Decolonial Passage is honored to announce the nominations for next year’s Pushcart Prize Anthology. This list includes writing published during the 2025 calendar year. Congratulations to the nominees!
Poetry
Jesse Gabriel Gonzalez – “Moon Blues”
Yanis Iqbal – “and how shall i walk when the street sings of fire?”
Short Stories
.Chisaraokwu. – “The Visitor”
Essays/Memoirs
Bright Aboagye – “Do They See You?”
Stone Mims – “A Letter to My Grandfather”
Kimberly Nao – “I, too, am California”
And you were inconsolable.
Initially when they rescued you half dead at the shore, you barely cried over the loss of your husband. But some weeks afterwards, you started crying profusely. No one knew why, except you. No one knew the details of the boat accident.
You and your husband both loved to sail. And that day you both set out, an uneasy calm lay between you.
But then, the storm happened. The weather changed from sunny with clear skies to dark and grey with heavy rainfall which quickly turned to a storm, a deadly one.
You were a much better swimmer so, when the boat capsized, you held on to a plank, able to fight against the powerful currents. But your husband of ten years wasn’t as good as you. He panicked and cried out, his eyes scared. He held out his hands expecting you to save him, even as he fought in futility against the strong currents. You looked at him, your eyes cold and unfeeling, seeing opportunity in this misfortune.
And the strong waves of the sea swept him away in minutes with the debris of the boat, his cries ringing in your ears. Somehow you made it to shore.
Everyone thought you had tried to save him, tried your best. Everyone also thought you had a perfect marriage. But you and he knew there were cracks, he was already discussing with a divorce lawyer how to be rid of the marriage as he had found someone new. What was most painful for you, seeing as you both had no children, was that he was already in talks with his legal adviser on changing his will, a will that named you his sole beneficiary.
You had been considering your options since you knew, so the storm was a blessing in disguise, a way to be rid of your husband and then come in possession of all that was rightfully yours.
But now? The problem was a heavy weight of guilt lay on your shoulders. From where? Just weeks after his funeral, you could not fathom. This was the cause of the tears.
Not only that, but you now had nightmares where he appeared to you, his eyes scared and his cries of anguish making you go crazy.
Solape Adetutu Adeyemi is a dedicated professional with a Bachelor’s in Microbiology and a Master’s in Environmental Management. She is a researcher, consultant, passionate environmental sustainability enthusiast, and a talented award-winning creative writer with work published in Writenow Literary Journal, Poetry Marathon Anthology, Kalahari Review, Indiana Review, TV Metro, and The Guardian among others. Find her on Facebook at Solape Adeyemi.
The way he hoists the bag of rice over his shoulders — slouched under the weight, but moving with grim, determined purpose. Exquisite. Sure, he’s got a bit of pudge. But haven’t we all? I’m certainly no peak male specimen. Could stand to lose a few pounds, trim a few hairs.
I’m not judging—only admiring how masterfully he carries the bag. If rice-hauling were an Olympic sport, he’d podium without question.
This is pure respect. Athlete to athlete.
I’m not attracted to him. At least… I don’t think I am. I spent a few formative summers at conversion camp. Daily prayers. Ice baths with shards so sharp it’d cut any temptation right out. One counselor, Brett, said it came from the Devil.
I like to think they did their job. Especially Brett. Though he seemed to struggle with temptation himself — mostly after lights went out. I try not to think about it.
So no — definitely not attraction. Just deep, reverential appreciation… of the human form in motion.
My ex used to say I didn’t appreciate her body. I did. She was like a painting — curves, color, softness in all the right places. I admired her the way you admire something in a museum: respectfully, from a distance, trying not to touch anything.
Sure, sometimes things didn’t… function. But that’s normal. Performance anxiety affects a lot of households. Viagra is a billion-dollar industry for a reason. Millions of couples suffer every year.
That’s why I like being back down South. Feels like there are plenty of men here who just get it. Nobody says anything, of course. Not at church, not anywhere public. But there’s a kind of silent nod we all share.
She wouldn’t understand. So no, I don’t mind that she kicked me out. More time for community, I’d say. Out here, we don’t need fancy labels like “homosexual.” We just keep to ourselves. God-fearing men. Men like my Pa. Men who respect hard work.
Like the rice-bagger. God, he’s good at working. So good. There’s a rhythm to it — shoulders straining, back glistening, that steady, unbothered focus. He was built for labor.
And those scars. Pale whip streaks across his back. He must’ve gone to one of those camps. If not, maybe his Pa just picked up the slack. Hard to say. Could be either.
I think I’m gonna ask him out for a beer. Nothing weird—just to say I respect his work ethic. One hard-working man to another.
And the way he’s been looking at me lately?
I think he gets it.
Sanum Patel is a South Asian writer and attorney based in New York City. He writes both to unsettle and make you laugh, exploring emotional complexity wherever it lives. His writing has appeared in Out Front Magazine, Silly Goose Press, Poetry for Mental Health, and Little Old Lady Comedy. He has been recognized with personal editorial notes by The Missouri Review. You can find him at www.sanumpatel.com and on instagram at sanumpatel.
In the Great Room of the mansion his father’s father built with the purse the colonialists paid him for his service in the first war, my Papa, dressed in full regalia, his favorite pipe snug between his lips, motions the visitor to join him at the table. Papa, a shrewd-minded military man with a penchant for stout and three-fingers whiskey on the rocks, had successfully commandeered a ragtag troop into battle over the amply equipped rebels and won. Three times, officially. Unofficially, ten times. When he demanded retirement after achieving the rank of General, the President was so distraught he named Papa the first and only Field Marshal in our nation’s history.
Above Papa’s head, the fan whirls a frantic hum into the room. Sweat builds across the visitor’s brow despite the simple white and silver agbada he is wearing without head covering. He removes a pale red handkerchief from his pocket, dabs his eyes — avoiding Papa’s — and folds it in his hands. Papa daftly moves his pipe to the other corner of his mouth. The visitor shifts in his seat and licks his lips. He ignores the glass of water before him, his leg quivering beneath the table. Papa eyes the visitor patiently, swirling the ice cubes in his glass of whiskey to shapelessness. A passing police siren joins the fan’s hum.
The visitor, not much older than Papa, has the lazy demeanor of a lousy crook whose sole talent is to steal stolen things from those who have already committed the crime. The type to boast of his feigned bounty while dribbling palm wine from his lips, staining his shirt. The kind our people dismiss until necessary. A scar from his left ear to his chin assaults his otherwise unremarkable face. His scent of malt, sweat, and menthol cigarettes fills the Great Room, invades my lungs. Papa is testing him.
Papa breaks the silence with a joke meant to insult the visitor. The visitor laughs loudly, at first, then chuckles as if he understands nuance. Papa knows the laughter is false, but he indulges him. This, after all, is the way men are with my father: they love him and fear him at once, show all their cards while desperately trying to convince him that they have no cards at all.
“Adanne,” I recall Papa saying to me while we hunted deer, “Not everything we do is about right or wrong. Rather, it is about hierarchies of power and powerlessness. Know where you stand.”
If my mother had her way today, I would be with her at the market or sipping tea with wives and daughters of military men. But I find solace in Machiavelli and Dante, the speeches of Azikiwe, the discourse of men. Papa never discourages it, indulges his first-born’s proclivities. Gives me seat at his table, always. Permits me to speak at will. To the chagrin of his peers, though they’d never show it. I have learned secrets in the Great Room — its high ceilings and oversized furniture conceal nothing, expose everything.
Today, I sense something amiss. I do not speak. My hands press into my lap. Waiting. After the briefest of exchanges, of which no one outside this room will ever know, the visitor rises from the table, walks past my chair, and brushes my shoulder with a single finger. His touch lingering long enough to brand me in the manner of old men, from the old days. This done in the same manner as in the stories my mother used to tell me when I was small, before I thought them too childish to remember.
“Nne,”Papa says, “Please show our visitor to the door. Eh-heh, you’ll be going to his place next Tuesday to pick up a gift for me.”
“Yes, Papa.”
I, too, rise, joining the men.
The visitor smiles, this time his gapped teeth showing, his tongue at the edge of his dry lips. He follows me to the door, bows his head, then leaves. I won’t soon forget the smell of him.
.CHISARAOKWU. (she/her) is an Igbo American transdisciplinary poet artist. Drawing inspiration from her Igbo heritage, quantum physics, indigenous healing practices, and the natural world, her poetry weaves archives, film, and collage to explore memory in the African diaspora. Published in literary and academic journals, .CHISARAOKWU. has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Cave Canem, Vermont Studio Center and more. Learn more about her practice at www.chisaraokwu.com, and you can find her on instagram at naijabella.
Hey, big sister. Just my weekly report. So, I met someone.
It was Sunday afternoon, a time when Johannesburg, but for a brief moment, is its beautiful best.
“How quiet the sun sets,” he said.
We shared the bench, just sitting, watching the children play in the park. Children and mothers like us, so far away from home. It was how our conversation began as the sun dipped into a fiery horizon — the sky sprayed with colours of gold dust over the mine dumps.
The golden glow softened our words. We exchanged stories — he left home; I left home.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because home had become impossible.”
“Yes?” he replied.
“Maybe one day we won’t need to cross borders to find happiness.”
He laughed. I liked the way he laughed, a sense of sadness in his eyes.
I asked him to take my picture.
“It’s to send to my sister,” I explained.
He laughed again. “Are you not afraid that I will take more than your picture?”
And to quickly assuage the hesitancy of my response, he asked, “And will you take mine?” He passed me his phone; I took his picture. We scrolled down each other’s screens and laughed at how we imagined each other, such happiness in our eyes. I felt an intimacy when our fingers accidentally touched. A feeling of warmth.
In the excitement of our meeting, we did not exchange numbers when we parted. Then the light faded and so did he, into the Johannesburg shadows, a cold Jozi night.
That night, wrapped in blankets in my tiny room, I kept looking at my phone. Will we meet again? Johannesburg is such a lonely place, alone.
Bye, love.
Your little sister.
Bobby Marie is a South African living in Johannesburg, . He has been a worker and community activist. He is currently writing a memoir, re-membering his life in the liberation struggle in South Africa and the struggle of his ancestors as ” coolies” from South India.
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
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.
She raised the axe. Her grip, inexpert but powerful. The heft of the wooden shaft in her palm, the glint of the flared blade, droplets of rain reflecting the meagre light shining through the clouds. That first sundering had seemed so impossible. A primal roar ripped through her in release as her triceps tightened and loosened and the blade fell with her breath. It didn’t do much damage, but she had all the time in the world for this.
Her strength was depleted from the time she spent in this place already, the months of her life she used to feed this thing in place of her own growth. It could contain her, this patch of land, that was hers. It could encase her human form, just barely, yet with ease consume all she ever was. Her chest heaved, sweat pooling between her breasts as she lifted her arms high again.
The descent split the planter that she had so lovingly made. It was a struggle to separate the axe from where she had lodged it, so she abandoned the weapon and dropped to her hands and knees, fingers groping through the moist soil for roots. She felt the cuts in her fingers responding, pulsing. Fibers of her flesh pulled away from each other, eagerly stretching to split themselves and moisten this earth alongside the rain. The feeling too familiar, she withdrew before the roots latched on to drain more from her. She was here to end this. She yearned for some destruction with her bare hands and pressed her palms together, compressing the head of a buoyant red bloom, the feathered petals slight and delicate; its spiral offshoots usually layered and lifted, rubbed between her hands until they fell away, curled into themselves, with white seams cleaving through the clot of red.
She brushed off her hands, staggered to the communal shed, and found the large shears. They trailed behind her as she returned to her plot. Her blood streaked down the handle as she adjusted her grip. She dug the shears into where her hand had reached and sliced along the rivulets of her blood, opening and closing the blades as if hacking at weeds. They weren’t weeds. She had created something beautiful — at least, to a fresh eye she was sure it would be, but to her these bloated buds were decay even when bursting into bloom, in that moment when they were all potential and wonder. She could find beauty in other things, she knew, at lower cost. She hacked at each exposed bit of root until it was too weak to hold on and the soil released it to her destruction. Uncoupling, extracting, discarding.
As she proceeded, any remaining tightness in her movements released, her attention drawn inwards, her mind in her body. Suddenly, she was gripped by the strong desire to burn these roots and dance on their ashes. She wanted to dance. She carried the shears to the spout and rinsed off her blood into the communal drain before returning them and taking a large fork. With that, she tossed the earth.
Everything she had learned to rear these plants, she used to destroy them; every kind word she had thought to help them grow, she reclaimed for herself. The contraction of the muscles in her thigh, her knee joint swinging forward, her heel pressing down, her biceps finding the strength to pull up; the rhythm — it felt like dancing, like a prayer to herself. And she was so afraid it would feel like sacrilege. At the thought, she let out a laugh. She invited each breath to reach the deepest part of her lungs to mark the moment she carried the feeble stems to the compost, dropped them in; never returned again.
Mon Misir (she/they) is a writer and recovering lawyer based in London, UK. They use their writing to explore facets of their experience as a Black woman, with a speculative bent. When not writing, they enjoy reading, theatre (musical and otherwise) and learning how to wield a longsword. She has won nothing, doesn’t have it together at all and is working on a short story collection titled Am I Supposed To Be Here? This is their first publication. You can find their links at NomOnBooks. You can also find Mon directly on Instagram at nom.on.books and on TikTok at nomonbooks.
You grabbed me! I didn’t expect it. Weren’t we smiling and greeting just moments before?
Passing each other, you and I, on our way to our own worlds, with our own errands, sent by our selves?
Your muscles were shining, sinewy, curved, beautiful even. They were strong, filled up, betraying the many fights already fought, and won. They shone with the sweat of effort.
Eating all your opponents is no small thing. Even their bones, you’d crushed in your jaws.
I felt your strength when you gripped me; it surprised me. I wasn’t expecting it nor this wrestle; yet here we now were, locked in an uncomfortable embrace. I gave my all in the tussle. I gripped back, arms around your middle, locked in, I braced myself, I would not be thrown! This way and that way we went, pushing, shoving, finding, keeping, losing ground.
My face contorted, each crease matching your own, ears closed to anything else, eyes tracking your every move. My muscles tightened as yours flexed. You would not get the better of me!
You didn’t expect my tenacity either, did you? A couple of times, you nearly had me on the floor, with your stealth and tackle, but the gazelle and the hare have taught me well. I jumped, regained balance, and pushed in new directions. We scuffed up the dust; it rose in a cloud all around us, blocking view of all but our struggle. We scarce could see it, locked in our embrace as we were.
And then — was that — a half smile — that just crossed — your face? Could it be? You enjoy this? You enjoy this! Your shiny muscles tell you that you will win, that I will tire, eventually, just now, you think you have me figured out. I can’t stand you, but I can’t bear to look away. I will keep fighting. I will NOT be thrown! Locked in this our embrace, cheek to cheek, brow to brow, muscle against muscle, jaws locked, teeth gritted, feet scuffing dust, some gain, some loss, we’ll wrestle on and on and…
You think you have me figured out? I’ll show you! I tighten my hold on your arms, put my back into it, dig my feet in, and push harder, searching for the opening to fall you.
But just as I kick at a new place, what’s that? Playing with the nape of my neck, flitting with the sweat running down my brow and shoulders? Dancing with my ears…A butterfly? A breeze? The sound of a god who is memory, who is wind…
Slow, within the quiet pupil of the noisy scuffle the message arrives, and lands: You don’t know me. You’ve only heard about me. I know myself; I know my self. I re-member. I look into your eyes and half-smile. I slacken my grip on you, dropping your arms, and our death embrace. I jump back.
Amazing, isn’t it? When I loosen my grip, you can’t hold me. I see surprise on your face, you weren’t expecting that!
Before you think to restart a fight that chases us in circles, I turn and walk away. I was on a journey before, one on which I sent myself. Butterfly song carries on the wind; I hear it.
Goodbye.
Wangũi wa Kamonji is a regeneration practitioner researching and translating Indigenous Afrikan knowledges into experiential processes, art, and honey. She centres Afrika, ancestrality and Earth in her multigenre storytelling extending ancestral invitations to rethink and reimagine everything with Indigenous Afrikan ontologies. Her children’s story “The Giraffes of the Desert” appears in the anthology Story, Story, Story Come. She is published in Shallow Tales Review, Open Global Rights, Africa is a Country, and The Elephant. Wangũi holds close Micere Mugo’s call to find the songs lying around and sing them for all to hear and sing with us. She is based in Ongata Rongai, East Afrika. She can be found on instagram at @_fromtheroots and @wakamonji and on X/twitter at @_fromtheroots.
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.
In school we learnt History, but it was sanitised history about the British, the Dutch, the colonisers with their ships and riches, about how they came down south and did their business. And that was all it was: business, war and conquest—no mention of systemic sexual assault as a tool of war, no mention of the brutality women and children suffered at the hands of men. Even then.
In school we learnt about sex in Moral Education or Life Orientation or whatever they ended up calling that class so its name wouldn’t offend. (That’s the problem, isn’t it? How we cower at the idea of things, the mere mentioning of them.) So we learnt about penetration but not about bodily autonomy or consent, and when they showed us slides about menstruation or breasts the boys went Ewwwww! And the teachers never said Grow up! The teachers never said that one in three girls would be abused before eighteen, and one in six boys, and told us to look around the room and start counting.
In school we learnt Public Speaking, but when we should have been debating things like wind power versus solar, or legalising marijuana, we were arguing for the death penalty. We stood up in front of our peers at thirteen telling each other lies and our teachers never stopped us. We didn’t learn Philosophy, Sociology, or Statistics, we didn’t study any cases or watch any documentaries. We stood up in front of our classes playing Devil’s advocate and our teachers never told us that the Devil doesn’t need any more friends.
In school we learnt that boys could flash you, snap your bra straps or try and trip you. We learnt they could shout at you for blowjobs in front of their friends, they could corner you in empty corridors or backstage or behind the bins, they could spread explicit rumours about you, they could brand you a slut at fourteen, at twelve, at ten, they could call you misogynistic names and then years later they’d ask you out for a drink. And when you told them to go to Hell they’d be confused, because while we were learning how to defend ourselves they were learning rape culture.
In school we learnt a great deal about Voortrekkers and spear formations, but we never learnt about what black men went through during Apartheid, and how they left behind women who raised children in poverty and despair—alone. And they watched their mothers infantilized and their fathers worked to death in the mines, and they watched the government strip them of their humanity before they were grown. And then South Africans always want to know: who are these violent monsters? These ones who follow in the footsteps of our violent forefathers, in a country built and plagued by violence, in a violent story too familiar to us all? And then the decent folk always want to say: no, we don’t know them. No, they couldn’t be our fathers or our brothers or our friends, or the boys we went to school with who were learning how to hurt us, while we were learning how to make it out of school alive. And then we want to hang them, shock them, strap them up and inject them, we call for their death in the streets while we protest the blood that every woman in our country bleeds. We want to repeat history because it’s all we ever learnt, even though it never did us any good, it never healed our wounds, it never made us safe from the violence in our streets and in our sheets and in our homes.
In school, most of all, we learnt how to be good girls. Our gogos and oumas learnt how to be good to the men who constructed Apartheid, and our mothers and aunties learnt how to be good to the men who were traumatised by it. So we fell in line, us born-free babies, us sisis and meisies, we learnt how to be good women who raise good girls to continue this cycle. We never said no, and then when we did we were ignored, and then when we began to scream we were pushed aside for the next good girl who would shoulder the burden of damaged men. We just kept teaching that tired old history: the Zulus, the Xhosas, how they lost to the guns, how the land was won. We never said how our country was stolen by greedy men, our riches were sucked dry, our futures shaped by their sins—that being a good girl won’t save you from them. We never taught our girls that bigotry is deadly. We never said, You’re going to burn. If you don’t learn the things that school never taught you.
Girl, you’re going to burn. You’re going to burn in this fire, in this Hell, in this man’s country.
Adrian Fleur is a writer from South Africa. Her novel Zithande is a work-in-progress that explores themes of grief, joy, and the resilience of women across class and racial lines. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband, two young children, and chow-shepherd mix Ruby. You can find out more about her at her website www.adrianfleur.com.
Rain splattered across the window pane. It thwacked hard as a sheen shrouded the glass. Mensa peered across, at the dense foliage dripping outside with August globules, leaf blades ripe with gossamer as lightning flashed; at the lurid plumage trailing as birds flocked away. A big drum collected stray fluid from the roof. As his eyes dipped into the barrel, he closed the shutters. Chest heaving, he walked to another window and continued staring aloof into space, then closed the shutters. Jane walked up to him, curling her arms around his shoulders; her thick perfume that had teased him earlier, now strangling.
‘Today’s been absolutely the worst. Don’t know why I just can’t seem to get a job. I’m broke as hell. I’m shit. I’m –’ Mensa said.
‘Rest, Desi. Tomorrow is another day to hunt. Today, just rest in my arms.’
He loved when she called him Desi – shortform of Desire. She always said that he had wound his way into her heart, upended it, and set it on fire. Her warmth had always comforted him. But today, it felt like his inner demons quenched her fiery embrace.
‘Jane, what does that make me? A deadbeat lover, son, brother? I don’t even have enough money to cater to my needs. I’m still depending on daddy’s money and I’m 30.’
‘I know, love. It sucks. But I believe in you. Something will turn up. Something will change.’
‘Look at Amprofi. He has a penthouse. Four cars! Even Kwabena that I always taught in uni just got a job that’s paying in dollars. And Esi, my small sister oo, this small girl, just got an amazing job in Dubai. She was just sending me pictures of her new home. I – I can’t seem to understand why I’m still struggling when I’m intelligent and diligent.’ His shoulders slumped. ‘How the mighty have fallen!’
Jane squeezed him tighter in her embrace. ‘Hmm. It took me a while. But I realized that in life, it takes more than the conventional things we are fed with to succeed. Growing up, everyone says, ‘Study hard. Make good grades.’ But Desi, sadly, in this world it takes more than that to make it o. Sometimes it doesn’t even take hardwork to make it. Ghana is crappy as hell too. Our system is broken. Just makes everything worse!’
‘Hmmm. I have a tall list of applications whose responses are pending. If something good doesn’t turn up before this year ends, I’ll prolly apply for visa lottery and start life in a foreign land.’
‘And leave me fuckless and miserable?’
‘Jane, be serious.’ A laugh escaped his lips. Her embrace began to feel warm, like many nights before. ‘At least I have you. You’re like the best thing that happened to me since uni.’
‘I love to be wanted. What can I say?’
Their laughter poked through the still night. Raindrops pelted harder against the window pane. Mensa walked to his refrigerator to grab a sachet of water. “Want one?’
‘I want you.’
Mensa giggled. ‘You’re corny, huh?’
‘Desi, I really love you. I’ll never stop letting you know that. Bout the water, make that two. A bitch is thirsty from all that lovemaking. Weird how we can go from ecstasy to sadness in a heartbeat.’
‘Ghana for you. Will literally wreck your soul.’ Mensa dropped the sachets on the bed and lay his head on Jane’s lap. He twirled his fingers across her belly as he gulped. ‘How about we go another round. I need some joy seeping into my life again.’
‘Noo Desi. I’m supposed to be home right now. It’s past my curfew.’
‘Damn. Can’t believe your parents are giving you a curfew. You’re not a child, you know.’
‘But I’m still a college kid. You know how they get.’
‘If only they knew how naughty I make you. Scratch that, how naughty you are beneath that innocent face.’
‘Bro, sex is a need. It’s not a want. I honestly don’t see why people make it seem like it’s some evil thing. I need sex. I’m not ashamed to say that and seek it.’
‘Well, I ain’t complaining. It’s all joy from this side.’
‘Heey.’ Jane tickled his sides, then kissed him. ‘See me off?’
‘Of course. Let me put a hoodie on. You can order the Uber.’
‘And babe, you will beat this bad stroke of luck. Mark my words.’ Jane pursed her lips and shot her right arm in the air. ‘If I be a man of God.….’ her voice intensified.
‘Hahahahaha. I freaking love you Jane.
David Agyei–Yeboah holds an MA in Communication Studies from the University of Ghana. He graduated with first-class honors in English and Theatre Arts for his B.A. His writing has been published by Deep Overstock Publishing, Freshwater Literary Journal, The Quilled Ink Review, Tampered Press, Lumiere Review, Journal of the Writers Project of Ghana, and elsewhere. He was longlisted for the Totally Free Best of the Bottom Drawer Global Writing Prize in 2021. He enjoys everything art and anticipates an academic career in the future. He tweets at @david_shaddai and sings on instagram at @davidshaddai
the Decolonial Passage 