by my new name, only.’ And that settles it. You must sign and date the declaration in both your old and new surname. Two witnesses, who aren’t related to you, must also sign your deed poll and provide their names, occupations, and addresses.”

“Is that all?” Óbiágèlì asks.

“Shikena! But wait, if there’s anything I left out, I’d be sure to give you a call.”

As they conclude their conversation over the phone, a series of knocks echo on the metal-proof gate.

“Please, knock small, small-o, before you break my gate. I’m coming!” Óbiágèlì calls out as she heads for the entrance. “Ah-ah. Mama, it’s you. Welcome.”

“You ogbanje, don’t mama me anything. You finally sent my son to the psychiatric hospital, didn’t you?” Mama hisses, standing outside the gate in her red gelle, white buba, and red wrapper.

“Mama, what have I done this time? Where is all this coming from?” Óbiágèlì parts both her arms, as if surrendering to Mama Nnàbúènyí’s never-ending hateful remarks.

“Well, I just came to cleanse this house. Meet the Dibia from our village,” Mama says, entering the house. From behind the wall, by the corner, steps forward the dibia, his face chalked in white ringlets around his left and right eye.

The dibia’s silver anklet chimes with the rhythmic thuds of his feet against the ground. “My daughter,” he says, “I have come to exorcise you of those demons that won’t let you bear children.” With his back turned, he walks into the house, the sound of his anklet fading away. Óbiágèlì notices his spinal cord protruding between his left and right scapula, resembling a large scorpion as he passes by her. She stands bewildered, her voice seemingly padlocked to the back of her tongue.

Óbiágèlì’s mouth hangs open when Mama remarks, “Close your mouth before a fly enters and you become pregnant with an insect this time.”

“Mama, I was just about to leave for the hospital to see my husband. Can’t this wait until I get back? There’s ogbono soup in the freezer; you can make yourself eba. When I return, I promise to prepare something—”

“Would you come and sit down on this floor! Where do you think you’re going? Is it not my son you are going to see? Ehn, he is fine. I’m just coming from the hospital where we (referring to herself and the Dibia) gave your husband kola nut and alligator pepper to lick, just in case the problem of your conception is from him; so you both can stop miscarrying my grandchildren anyhow. This condition of my son has taught me that anything can happen at any time, and, God forbid, were he to die tomorrow without a child to succeed him, the grief would be more difficult for me to bear. Now, come here and sit down; your husband isn’t running anywhere.”

As Óbiágèlì sits on the hassock beside the dibia, who occupies the cold, marble floor, the dibia smacks his left palm on the ground, gesturing for her to come down and sit before him.

“Do as he has instructed, my friend!” Mama says, and Óbiágèlì, awestruck, descends from the hassock, pulling up her jeans trousers as she spreads her legs on the marble floor.

The Dibia throws three white cowries onto the marble, and as they tumble and come to a stop, he holds his face steady, looks at them, closes his eyes, and begins thumping his heels against the ground.

Óbiágèlì is anxious, fearing that the dibia might have a vision of the night that led to Ùchèchúkwù’s memory loss.

“My daughter,” he begins. “Ah-ah, it’s a pity! I see it clearly now. Your womb, it has been tied. It has been tied! All those children… not many, just one, one ogbanje that keeps coming back to cause you grief. But you see this stone, this uyi-ala?” He reaches into the brown, vintage bag strapped across his shoulder and retrieves a stone. “I found it in the sand while your mother-in-law was knocking at the gate. I found it buried beside the well just outside. It was buried by your ogbanje baby, but today we shall burn this stone, and its end will mark the end of your miscarriages, and who knows, maybe the end to your husband’s memory loss. Go and bring me kerosene,” he instructs. Óbiágèlì stands up and hurries to the kitchen. When she comes out, Mama Nnàbúènyí and the dibia are standing in front of the house. Óbiágèlì peeps through the window and observes the dibia digging a shallow hole with his fingers.

“Oya, come here with it,” he says upon spotting her through the burglary proof. “I command you foul spirit, you ogbanje, you serpent of grief and miscarriages, to be destroyed!” He drops the stone into the hole, pours kerosene into it, takes out a matchbox from his bag, lights a matchstick, and sets the hole ablaze. When it is done, he points to the ground and asks Óbiágèlì to cover it up.

Using her feet to toss dirt into the shallow hole, Óbiágèlì is halted along the way.

“Use your bare hands, my daughter. That’s the way we do things where we’re from. Or do you want the ogbanje to return?”

“No, sir.”

“Then be serious,” the dibia says, and Óbiágèlì does as she is told.

“I’ll be taking my leave now,” says Mama. “I’ll visit Ùchèchúkwù tomorrow again. The doctor says he is starting to respond to treatment. Let’s hope he comes to remember you. If not, I’d have to find him some other girl from the village to marry, so he can start his life afresh. You city girls can’t be trusted. Only God knows how many babies you aborted before my son met you. Just pray he remembers you,” she says with sarcastic insolence and leaves with the dibia.

******

As Óbiágèlì drives to the hospital, her mind can’t help but wander back to the time Ùchèchúkwù first noticed her. She was in SS 3, the Head Girl of Tejuosho Girls Comprehensive College. Ùchèchúkwù, in his third year at the University of Ibadan, had been introduced to her by a mutual friend. He would drive in his father’s car to her school on visiting days, laden with groceries. With a magnetic earring clipped to his ear, a golden neck chain, and bracelets, Ùchèchúkwù adorned himself with a bit too much shine for Óbiágèlì’s liking. She would often jest about how he covered himself up in “shine-shine” like a drug dealer.

Upon arriving at the hospital and taking a bend around a small floral roundabout to park in the driveway, Óbiágèlì spots Ùchèchúkwù on his wheelchair, belongings slouched against the wheels. He looks hypnotized, eyes stoic, unfazed by the scorching sun under the arcade.

“I’ve been discharged,” he says dryly as she approaches him.

“Ah-ah, but how, why, when? Couldn’t it wait?” Óbiágèlì, exasperated, says.

“I just couldn’t wait till you got here, so I begged the nurses to help me with my things. I’m tired of this place. I want to go home.” He purses his lips and veers off.

“Uh, O.K., then. So, do I let the doctor know we’re leaving?”

“No need. He already knows. I told him.”

“Okay. If you say so,” says Óbiágèlì as she takes his sleeping pillow off the floor, his miniature box into one hand, and carts his wheelchair away toward the vehicle.

On the drive home, Óbiágèlì is unsure of what to say to him—the man who has physically abused her over the past seven years of their marriage. She still bears a scar on the right side of her eye, beneath her brow—a shallow cut from the fight they had the night before his memory loss. That night, he came home reeking of alcohol, trying to force himself on her, and she resisted. After a heated altercation, he had his way, and in response, she inflicted a wound on his forehead with an antique metal sun clock. Frightened that he might remember her attempt to harm him, she rushed him to the hospital, fabricating a story about a fight with local troublemakers.

In the morning, Ùchèchúkwù couldn’t recall a thing, not even his own name.

Óbiágèlì lives in constant fear that he might one day remember the traumatic incident she tried to bury in the depths of his forgotten memories.

******

If love is light as a feather in your heart, then that love is questionable; for love is a heavy feeling, weighing on your conscience, inquiring into the genuineness of your morals, your actions around that special someone. Love asks, “How else can I show to this one person that I am crazy about them?”

The infallible question, a heavy thinking I’ve encountered in my twenty years as a criminal prosecutor, knocked on the door of Ùchèchúkwù’s mind earlier that morning in the hospital, before Óbiágèlì showed up. He began to remember how much he had once loved Óbiágèlì, the excitement, the adrenaline rush each time he visited her in school.

On the drive home, Ùchèchúkwù turns down the radio, meets Óbiágèlì’s eyes, and says softly, “I remember, Óbiágèlì.”

Tempted to put her foot to the brake pedal, Óbiágèlì says, “You, uhm. You do? Like…uh… what exactly?”

“I remember how much I once loved you. I remember we were happy. Then I remember me changing, beating you up every time, taking my frustration out on you when I lost the job at Jumia. I remember the loss of our not one but two babies. I remember.” He nods guiltily, then stretches his hand to feel her quivering hand on the steering wheel. “Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you. This time, I promise on the sacred memory of our departed children that things will be different.”

Óbiágèlì is silent, for she knows, someday, he’d come to remember all else, and when that happens, what then? Would he still love her when he finally comes to remember how she had tried to end him in his sleep?

“Forgive me, Óbiágèlì. Forgive me,” he begs, feeling her malleable, right hand as her left hand steers the wheel.

“There’s nothing to forgive, Ùchèchúkwù.” She looks at him.”I’m no saint, either. Forgive me, too, for the things you might never come to remember.”

“All is forgiven,” he says.

When they arrive home, Óbiágèlì comes down her side of the car, walks over to his, opens the door, takes him into her arms, and like a baby, carries him into their home to the bedroom, where she makes love to his crippled legs and forgotten memories. Right then, in the act of it, as she wriggles and moans on top of him, clawing at his chest, Ùchèchúkwù remembers. He remembers how she had thrashed the antique clock against his forehead. Vague recollections of it come flooding back to him like a nightmare—how he had gasped for air in a pool of his blood. He turns her over.

“Turn around and close your eyes,” he says airily, his breath a seductive whisper by her ear, and when she coyly does so, he reaches for the antique clock on the bedside table, she has a bad feeling and tucks her hand beneath the pillow, he raises his arm with the strength of an eagle, she pulls out a pistol, twirls swiftly, aims at him and pulls the trigger. The antique clock falls to the bed. His blood, sprinkled all over her face and the clock like red polka dots on a black ladybug.


Michael Ogah is a Nigerian screenwriter and novelist whose debut screenplay, “The Missing Link,” came to life on Africa’s Iroko TV in 2018. His short stories have graced literary platforms such as Lolwe, African Writer, and Brittle Paper. He is a law graduate from the Nigerian Law School and a Master’s degree holder in International Management from the University of the West of Scotland. He is currently working on his first novel.