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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.

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adrian fleur flash fiction december 2023

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.

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Decolonial Passage is honored to announce the nominations for next year’s Pushcart Prize Anthology. This list includes writing published from February to October 2023. Congratulations to the nominees!

Short Story

“The Sling” by Mungai Mwangi

Poetry

“crawling toward mirage” by Kathleen Hellen

“The Giraffe Titan” by Brandon Kilbourne

“Homage to My Peruvian Brother” by Alex Anfruns

“Homeless” by Patrice Wilson

“Mammy Does the Morning Chores” by Matthew Johnson

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mehreen ahmed short story september 2023

Part I

Her pale face radiant under an August setting sun, she sits on a bench at bus stop 94. There is a rusty covering above. The bench below has pastel green paint peeling off — hard, grim dour. Waiting for bus no 94; it is late. Instead of searching for an alternative route, she walks her quarter of a mile and waits. Day in and day out. Year in and year out, until one day she turns ninety-four herself.

Her tired eyes stare into oblivion, and notice a solitary, restless daisy through a lonely crack in the cemented road. It is across the bus stop, bobbing its breezy yellow head, anxious, to fly away, had it not been for its root spiralling down through the gaping, jagged cranny. She lets out a sigh; her eyes light up. All she is left with is desires nestled within the cozy warmth of her heart — a place gone cold from the wait.

Where is he? The man? Her one true love? He asks her to pick him up from this very bus stop — the last bus at 94. She wears a pink, floral sari which wraps around her young, smooth body. The bus never comes. She waits hours until the day is gone, afternoon and evening. Still, no sign of buses here. An empty, abandoned stop.

She continues to look at the empty road ahead, in case the bus arrives. The daisies are in full bloom of spring. She hears someone call her name. “Ayesha, Ayasha.” Then, “Look, look, I’m here.” She turns her head, and a shiver runs through her. She views a bare tree by the river, leaves growing out of it, disproportionately, insanely psychedelic. “Where are you, I don’t see you, I don’t see you anywhere, Mohabbat, Mohabbat. Where are you, my love? Do you see me?” Ayesha asks. Her heart is swelling. With shallow breaths of excitement, she inhales his faint hair oil dispersed in the air. Anytime, anytime he will be here and pick her up and hold her against his chest. His soft lips pressing down on her lips — ruby red; melding into rich hot chocolate cake.

Part II

At Fajr, Mohabbat Ali Khan wakes up to the sound of the azaan. It drifts through the minaret of a local mosque of his neighbourhood. He descends the narrow stairs and steps outside into a mosaic courtyard and through a floral, inlaid, arched architrave. This mosaic square is fenced in on two sides by stucco brick walls. He nearly sleepwalks toward a tap near the western wall and turns it on to do ablution, wazu, before the namaaz. He begins to wash his hands, elbows, face and ankles three times. Rinses his mouth three times, and three splashes into the nostrils — three splashes for each of the body extremities.

During the partition at the time of independence from the British, his parents opted to stay in India. After they passed, he continued to reside in the old capital of Delhi — in the same house too, the ancestral property. A blue arched house, beautifully antique. Accustomed to communal riots, love-hate relationships are common with Hindus and Christians, as well as with his Parsi friends. He grew up in a complex social system through a lot of political turmoil and was not alien to volatile situations.

From the other side of these thick walls, he hears the water trickle, as the neighbours, the Dilliwallas, are waking up.  Hot tea brews in a shack restaurant. The deep-frying smells of samosas, daal puri, parathas and omelette swim through the morning air. After prayer, Mohabbat Ali Khan steps outside the gates to go for his customary morning walks. Munshi Giasuddin, the local barber’s salon down the alley is open early, but he already has a client. He is sitting in a wooden, straight-backed chair by the roadside. Munshi is rubbing up soap on his beard and chatting away. He nods at Mohabbat as he walks past.         

Mohabbat walks a mile. His usual rounds are all the way up to the Jama Mosque, and then looping back. He usually performs Fajr at the mosque which takes care of both the namaaz as well as the morning walk. Today, however, he is pressed for time, and prays at home. He looks at the barber through the corners of his eyes and runs a finger absent-mindedly through his thick beard, twisting up his moustache, thinking that his beard also needs a trim. He walks a couple of steps ahead and sits down on a hard bench at the shack restaurant for some hot tea and samosa.

“Salaam Janaab, how are you this morning?” a tea boy asks.

“Walaikummassalam,” Mohabbbat replies over a slight cough. “Yeah, I’m very well.”

“Tea and samosas? Freshly fried,” The tea boy asks.

Mohabbat nods and sees that the tea boy is disappearing around the corner to fetch the order while he sits in the mellow morning light watching the barber’s precision cutting next door. His client spits betel saliva occasionally on the side at which the barber lifts his razor sharply away from his face.

Mohabbat has a date today with his Ayesha in an unkempt mossy garden near her house. His eyes dilute just thinking of her. He must wear her favourite hair oil today. His thought is interrupted as his order of tea and hot samosas arrive. He bites into its crunch carefully, sipping and savouring the white tea at the same time. He wants to pop into the barber shop next door after he finishes here.

Over to the barber shop, he looks at all the hair oil bottles from various brands shelved around a glassed window bay. He picks up Jaba Kushum which is her favourite. He pays up at the front and leaves the shop. The barber smiles at him; he leaves with a polite nod.

Mohabbat walks home. He enters through the gate and climbs up the stairs. He decides to take a shower before he leaves for his date. He puts on a white embroidered kurta and pajamas. He lavishly oils his hair with Jaba Kushum and runs a comb through his beard. He comes downstairs and steps out on the road; he hears howls closing in like the fury of tsunami. He sees a huge mob approaching his house; a sporadic riot is at his gate.

The bus no 94 arrives in time. Mohabbat is lucky to escape the mob’s scourge. He stands almost camouflaged against the wall’s whiteness. People enter his home, and they drag out his possessions, rattling rusty trunks, his books, his charpai bed, his father’s easy chair, hookah, and his violin, hurling them all out on the street in a heap. He says nothing. An innocent bystander, he trudges along the wall with caution until he arrives at the bus stop. He falls a few times before he is able to ascend the bus. He has a sweaty forehead — a few drops fall over his eyelids – and an already wet beard. He wonders if there’s a riot also at Ayesha’s place. He finds a window seat through the crowd. Stumbling, he sits down.

The bus is moving. He lets out a sigh of relief. Thankfully, there’s hope. He is thinking fast to start a new life with Ayesha some place safer, perhaps abroad where there’s peace and stability. As long as the bus is moving, there is some hope. He looks around him and sees panic in the wet frowns of his fellow passengers. This bus will take them away where all can rest in peace. Suddenly, an explosion catapults the bus.

Part III

Young Ayesha’s sweet pink sari comes undone; it is noosed around her neck, strangulated. The pink hue reflects a bluish blush on her silken, smooth skin. This place is eerily deserted. Doctors know better. She lies in a white starched hospital bed. Her skin is decrepit, mottling. Mohabbat is here, coming toward her. She waits; she hears his voice echoing through her comatose brain. She desires to go on a safari with him, maybe not on the unlucky 94 after all. He is smiling … she sniffs the odour … her favourite oil brushed into the strands of his hair. Glib winds whisper into her ears. Ninety-four years of wait cannot atone for this wrong. The bus has changed course. It does not come here anymore.  


        

Mehreen Ahmed is an award-winning Australian novelist born in Bangladesh. She has won multiple contests for her short fiction. Her works have been nominated for Pushcart, botN and James Tait awards. She has authored eight books and has been twice a reader and juror for international awards. Her recent publications include Litro, Otoliths, Alien Buddha, Popshot Quarterly, Metachrosis Literary, and more.

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kelli green short story august 2023

I wake up at 6:00 am to the sound of my Pa’s alarm clock. He comes into my room and sits on the edge of my bed poking at my feet and telling me to get up. I beg for five more minutes, then he sighs and sings me a song until I crawl out from under the covers hoping to stop him from starting another verse.

I walk on my toes all the way to the bathroom. The floor is cold in the morning, so I have to get used to it. Sometimes I walk on my heels, but that’s harder. And Pa says I’ll fall and crack my head.

Once I fell asleep on the toilet while waiting for the water to heat up so I could wash my face. Next thing I knew, I slipped off the stool and scraped the side of my head good on the sink. Blood dripped down my face and onto the floor, all red and messy like strawberry syrup. I tried to wash the blood away, and it just got everywhere. As soon as Pa saw me, he almost passed out.

It’s a good thing Nilah was there because she’s tougher than Pa. Nilah is Pa’s girlfriend and my buddy. I don’t remember a time when Nilah wasn’t around. She doesn’t live here, but she should. She cleaned up my blood and helped Pa take me to the doctor. They said the cut was very small, and they gave me a bandage. Pa wanted me to have an X-Ray. I wanted to too, so I could see my bones, but the doctor said we didn’t need to get an X-Ray.

Nilah told me that it’s a good thing they didn’t put me in front of the X-Ray machine that day because it would be rude to take pictures of the troll that lives inside of me without warning him first. I told her that was silly, and that I didn’t have an inside troll. She swore that I did and started poking and tickling my tummy to find him.

Anyway, I didn’t crack my head this morning, and when I was done in the bathroom, I changed into my school clothes. Nilah, Pa, and I ate breakfast and talked about our plans. This weekend we’re all going to the beach, and Nilah is going to teach me to swim. She says that six years old is already old, and if I don’t learn now, I’ll never be a mermaid. She’s goofy, but I do want to learn.

After we give each other kisses and hugs, we leave the apartment. When we get to school, I give Pa another hug and run off to find my friends.

When I run, my backpack slaps my back. And I hear my pencil box rattling around. Sometimes when I stand in one place, I still swing my backpack to hear the shaking. I find my friends by the basketball courts. They’re watching the 11th and 12th graders do their morning rap battles. I can’t tell that any of them are doing well, but sometimes a kid will jump up and go “whoaaaaa” like something crazy was just said. I like watching them, and they don’t care that we’re there.

When the bell rings, everyone walks the way they’re supposed to walk. We all split off like the branches on a tree. I’m still little at this school, so my class is on the first floor. I think they do that so we don’t get lost, or maybe it’s because we’re so small that we may get knocked over on the stairs. That’s probably it because that’s exactly what happened to me one time when I had to go to another floor for my advanced reading class. Big kids will just run on your back if you fall down in their way.

I like school, but it’s a Friday so no one wants to be here. We’re all ready for the bell to ring so it can be the weekend. My friend Chloe talks to me while we do our worksheets. She tells me that this weekend her mom and dad are going on a vacation for their anniversary. While they’re gone, she gets to stay with her aunt. And they’re going to eat all the hot chips they want and watch music videos. Chloe’s mom doesn’t like for her to watch music videos with booty shaking, but her aunt doesn’t care. So, she’s excited.

I hope Nilah and Pa get married, too. When they have their anniversary, I’ll go to my Papa’s house. And we’ll play checkers and watch old movies for the weekend.

While I’m playing, I hear a teacher say something about a shooting on the South Side of the city. That’s my side of the town. I try to listen to learn more about what happened, but Mrs. Estes asks me if I need anything. I shake my head no, so she smiles and tells me to go play. I shrug and run to an open swing.

I still want to know about it, but I’ll just ask Pa to watch the news with me tonight. Shootings happen a lot though. One time, someone shot our car; but we weren’t in it. Pa found the bullet hole in his door one morning before school. In the summer it gets really bad. Pa says it’s because people get boiled in the heat like spaghetti noodles; but spaghetti loosens up, while people get hard and break.

We have art class last. I start coloring in the picture I drew of a garden, but then I feel like I need to use the bathroom. I need to use it now! I get up and ask Mr. Long if I may go to the restroom, and he says I can’t. Well, this is a problem because you can’t just say no to urine. Pa says I should use real words like urine and not pee. Nilah agreed and said that it’s easier to make people understand things if you use the right words. So, I ask Mr. Long the question again. This time I tell him I need to urinate because maybe he’ll understand that.

Now Mr. Long looks frustrated, and he tells me if I ask him again, he’ll call my father. I ask him if I can go after he calls Pa. He looks at me funny and asks if I’m trying to be smart. Well, of course, I am. I don’t think anyone tries to be stupid on purpose. I ask to go a third time. He says yes and tells me again he will be calling Pa. I say, “Thank you,” I rush to the bathroom, and I make it just in time.

When class is over, Mr. Long lets me know that Pa said he was coming to pick me up right after the last class. Mr. Long tells me he’ll be waiting to talk to him. I say, “Okay” and go back to my coloring. I wonder why Pa is coming early. Is it to make sure I got to the bathroom okay? I still don’t know why calling him made any difference, but maybe it did if he’s coming early.

When the last bell rings, I wait by the globe with Chloe. And we tell stories about where we’ll take our vacations one day. I didn’t know Pa had come in until I heard Mr. Long say my name. Mr. Long told him I kept asking to go to the bathroom even though he said I couldn’t. Chloe makes an “oooh” sound, and now I understand. He must think Pa will be mad at me just like he is, but that’s silly because Pa knows how much I have to use the bathroom. He says I’m bad for road trips.

Pa doesn’t look interested while Mr. Long talks, and soon I hear him say that he doesn’t have time for this. They say some other things I can’t really hear because Chloe talks a lot.  Finally, Pa holds his hand out for me to take and I say, “Goodbye” to Chloe and Mr. Long.

When we get to the car, Pa straps me in. And I ask him why he came early. He looks at me kind of funny and opens his mouth to answer. Then instead of answering me, he swallows his words like sour candy. Then he smiles and says he wanted to start the weekend early. He gets in the car, and we drive for a long time. We listen to the 70’s station which is my favorite.

After a while, we pull into a big parking lot; and I see the words Kidz World. I shout out the name because I’m so happy. I’ve never been here, but I hear it’s super fun. Pa gets me a wristband and I trade my shoes for fun socks. I ask him if he wants to go through the tunnels with me, but he says he wants to sit down for a while. That makes me sad, but it’s okay. I’ll explore for us both. I crawl through the colorful tubes and rush down the slides, pretending I’m a secret agent trying to complete a mission.

I wish Nilah were here to play. They have trampolines, and she’s good at flipping. I want her to teach me that too. I could learn how to do flips like the cool spies I see on TV. I could be a spy a lot easier than I could be a mermaid.

I finally get Pa to jump with me for a while, but I get tired quickly. After we’re done playing, Pa and I go get dinner at our favorite seafood restaurant. I order fried shrimp and a bowl of fruit. We say our dinner prayers and then Pa asks a waitress to sit with me for a second while he runs to the bathroom. He comes back fast but his eyes look weird like he was crying or had allergies. He gives the waitress three dollars for sitting with me.

Pa’s phone keeps buzzing. He finally puts it on silent, but he flips it up so he can see who’s calling or texting. He never answers any of the calls or messages though. I ask Pa again what’s wrong as a tear rolls down his cheek before he could hide it. He tells me there isn’t anything wrong as he puts money on the table. I cross my arms and frown because we aren’t supposed to lie. He nods his head and says he will tell me what’s wrong but not yet. He tries to get me to order a dessert, but I’m not hungry anymore.

In the car, I sit back and watch the lights dance in the window as we drive home. On the radio, I hear a man say something about a shooting and Pa immediately switches it off.

“Pa wait!” I call out. “I think they talked about that at school. It’s on our side of town.”

Pa shakes his head and says he wants to hear something else right now and then changes to the cd player. We drive a little longer, and we get to the street we normally turn down to go home. It’s the street where Nilah’s beauty shop is. And every time we pass by, I wave; even though I know she probably isn’t in the window looking. But instead of turning, we drive right past it. I twist around to make sure I saw the street right, and there it was right there with Jimmy’s Chicken on the corner.

“Pa, you missed your turn.”

Pa shakes his head again and tells me he wanted to go a different way. He’s being so weird tonight, and I don’t like it.

“Is Nilah going to be home before bedtime tonight?” I ask. I need someone normal to talk to. Maybe Nilah can tickle out whatever weird troll has found its way into his stomach. Pa doesn’t answer me. And I know he heard me because he looked in the rearview mirror at me when I asked. I begin to re-ask the question, but I get a bad feeling in my tummy.

“Kayla, we have to talk about something important when we get home.” Pa’s voice sounds weird, and it makes my tummy feel worse. I don’t say anything. I sink into the back of my seat, and I can’t help but tap the side of the door with my foot. I don’t know why I’m doing that, but I can’t stop it.

Pa doesn’t want to hear about the shooting, and he doesn’t want to talk about Nilah. And I’m scared. I once watched a movie with Nilah and Pa. And in the movie, a family heard a gunshot. They all got on the ground so if something came through the window, they wouldn’t get hit. So, if something like that happened near her shop, I know Nilah would know to get down. Right?

So, I try to tell myself that Nilah will be home when we get home, and then Pa will tell us what’s wrong. We finally pull into our parking spot at home. I hold Pa’s hand and look up and down the street hoping I spot Nilah’s car. We get inside, and Pa takes his jacket off and hangs it up. Pa starts to talk and says that this morning something bad happened, and I immediately cover my ears. Pa puts his hand on my back, but I don’t want to take my hands down. I don’t want to know about Nilah’s blood, red and messy like strawberry syrup. I want her to just come home and tickle me. I want her and Pa to have a big wedding and anniversary trips. I want to go swimming and learn how to be a mermaid after all.

I take my hands off my ears and wrap my arms around Pa. I want to stay like this forever. I want us to stay frozen right in this spot, and then, at least, I can’t say for sure that I know anything is wrong. As long as Pa doesn’t say the words, then I can still wait for Nilah to walk in the door. Pa tries to talk to me again, and I squeeze him harder.

“Five more minutes,” I beg.

Pa rubs my back, and I can feel his tears raining on my head. He sings me a song, and I pray for a million verses.


Kelli Green is a writer, creator, and lifelong learner.  Green is from Chicago but has lived in Pensacola, Florida for most of their life. The author of three books, May, Elizabeth, and Cool and a host of poems, Green loves writing and storytelling and has always been intrigued by the creative world. The story, “Kayla’s Day,” is a narrative mixed with fictional and non-fictional events. You can find Kelli Green at @kelligreenivy on twitter, instagram, and tiktok.

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sophia khan short story july 2023

The first thing Zain decided to do when he landed in New York City was walk.

He walked for blocks and blocks, breathing in air that throbbed in his skin, crawled into his lungs and choked him on the vast matrix of the city. He longed to touch the metal of the subway and see if it was as cold as it looked. He wanted to go to Brooklyn so he could come back to London and agree with his colleagues at the fin-tech start-up, that Bed-Stuy had become too gentrified.

He had never been to New York, and the journey thrilled him whilst his nerves also rattled like loose change. He sat on the plane at London Heathrow, looking outside, waiting for it to roar its monstrous engine, engulfing his ears and making him hold his breath, saying ‘Bismillah’ as it sped along the runway.

He wasn’t planning on seeing family in America, but his Amma had let it slip to relatives in New York that her son was coming, mainly for work.

‘Tell him that his cousin Jamal wants to invite him for dinner. He insists.’

Panic had risen in Zain. He was already anxious about landing at JFK airport, possibly being questioned about his Muslim surname. To make the journey and see Jamal all these years later, after what happened seemed too much. But he acquiesced for his mother’s sake.

It would be fourteen years since he’d seen his cousin on his Abba’s side. He remembered the remote, intense, forbidding presence in Jamal. The sky he kicked the football into was not the same as Zain’s sky. The shaved, zig-zag lines on the side of his head did not look the same as it did on other boys. It was cooler, sharper, more threatening. He often took two steps back when there was a crowd huddling in conversation at a gathering. Always slightly further out, aloof, never wanting for company. So when, aged fifteen, he upped and left with his parents to move to Queens in New York, everyone was surprised apart from Zain.

When Jamal started following him on Instagram two years back, he thought about removing him. But then he became curious, checking Jamal’s posts every now and then which were mainly of his two daughters and his wife, an Algerian American who wore hijabs in pastels. Sometimes he posted flowery pictures of his favourite hadiths. Only one picture showed Jamal. He had a short, crisp beard, and his big eyes and nose no longer stuck out the way they used to, but rather had smoothed into his face, soaking up the rest of his features.

Would Zain tell him everything about his life? About his boyfriend Tarun, who was half Jamaican and half Indian and cooked him a meal every evening? Then there was Ahmed, the lover they took into their bed twice a week, who ate breakfast with them wearing a silk robe, a gentlemanly version of the titans they had been in bed the night before.

Would it surprise Jamal to hear about these things? Maybe not.

As the plane took off, Zain mulled over those days they spent in their youth. Jamal grew up to be more of a man than him. That’s what he envied. Not because Zain loved other boys but because Jamal had a certain steeliness in his masculinity. He walked silently with a single cigarette behind his ear, big puffer jacket shielding his body as protection from the police carrying out stop and search on the tube. His trainers as white as snow, his gold chain, his talking about girls and pussy and teachers at school who were as dumb as fuck. Whereas Zain felt too soft, too yielding and vulnerable, always looking for approval everywhere he went. Sometimes, the fear of making eye contact with others became too strong in case they could see deep into his pain. But with Jamal, Zain couldn’t hide.

#

“You wanna kick a ball about?”

“Sure.”

It happened the day Jamal slept over when they would all be travelling to a family wedding together.

The grass was damp from the morning’s drizzle; Jamal kept consciously looking at his trainers whilst Zain looked at Jamal. Did he know? Did he know that Zain felt like he was about to blow himself up with secrets? He tried to tackle him and get the ball off him, but Jamal was too good.

“Pussy, come and get it.”

It hurt being called pussy. He tried to throw Jamal down, but he wasn’t strong enough and soon the stronger boy had him in a headlock, fists clenched, and knuckles fastening themselves like bolts under his jawline. He held him in so tight that Zain couldn’t breathe and started beating him in his stomach, his legs, his arms, fighting to be set free. But something shifted. Whether Jamal had released Zain out of pity or it was done out of mercy, Zain wasn’t sure, but tears were streaming down his face from feeling choked. He hit his aggressor square on the jaw, seeing the blood come out of his mouth with satisfaction.

“Good,” Jamal said. “Good, good.”

They sat together on the step, Jamal with a crumpled tissue on his lips to stop the blood flowing.

“I’m sorry man.”

Jamal lifted his palm up though he was looking straight ahead. They sat in silence for what felt like years. The most painful, raw silence Zain had ever felt in his life.

Later that evening, Amma told Zain that Jamal would have to share his bed. “It’s only for one night.”

His single bed could just about house both of their slender bodies. He could hear Jamal’s breathing, deep in sleep. Except Jamal wasn’t sleeping, and he wanted to move his hand along to see if he was as hard as he was.

Their bodies found each other under the covers. Jamal’s hands were delicate but brutal, murdering his body with tenderness. His mouth was warm and wet, cleansing the hurt out of every bone, every organ. When Zain woke up the following morning, his soul felt rearranged. All the objects in the bedroom from his comb to his school books felt charged with power.

But Jamal did not look at him at breakfast and during the wedding sat as far apart from him as he possibly could. The silvery shimmer in his eyes had turned to flint, and Zain knew that there would be no more football and no more sleepovers. It wouldn’t be long before he would hear from his Amma that Jamal’s family would be moving to America.

Ever since, Jamal would come to mind, less so over the years, but still with a jolt. He thought of him when seeing a group of men on the bus, victorious with fighting from the night before, or when he sat in a pub with a bunch of post-graduates, suffocating under the weight of their intellectualism, looking for a way out, into something real.

#

He closed his eyes as the plane landed and bounced along the runway.

At passport control he tensed up, but he was let through with apparent ease.

He grabbed his suitcase and exited the airport, the air feeling smooth in its warmth.  He hailed a cab and upon sitting inside, took out the crumpled piece of paper with Jamal’s address on it.

“Where to, brother?” the cab driver asked. His name badge said Hafiz.

“I’m not sure,” Zain replied.


Sophia Khan is a writer, teacher, and graduate of King’s College London. Currently residing in the city where she completed her studies, she is a member of REWRITE London — a community organisation for writers that supports and champions Black Women and Women of Colour. She is presently on their mentoring program and has been published in their online magazine. Sophia is currently working on a collection of short stories set in the UK and in Bangladesh.

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delaney olmo short story may 2023

I didn’t visit the country by choice. But grandma was happy to see me. Her surgery earlier in the year had left her unable to help herself as much. I knew my mom wanted to finally get rid of me. Now instead of spending the summer flirting with boys and browsing aisles of overpriced makeup, I would be here. Hours away from the city.

Grandma asks me to help her clean the house. I find myself enjoying some of the cleaning and the way my nostrils burn from the fumes. The nothingness around the small house surrounded by forest trees. My body craves that unknown feeling.

In the mornings, I wake to the chirping near a pine tree outside my window. I grab water from the nightstand and take a few sips. My dry throat feeling some slight comfort. From the edges of the windowsill, I see what I make out to be a few feathers. I pull myself out of bed and open the window trying to grab one. They fall to the ground looking like glass shards ready to impale my body.

I never actually see the crows, but sometimes I hear them.  Hanging laundry on the clothesline is usually when I hear them the most. From the tops of the redwood trees. Sometimes it feels like the forest behind the home is their playground. I find myself wondering what it feels like to be pecked to death by them. Grandma calls me back inside. They continue laughing, knowing I’ll be back near them soon.

The neighbor girl, Esther, tells me the crows are very smart. She’s about my age, a little nice but slightly weird. I could see someone like her not fitting in with other kids. She explains she can understand birds. I don’t know how to respond. I agree with her about the ways city folk are not in tune with nature. The city is surrounded by skyscrapers and sidewalks. Brief trips to the park are not the same as being on the Reservation surrounded by nature.

When I left the treatment facility, I knew my mother was embarrassed to take me back. The way she looked at me as I was being discharged made me feel ashamed. The life she wanted was limited by having me around. Her new husband hated kids. There was no space for me in the cramped apartment. The resentment from the years of being a single mom, and the drama with my father in and out of prison.

Grandma has always been kinder to me than my mother was. But she lived too far for us to regularly visit. I knew she would not treat me like a burden. The only feeling I knew my entire life. Around her I didn’t need to pretend, try to satisfy like I did around mother. My grandma, at her old age, chose to move back onto our ancestral lands.

For once in my life, I felt a freedom I never felt. The iron cage I always imagined holding me down inside, loose. When mother drives away, I feel it swelling. That feeling of knowing I will probably never have to see her again. The freshly lacquered nails and her peony-stained cheeks. I won’t miss the rude comments she makes about the plainness of my face or how my new haircut makes me look like my father.

Esther is the first person besides my mother I allow to touch my hair. I let her braid it for me. Her delicate fingers weave in and out of each strand. She is the first person I tell, outside of my family, about my time at the facility. Never does she judge me or make me feel as if I am being observed. When the sunlight hits Esther’s round face, her eyes look a pretty golden brown.

I tell Esther about the time my mother came to visit me at the facility. The meeting was short and awkward. My mother’s makeup looked dark, and her outfit overdone. The echo of her heels against the linoleum floor louder than I had remembered before. We didn’t hug or say we loved each other. That was when I realized I would never be wanted in her life.

In the evenings, I sit and watch grandma do her beadwork. She tells me she will teach me if I want to learn, and even the tricky peyote stitch. Sometimes I want to ask her how my mom was when she was younger. Was she a kind girl like Esther? Was she as selfish as she is now? These questions seem important but when I want to ask, it’s time for bed.

In the city, I struggled to make friends, as much as I hate to admit it. There was always something I desired more than I could find. But I hid it from myself. I tried to make my mother happy. I stained my lips and cheeks. Dressed like the girls I envied. Starved myself so she wouldn’t comment about my figure anymore. Wore dresses even though I hated them.

For months, I stole medication from her new husband. I’d swallow them to see how I felt. He didn’t notice at first. His eyes stayed glued watching old cowboy shows when he got home from work. The type of man who wanted a wife to wait on him. I watch her trying to mold into a role she can never be. Especially as a Native American woman married to an older White man like him.

When I eat dinner, I do so in my room. I avoid my mother and stepfather as much as I can. Sometimes I steal his cigarettes. Occasionally I ration the ones I have so he won’t notice. When everyone is asleep, I go on the balcony and pretend I am someplace else. I enjoy watching the blanket of stars greet me. A sense of comfort as I exhale the smoke.

They found me on the bathroom floor. The doctors thought it was a suicide attempt. I don’t remember much. But I remember that almost dying felt better than living. Felt that missing desire for something I didn’t understand. The room of the hospital felt so quiet. The white walls, hearing each patient breathing. When I sleep, I see friends that don’t exist in real life.

The unusual thing about watching baby crows hatch is the sliminess of their skin. The way their mama seems to understand naturally how to care for them. How defenseless they seem. But I desire to see what they will become. Esther tells me about a dance she heard about that some tribes do called a Crow Hop, and I find myself wishing I could see this. She promises me one day we will go to a Pow Wow to see it. Somehow, I envy the baby crows even more.

Sometimes, when I’m busy in the house, I look out the window to make sure the baby crows are okay. When it rains, I worry they might not survive. I try to imagine their mother is nearby, ready to conceal them with her leathery black wings. I worry about the wind knocking down their nest. But maybe once the sunshine comes, it will warm their small little beaks.

Esther comes and asks for me one morning. Usually, we meet in the evening. I peek my face through the cracked window near the door telling her to wait. I grab a basket of freshly washed laundry preparing to hang it as we talk. I notice a new parka on her body. It’s black and almost looks a bit too large for her small frame.

We walk near the clotheslines as I begin quickly hanging the clothing. I want to ask her about the baby crows. But I wonder if she already knew. Would she feel sad as I did realizing they might finally leave us? My grandma’s house was closer to the nest than hers so I felt responsible. Because of the weather, I hadn’t checked in a few days. Her mood told me not to be worried.

Beneath the early morning sun, her brown eyes looked lighter than I noticed before. We walked towards the tree. I wanted to tell her I saw the nest empty last evening, but I didn’t want her to know my obsession with the crows caused me to peek before her. My stomach churned slightly, unsure how to proceed.

Beneath our feet we see it. A small black trail of feathers scattered around the dirt floor. We both stay quiet until we finally hear them. She looks up and seems slightly surprised. The wind hits some of the branches making a swishing sound. I look up and see it. On a small dogwood branch I see what appears to be small crows swaying. Something about it makes me cherish this moment between us. These baby crows are motherless, and ready to face the world.


Delaney R. Olmo is a writer who graduated from the MFA program at California State University, Fresno. She has been a finalist and semifinalist for several poetry prizes. She is an enrolled member of the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Feminist Formations at John Hopkins University Press, Green Linden, Solstice Literary Review, Abalone Mountain Press, and many others. Read more of her work at delaneyolmo.com.

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david agyei-yeboah short story april 2023

“Welcome to Owuooo.[i] We promise you nothing but the pain you deserve. Lucifer kingdom alande.”[ii] Five hooded figures gesticulated to market women. Passersby inched away from them. Some market women screamed when they approached. The way they pronounced the word, “owuoo,” their tongues coiling up between their teeth, like snakes, made a few women leap from their workstations and topple over. Kenny giggled. Before those buffoons performed their act, oh, for that’s what it was, they’d approached him thirty minutes earlier to join in and be the sixth member because in their words, he towered, had a broad chest, and would be feared and loved in like measure. He’d declined. Definitely wasn’t ready to partner with Luciferian acting. Pastor Jefferson would not be pleased.

He’d only wanted fruits from the market so he wound up on Ntreh Avenue hoping to grab a few and head back home. KIDI’s music blared through. I go kill you with.. Enjoyment. Enjoyment. Herh. And then Kenny’s eyes scanned the perimeter. It had been cleared of animals and men. A celestial figure gleamed before him. Weirdly enough, he could hear the bustle of the market. At the same time, he could see the eyes of this being searing through him. It called out to him. Or was it a her? It was about 11 feet tall, with eyes that seemed dunk in fire, robe of magenta and mane of icy-white. Then it fizzled out of sight.

“Herh, young man, why are you drooling?”

 He composed himself. “I was?”

“Why do you look like you just woke up?”

“Cos I literally just did,” he muttered. “Please hand me some apples and pineapples.”

“50 cedis.”

“Ahhbaa!”

“Herh, εnfa saa nkwasiasεm no mma ha o. M’ayε hye. Sε wontɔ a, kɔ wo baabi.”[iii]

“Oh, madam, but it’s just apples and pineapples.” He scratched his head. “Alright.” Carefully removing five crumpled 10-cedi notes, he handed it to the buxom lady and took a bite out of the juiciest apple on his way home.

What the hell was that? What figure was that? He couldn’t seem to get the image out of his head as he stepped into his one-bedroom, chamber-and-hall apartment at Teshie.

He knew he had been told he had prophetic gifts. Were they manifesting?

                                                                *

Sundays were always ferocious. There were always blobs of sweat swirling around the room. Pastor Jefferson would boom and lay hands and the congregants would fall dramatically, the ground littered with their bodies, hope-filled, yearning for redemption, manifestation and stolen glory.

Kenny would always munch on apples after service before packing the plastic chairs.

“PJeff,” Kenny called out. Pastor Jeff had just returned from escorting the wealthiest member to her SUV and was sauntering into his office. “Something weird happened yesterday. You always told me I had prophetic gifts.”

“Kenny, my beloved son, I know you saw something strange yesterday. That white figure.”

“How- dd- id – you – know –“

“That was me, boy.”

“Huh?”

“I’m always watching over you.”

That was the day that Kenny realized that he had to leave Pastor Jefferson’s church. He had always seen the negative signs. Something always irked him, jarred him even, the way people were overly sentimental about his messages and overextended themselves in pleasing him. Then there were those messages he would preach that would shroud the room in fear.

“Eben didn’t listen to me the last time I advised him. Are you all surprised that a tipper truck split his body into two? Montie afutusεm oo.”[iv] A restless calm arrested the atmosphere.

Kenny had always stayed. He needed Pastor Jefferson. Needed his money. His mason job didn’t fetch much. Although he’d graduated top of his class at the university, he’d failed to get any job after graduation. Postmodern Ghana was rough, from the prestigious jobs offered to recent grads on a who-you-know-basis to the numerous job applications that required three years plus experience. Like how?  It seemed like his country just wanted him to lose it.

It was about that time that he roamed from church to church, seeking a solution to his problems. The church at Mamobi hadn’t helped. The Pastor there secretly sent him DMs for sexual favors following their exchanging numbers after the alter call. Abokobi’s ‘Fire for Fire, Brimstone for Brimstone’ Ministries hadn’t helped a wink either, what with their mortal combat with Satan every Sunday, each congregant armed with boxing gloves. I mean, he should have known. Brimstone for Brimstone?  But desperation had a voice that couldn’t be silenced even in the face of danger and hoodwink. As for Nungua Love Centre, the ushers were so rude; all they cared about was gathering everyone so the pastor could pull congregants onto the floor by sheer force of will. Their violence was staggering. Church culture just generally seemed steeped in mystery and pomp; no depth to satisfy parched souls.

Pastor Jeff seemed genuine the minute he walked into the Community 12 Covenant Family church. But over time, his character unraveled and became unrivaled. It was too late then because the money that Pastor Jeff supported him with became his lifeblood.

But tonight was different; the way Pastor Jeff cocked his head to the side; the way his mustache suddenly marched to a devious tone, arched like a Mafioso’s; the way his eyes burned into him. All of a sudden, new scales fell off his eyes. Then Kenny finally gathered courage and did what he’d felt compelled to even in the face of complete failure. Step into the unknown with no bulwark.

Yes, he’d starve for a while but goddamn these pastors. They were clearly not the answer! At least the kind he’d found.

He would find out what his vision meant. On his own.                                                      

                                                                      *

There was a wide lake before Kenny. He would see a crocodile dip into it and re-emerge a golden antelope. A mouse would sip and emerge a deer. Then he saw that creature again. It stared intently at him and smiled. Then he woke up.

The plates around him clinked. Grains of gari layered the plate like a sickle. Shito lay dotted all over the floor. “Shit.” He looked around and saw the bottle of shito, ajar because of his restlessness during the night, the floor a cream of black and auburn.

His phone beeped.

“Kenny, we get some job bi for Lashibi oo. Make you make ready,”[v] Diaka, who’d recommended him for his last job, said.

He prepped and within minutes, the flaming sun slapped his back as he carried blocks to an uncompleted building. As he narrowed the curve to the entrance, he saw a group of young women ogling at him. One licked her lips. He wondered how she could be so crude in her opulent expression of desire. I mean, he knew that his body had definitely packed on some muscle from two years of consistent mason work. He also knew it was natural to feel things. But these were teen girls on the cusp of womanhood. They should be ogling at their textbooks. Not him. And the way they leered, unashamed with longing, eschewing the courtesy to bridle and expunge desire in secrecy or behind a screen was utterly bewildering to bear, to say the least.

“Kenny, mortar, mortar, mortar!”

He dropped the blocks and picked up the empty ceramic slate before him. One of the girls giggled when he crossed the bend again.

“You know Kenny, you should stop wondering about those lustful daughters of Eve over there.”

Enningful stifled a laugh, eyes burning bright as he joined Kenny to carry off mortar in his own slate. The dji, dji, dji sounds from the concrete mixer blared through the air as they trudged along.

“Ah Enning. These are not daughters of Eve. They are daughters of Satan.”

They both laughed heartily.

“Stop exaggerating. Don’t tell me you’re not enjoying it. I know I am.”

“Ah, so you too?”

“Those Gen Z girls have been here since morning oo. Staring at us like we are well glistened trophies. They want a piece of us, chale. We be hot cake. I for make my move soon kraa.[vi] Na body no be firewood.”

“Hahaha. You that. Shocked you haven’t yet.”

“Biding my time. The longer they want me, the easier my move. They will fall like flies soon.”

Their laughter echoed in the distance.

“But eii Enning how far with the new job applications?”

“Hmm, broooo, same old oo.”

Enningful had struggled after school to get a job too. In fact, he met Kenny at a Uniliever interview, they vibed and then exchanged contacts. After both failed to get the job, Enningful began mason work to while away time and make a little money at the side while still applying for jobs. He advised Kenny to join in the mason work.

“Why did we even break our backs to make first-class degrees, hoping that Ghana would open up to us. See the way all these organizations are rejecting us!” Kenny said.

Enning shrugged right before they reached the mound of mortar that the other masons had rounded.

“Kenny, I no de barb sef. This country be forking, rough.”[vii]

                                                                     *

It thundered. Rain poured out of the sky in a flurry dance. A dim mist arrested the bed. Then a blast of white light filtered through the dark. Kenny awakened. Stared into nothingness. There was no one in sight. Suddenly, voices rang out.

“Rainbow-whisker, you are chosen! You are chosen! You are chosen!” Voices uttered. He could hear honey-thick baritones and soaring boy sopranos.

“Who are you?”

“Kenny! You are chosen! You are chosen!”

He placed his hands over his ears. Then awoke. A dream within a dream. Beads of sweat paddled across his face.

“What the hell? This has to stop. All these weird stuff. Naa, naa.”

He picked up his phone.

“Nancy, I know it’s late. I just have to talk to someone.”

“Okay.” Nancy hesitated, groggy. “Is anything the matter?”

“Yeaaah. Everything is the matteeeer. Okay, you-you-you wait. Maybe I shouldn’t talk to you about this on phone. I’ll come to your place early tomorrow morning.”

“You sound terrified. Are you sure we can’t talk now so you feel a bit better?”

“Nancy, I think I’m losing it! Freakin losing it. Pastor Jeff said prophetic gift or whatever but I think I’m just going coo-koo.” Kenny’s voice cracked and he began sobbing.

“You know what? Don’t move. I’m coming over.”

Nancy just lived two blocks away. She was the only female friend he’d made since he moved into his beat down one-bedroom apartment.                                                 

                                                                         *

“I keep seeing a super tall and big creature.” Kenny’s voice was calmer. “He looks at me like he knows me. I saw him like I’m seeing you fili fili[viii] in the market. Then I had a dream about him the other day. Or her. I don’t know. He seems androgynous. Then just tonight, I heard voices saying I’m chosen. They called me a rainbow-whisker. What the hell?”

“Hmmm. Let me boil a pot of hot tea for you.”

“Sure.”

Nancy began walking over to the cupboard at the corner to grab a teabag.

“Wait.” She stopped, turned and stared intently at Kenny. “Before then, I think you need a hug. A big one.” She smiled. Nancy always had a way of calming him and stealing a smile out of him, even in the direst of situations. In the past when Pastor Jeff’s financial assistance delayed, he’d hit her up and she’d loan him some money. Then she’d hug him afterwards. He kinda knew she had the hots for him. He would use it, somehow. In the future. But tonight, all he needed was his friend.

“Honestly, Nancy, what do you make of all of this?”

Nancy smiled again, and shrugged, “I don’t know Kenny. I’m no spiritual person, to be honest. Why didn’t you tell Pastor Jeff?”

“That charlatan.” Kenny scoffed. “Can you believe he told me that he is that creature?”

Nancy burst into uncontrollable laughter. “Ah, akoa wei paa.”[ix]

Somehow, her laughter comforted him.

“I need answers.”

“Clearly. And you won’t get the right ones from him. I always told you he was fake. It doesn’t even take a blind man to see that.”

“I always knew oo. But na mehia sika no oo.[x] Hmm. Ghana is sooo hard. But you know, when he said it, it’s like something just came over me. I knew then and there I was done with his ass.”

“Hahaha. I’m glad about that. Maybe you should go see a genuine prophet in the land.”

“Prophet?” Kenny’s eyes widened. “I’ve seen so many fake ones, they are all the same to me.”

“Just as much as there are many fake ones, there are genuine ones too. You never know. What about your friend that you said is now a prophet?”

“Hmmm.” He began rummaging through his drawer. “Charles. He always seemed like a kind fellow. Maybe he can help me.” He tore a leaf out of a book and peeked.  “Got it. Class list, college 2015.”

“I hope you’re ready for what all this means.”

“Nancy, I don’t care. I just want all this madness to stop.”

                                                                *

“Charlessseeey gbemi.”

Kenny hollered as he noticed Charles seated at the bench in their former Psychology Department. The night sang a quiet song; no one in sight at the department except the two.

“Brooo.” Charles got up and hugged Kenny.

“Don’t call me that no more. I work for the Lord now.”

Kenny lowered his arms, in a symbolic bow to his old friend.

“Pressure! Hahaha, chale, what have you been up to?”

“Me? Oh, hmm. Mason work oo. M’asoa blocks saa.”[xi]

“Oh.” Charles face was etched in a frown.

“But bro,” Kenny laughed. “That conversation will be for another day.”

“Okay. You seemed anxious when you hit me up. What dey go on?”[xii]

“Been having crazy visions and hearing weird shit. Sorry, stuff.”

“Bro. Flooow.”

 Kenny giggled.

“What are you seeing in your visions?”

“I see a tall figure staring at me like it knows me. Then I hear voices saying I’m chosen. It’s crazy bro.”

“When you hear these things and see these things, how do you feel?”

“Uncomfortable. The sounds I was hearing were literally beating my eardrums.”

“Wow.”

“Let’s pray a bit.” Charles spoke in tongues. A frigidity arrested the atmosphere. It tingled Kenny’s skin. He suddenly stared at Kenny, a wildness waltzing in his eyes.

“Heaven and hell are fighting over you. You do have a divine assignment. But the things you are seeing and hearing are not from God. Your mother’s clan served the enemy in the past. Your father’s clan is the direct opposite. You are destined to be a prophetic painter. You will see things in the spirit realm and translate this to your drawings.”

“But I don’t even draw.”

“Be careful of your associations. All the people in your life at the moment have been sent to distract you. Enningful, Nancy are out for blood.”

“But Nancy. How? She encouraged me to seek you out.”

“And that’s why I’ll take you out. Before you become what we all fear.”

Whack, whack.

Something suddenly hit Kenny’s head from behind and he fell. The last thing he saw was blurry images of Nancy, Enningful and Charles. They sneered at him with eyes of pity and disgust.

Nancy glowered. “You were chosen to die. Eventually. We’ll take you to the creature you saw. He has a looot of plans for you.”

[i] Death

[ii] Has landed

[iii] I don’t condone such foolishness. I’ve got a lot on my plate. If you won’t buy, leave.

[iv] Listen to good advice.

[v] Kenny, we’ve got a job offer at Lashibi. Prepare.

[vi] We’re desirable. I have to make my move soon.

[vii] Kenny, I don’t even understand. This country is so pathetic.

[viii] In the flesh/for real

[ix] Ah, really, this dude?

[x] I needed the money oo.

[xi] I’ve carried blocks on my head for so long.

[xii] What’s going on?


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

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fatima abdullahi – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

She had given up trying to stay away. It was a battle lost long before it had ever begun. Perhaps if it was anything else other than the kaleidoscope of colours in front of her, colours that tugged at her eyes and her heart and her soul, perhaps then. But no, here she was once again, face pressed to the glass, the beauty of the display on the other side making her almost shake with want.

“YOU! How many times have I told you not to come back here?!”

The voice startled her from her sugar-induced stupor, and she hurriedly wiped away the drool on her chin, rushing round the corner before the large baton, and its even larger wielder, caught up with her.

Amna had always had a sweet tooth, even as a child. Her father used to call her shazumami, after those tiny ants with the big heads that liked to drown themselves in sugar and were the bane of her mother’s existence.

So, it was no wonder that the perfection of the macaroon seemed to have her in a chokehold that would not let up. She wanted to taste one so badly. It was all she could think of. She woke up with it on her mind and went to bed with it still in her thoughts. It even followed her into her dreams, and the morning would find her once again sneaking uphill, past the run-down houses and porthole covered streets of her side of town, to the sprawling array of mansions on the other side of the rise.

The cafe that housed the objects of her desire was more glamorous than any building she’d ever entered. With its high arches and wooden panels, dim lights offsetting the pure white tablecloths covering the delicate tables, it evoked class and style. Walking amongst its bright flowers and shining crystal glassware, warping with the sunlight, was like walking into a whole new world. Not that she would ever truly know, having only seen it from the outside. No one would ever let her through the door.

“Where have you been, Amna?” her mother snapped the minute she walked into their house.

Amna blanched, trying to scoot past to the safety of her room. “Nowhere.”

Her mother grabbed her by the chin, squinting at her face. “You went to that shop again, didn’t you? Darling, you know we can’t afford any of the things they sell in that place. Why do you keep torturing yourself?”

Amna muttered something unsavoury, glaring at her feet, then hastily amended her expression when her mother frowned. Best not give her a reason to put me to work.

“I’d buy them for you if I could, you know I would.”

She did know. Her mother loved her, of course she did. As her only child Amna had a pride of place that no one could even come close to replicating. Mama would do anything for her. Would move mountains and burn cities if she had to. A macaroon was nothing in the face of that, even if she’d once had the audacity to call them “a waste of time”, laughing herself silly when Amna had almost expired on the spot.

She knew all this, so she only nodded to her mother and walked to her room, trying to get the bright colours of the little buggers to stop flashing in front of her eyes.

#

They came in a variety of eye-catching displays. Mint green, and mango yellow and cherry red, colours like strawberry pink and peppermint blue and lavender purple. There was even one in an off white colour the same shade as her mother’s old wedding dress, the one Amna had only ever seen when it was finally sold.

The names of the flavours on the tiny placards were even more exotic. Vanilla bean and chocolate hazelnut and something called pistachio. She did not know what eggnog was—or cappuccino or salted caramel—but she’d had cotton candy before, when there’d been a fair on the rise, and one of the sellers had taken pity on her wide eyes and wistful expression and offered her a small cloud on a stick. She’d never forgotten the bright pink colour of it and the way it had immediately melted in her mouth. So, she knew what cotton candy was like, and the macaroon on the furthest side of the display window labeled the same was the one she most wanted to try. Hidden in an alcove and seething with jealousy, she’d heard one of the wealthy patrons, a blogger of some sort, describing them once. The words a “crunchy exterior with a soft filling, made of buttercream”—or fruit apparently, or jam—had nearly sent her into raptures.

Amna had spent months staring at them whenever she had the chance, these little dimensions of colours and flavor, each with a story to share with her. She would fold herself into careful corners and vantage points where neither the cafe customers or employees could see her, and spend hours swaddled in a fantasy land where all she had to do was reach out — until a leaving customer inevitably spotted her and alerted the doorman, and she was angrily chased away.

So, it was a rather huge surprise a few weeks later, when instead of swatting at her with his stick the way he always did—like a particularly errant housefly—the doorman instead motioned her closer.

His eyes roved over her, or rather, her unbound hair. She’d worn it loose today instead of leaving it in its customary braids, wrapped several times around her head. Her hair was her crowning jewel, something both she and her mother were extremely proud of. Long and soft and silky, it was as black as the darkest night, rippling and shining like a waterfall and reaching all the way to her waist. It was a gift, Mama had said, passed down through generations from her Fulani ancestors to her, and Amna was pleased and honoured to carry on their legacy. She did not like the way this man was looking at her hair.

But she was curious, so she let him lead her to the alley behind the cafe and stood warily next to a garbage bin.

“Wait here sweet girl, eh?” he said, his eyes never leaving the cascade of her hair. There was a greed in there that made Amna uncomfortable.

He waited for her to nod before he slipped through the kitchen entrance, curling his large frame around the slightly opened door like a snake. The minute he was through, Amna took two steps back to the mouth of the alley, just in case.

When he returned some minutes later with extra company, he looked panicked for a moment before he spotted her. Scowling mightily in her direction, he said, “I told you to stay here.”

But Amna, refusing to answer, instead looked guardedly towards his companion. She was one of the waitresses of the cafe. Amna had seen her several times through the window carrying trays filled with tiny cakes and coffee mugs that hung on for dear life. She had a wig on her head that did nothing good for her sallow face. Amna wondered if perhaps she didn’t have any hair and suddenly felt bad.

“My God, it’s stunning!” the woman murmured, looking at Amna’s hair with the same hungry look as the man, like all her dreams had come true all at once. “Think of what we’ll get from this!”

The man nodded frantically.

The woman looked at Amna again, and probably noticing she was two seconds away from bolting, slipped smoothly to her knees, pasted on what she possibly thought was a kind smile, and held out her hand.

“My name is Maggie. I work part time at the salon down the way. And this is Chike,” she said sweetly, pointing at the man. “You have such lovely hair, love, won’t you let me feel it?”

Amna shuffled closer and let her run her thin fingers through her silky locks, pleased at the attention, but still wary.

“Chike tells me you like coming to see the macaroons. Is that true?”

Amna nodded shyly, her face filled with embarrassment. “I can’t afford them.”

“How would you like a whole macaroon to yourself then, just for you?” Maggie questioned, looking more than pleased with herself.

Amna looked up in shock. Her heart started an unsteady rhythm in her chest, and she felt suddenly weak. “You would do that, give me one for free? But why?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be for free of course. Nothing ever is. I want something in return.”

“What then?” Amna eagerly asked, already feeling the taste of her long-dreamt-of prize in her mouth, within reach at last.

Maggie gave a sharp smile and stroked a finger through Amna’s hair. “All in due time.”

#

When she walked through the door, her mother took one look at her and let out a wretched cry that shook the walls. “Oh Amna, how could you?!”

Amna lowered her eyes in shame, conscious of the tiny box with a single pink pastry hidden in her bag. She felt like a criminal on the execution platform, waiting for the swing of the axe.

“Why?” her mother asked tearfully. “What could possibly make you do such a thing?”

She shook her head and was momentarily stricken with the lack of weight attached to the motion. A sob caught in her throat. She had not wanted this, this ache in her chest that felt like it was choking her from the inside. She had only wanted a taste, had only wanted to be the person who could afford something she yearned for so dearly.

It’s just hair, she kept telling herself. It’ll grow back.

“I hope it was worth it,” her mother snarled, walking away.

#

It looked so delicate and tender, as if it would fall apart with the slightest of pressures, its perfect twin domes lovingly hugging the soft snowy filling between them.

Amna held it for a while, her back to the locked door as if something would come and snatch it from her hands, possessive in the way someone can be only of something they’ve owned for a short time and treasured for longer. She sat for a long time admiring the shape of it and its brilliant colour, cotton candy pink.

And then she raised it to her lips, holding it in one hand the way the cafe patrons did, and guided it into her mouth. Her teeth sank in, and she paused. At last.

A slight crunch followed the breaking of the crisp outer shell, followed by her teeth meeting the succulent middle—rich cream cheese filling Chike had said—a chewy texture that glided on her tongue and awakened her senses. It was both sweet and nutty and light as air. Amna felt like she was floating. She had never had anything so dreamy and decadent. So elegant. So ethereal.

She took another bite and moaned, eyes closing. After three full bites and nearly sobbing with pleasure as a result of them, she sought a fourth and met only her fingers.

Silence reigned in the room, and Amna suddenly felt empty. She spent a prolonged amount of time staring at the tiny box the macaroon had come in. When she finally moved to put it away, she instead caught her reflection in the small mirror on her pillow, fashioned by her mother’s own hands as a gift for her thirteenth birthday.

She picked it up and stared at herself for a long time. Then she started to cry.


Fatima Abdullahi is a Nigerian born writer, poet, and photographer with a
penchant for the dramatic. A graduate in mass communications and an animal
lover, she writes on heartfelt subjects including humanity, love, loss, and
depression. Her works have been published in Afristories and are
forthcoming in various publications, including Lunaris Review, The Shady Grove Literature, and The First Line Literary Journal. Find her on Instagram at @her_abstractions and on twitter at @ellisande_.

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rosanna rios-spicer – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

Every morning, as grandmother milked the cow while patting its ribs, my ten-year old brother, lanky with dark brown skin, held my tiny hand and walked us to the sugar cane fields. One day he hacked off a small piece of the cane for me to chew with a dull machete, the warm sweetness hurting my baby teeth. We ran around the stalks, digging into the dirt to bury treasures before the workers came. I remember my shoes, the leather dyed a raspberry red, were unbuckled, and so he hoisted me up on a wooden crate and fixed them for me and wiped the sugar stickiness off my cheeks with a spit-dampened bandana. This was the last time I saw him.

We had distant family near a place called New Orleans and a father with plans to kill us girls, so mama dug up the money she was hiding in a clay cup under the giant agave. She had sent my three older sisters one-by-one up north from Mexico, quietly, quickly, and we were the last to go. We got into the truck close to the border, where a stranger handed me a scratchy blanket. The bumps in the road felt like someone was kicking under the seat, but I knew we were taking a long trip and that I was supposed to be quiet for it.

For little girls, hours feel like weeks, but the truck stopped finally in a tiny dust-filled town. We stayed there to save money for the bus to New Orleans. The house we entered smelled of cinnamon and patchouli. We had some blankets spread out for us on the floor. In the evening, when everyone came back from working in the fields, after dinner was eaten and dishes washed, we sat around to watch I Love Lucy in English and eat blush-colored grapefruits and mangos the color of Mojave sunsets. Mama peeled the grapefruit for me, pulling the sections carefully away from the white fuzz. The sharp sweetness of the first juicy bite was replaced by a bitterness that lingered and stuck to the sides of my tongue. I preferred mangos when they became overripe, when the soft spots pooled with syrup that tasted like brown sugar.

My mother was quiet in her face only. I knew she had many sad thoughts swarming around inside her. It reminded me of the ants I once saw devouring a downed monarch butterfly. The bright orange, papery wings anchored to the dirt, becoming black and heavy with the weight of the colony gathering her up in morsels, pushing her towards the underground, a place which was foreign to her. How sad, I thought, to die in a place you’ve never seen before.

I remember hearing her crying at night. I heard her say to her sister before she left, “You know nothing. You know nothing until you’ve cut out two hearts that were once threaded together and burnt them over a pit. What would you know about loving a monster?” And I knew the monster was my father, but I didn’t know that love was involved at all.

Weeks, or maybe months, later she had saved enough money picking indigo grapes for us to take the bus to her cousin’s trailer. I was excited to go closer to the water, sad to leave behind the fruit cornucopia. I would be starting school as soon as we got there, and that also made me nervous as the only words I knew in English were Spice Girl lyrics and “Lucy! I’m home!”

We got our tickets at the station and a bag of chili-lime peanuts to share. We had many hours to talk about our new life in Louisiana. I had read about baby alligators that ate marshmallows, which I felt was a good place to start. My mother bent down to fix the straps of my sandals, much like my brother used to. I wondered then what was it that made boys like my brother and also made men like my father and why we had to leave both behind. I would ask her many years later, but for now we only spoke of baby alligators, wild banana trees, and all the gifts we might find in the dirt near our new home.  


Rosanna Rios-Spicer is a full-time nursing student, public health worker, and new mother living in California. She has spent the last few years exploring the role of geography, family history, and conflicting identities in her short fiction writing. She often draws from her experiences as a Chicana growing up in the Midwest.

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davina kawuma – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

The wedding procession will arrive shortly before three in the afternoon, by which time the women and girls that have been hired to prepare food for the day – mostly widows, orphans, and refugees (those who live on the fringes of this community, in short) – will have been on their feet for close to ten hours.

Yes, ten hours.

Since the point of cooking on days like this isn’t to preserve nutrients – surely no one comes to wedding receptions expecting to get the recommended daily dose of water-and-fat-soluble vitamins!

No.

The point of cooking on days like this is to present a feast so exotic and tasty that common people will have no choice but to remember and discuss it for years.

Today’s tasks have been assigned according to a well-established hierarchy. The refugees and orphans are ferrying firewood, water, fruit, honey, herbs, and fresh spices from the nearby forest. They will light and tend to the fires throughout the day – their main responsibility being to ensure that the stoves and ovens are constantly fed with charcoal and hot rocks.

The widows will manage all the baking, boiling, frying, grilling, roasting, simmering, and stewing of food (not just for the soul, but for the tissues as well). But only those who bore children for their dead husbands will be allowed to access the main kitchen and serve food – something about fruit rewarding fruit. Therefore, only they will have the privilege of watching the well-timed approach of the showy, angled cars in the wedding procession. They will crowd around the large bay windows, which overlook the large entrance and larger compound, jostling for space in the nooks until they are squeezed in – trapped like wingless grasshoppers in a bottle.

Until then, all the widows – childfree and otherwise – are putting up a united front. Or, at least, pretending to. As per Bellden’s instructions (Bellden, a small woman that’s rumoured to be related to the bride, is in charge of the cooks today), the widows are preparing two categories of food – one (mostly plant-based) for the bride’s entourage and another (mostly animal-based) for the bridegroom’s entourage. Per the common saying: women will be docile, and men will be virile.

Thus, the bride and her entourage will nibble daintily on sweet potato fries, sun-dried beetroots, glazed carrots, cucumber and yoghurt salad, roasted red cabbage, goat cheese-stuffed grilled peppers, honeyed lettuce wraps, aubèrgines and mushroom soup, black bean sauce, sweet and sour fried rice, green peas masala, and ash-baked cassava bread.

While the bridegroom and his entourage devour the following:

Guinea fowl baked in garlicky, ghee sauce

Creamy bacon pasta served with sweetcorn

Roast goose with soursop wine gravy

Grilled chicken kebabs

Barbecue-style beef ribs with gooseberry jelly

Smoked lungfish with spinach pancakes

Lamb chops with raisins, lemongrass, and parsley

Side dishes of chilled avocado soup (drizzled with sunflower seeds and hot pepper sauce)

For dessert, duck egg pie with caramelized onions, pan-fried cherry tomatoes, and stir-fried noodles

And then, for the invited guests, the usual:

Stewed plantain, spicy yam cakes, bitter tomatoes in sour milk, and groundnut sauce (with a side dish of stir-fried pumpkin leaves) for the women. And for the men, Irish potatoes, plantain and gizzard sauce, and cow feet soup (with a side dish of silverfish in groundnut sauce).

The cooks are without the advantages of modern cooking equipment and facilities. For the most part, they have to rely on clay pots, cast iron saucepans, rusty handheld grills, plastic sieves, wooden mortars and pestles, and short bamboo skewers. Nonetheless, Bellden is pleased with the progress they’ve made. Although you wouldn’t know this from the brusque way she moves about while she’s inspecting saucepans for leaks, punching through dough, dipping her fingers into bowls filled with purée, and inhaling flavoured steam from the meat dishes.

Because her face is set in a permanent scowl, and her upper lip seems in danger of disappearing into her nostrils, one’s initial impression of Bellden will likely be that she’s unimpressed. In truth, her stomach is churning with all kinds of digestive juices: the wonderful, pungent smell of seasonings – of spices she’d never smelt until today – is making her desperately hungry. Yet she can’t, under or above any circumstances, show that she’s moved. She can’t ask one of the cooks to save a few pieces of guinea fowl or beef for her, either. Imagine how it’ll look!

And so Bellden carries on dutifully, walking stiffly around the outdoor cooking areas, with her hands clasped behind her back, as if she were an invigilator overseeing an end-of-year exam. Because you can never be too careful with people from the fringes. God knows what they get up to when you’re not watching. If you’ll believe it, they’ve been known to put drops of their menstrual blood and urine, locks of their pubic and anal hair, and dashes of their faecal matter, into food!

Whenever, by some miracle, Bellden allows herself to be called away or distracted by other duties, she leaves someone else (usually one of the armed askaris) in charge. The cooks use the opportunities presented by Bellden’s absence to bribe the askaris with large pieces of meat. That way, they are able to take intermittent breaks – not so they can flavour the meat sauces with their blood or hair, but to creep along the sides until they find a good vantage point from which to stare lustfully at the furniture and lighting that’s spread out on the lawn in front of the main house.

Considering that this occasion marks the first time many of the cooks have seen salad plates and wine glasses, there’s very little that won’t impress them. Wherever they turn their eyes to, there’s yet another thing or couple of things to fill them with strange and surprising feelings.

To begin with, there are the tents, which are covered by transparent canopies and topped with flags. Forget salad plates. Who’d ever have thought that a tent could be transparent?

And what about those luxurious floral arrangements that run the length of each table? —or the tall pillars of star-shaped flowers? —or the chairs draped in garlands of handmade lace and silk ribbons? —or the boutonnières to match the day’s orange, gold, and blue colour palette? —which all look too perfect, too pretty, to be true?  

Most importantly, by what magic do round candles float in square, glass jars?

And all those children, dressed in their Sunday best, holding gold bowls, throwing fresh petals all over the snake-like driveway! —what bright futures they must have!

Yet all those things, magnificent as they are, are not what a wedding is about. As far as the cooks are concerned, wedding receptions are about the brides. So, although they are open-mouthed now, they are reserving their most amazed, most stupefied looks for when their eyes fall on the bride, who they’ve been reliably informed will arrive in the longest, shiniest car.

Soon after the bride steps onto the grass, which was carefully cut and watered this morning, she’ll raise a heavily jewelled hand to shade her eyes from the sun. Only after someone runs up to her with an umbrella will she fully emerge from the car. It’s all been carefully choreographed, beforehand, you see, for that is the way of rich people.

***

When the cooks finally catch a glimpse of the bride, well over three hours after the arrival of the wedding procession, they are so hungry and thirsty that they have to hold onto each other in order not to faint. Those that aren’t complaining of dizziness and nausea are making headachy sounds.

The oldest and frailest widows are practically shaking.

It doesn’t matter that these women have been up since five in the morning, or that their hands prepared the feast that will be unleashed on guests in a few minutes. The rules of well-established hierarchies exist for a reason: the cooks will eat last, if at all.

Be that as it may, the cooks are not without hope. If anything, looking at the bride is, in a way, very much like ingesting food.

The bride is seated quite far away, on the highest table, in a chair labelled “Wife.” Yet not even distance can dull the magnificence of her outfit, which is a cross between a mushanana and a sari. (The fabric of the mushanasari is hand-woven, a substantial brocade with gold and orange geometric designs.) Or the luxuriousness of her expensive jewellery – the thick, gold ferronnière encircling her forehead; the emerald jewels sewn into her hair; the snake charm bracelets clutching her wrists like frightened children.

The bridegroom, on the other hand, has failed to excite the cooks. The colour of his skin is much lighter than they expected. But what is even more surprising is his size. They’d assumed that, like most foreigners, he’d be slender. But, no, the man is so large that he looks like a small city.

His saving grace is his pleasant-looking face. That and how he keeps turning to look at the bride with what looks like love and longing.

After a few minutes of watching the bridegroom’s face, the cooks decide that his size isn’t such a bad thing, after all; that, perhaps, it is a representation of generosity, sympathy, and tolerance. His tight, ill-fitting suit, and the slanting M in the “Man” label affixed to his chair, start to seem like good-natured jokes.

***

What a happy coincidence that Bellden is so wise! If it wasn’t for her insistence that food is served before the speeches, there would probably be only a handful of guests left seated under the tents right now.

As things stand, even those who didn’t get official invitations are sated. Hence the general willingness to be patient with the bridegroom. For twenty minutes, guests have watched his slow and clumsy movement from the elevated platform on which the high table stands, down to the ground level, and then across the grass to where the microphone stand is mounted.

After another twenty minutes, when the bridegroom is finally as close to the microphone as he needs to be, there’s a collective sigh of relief.

“Invited guests, ladies and gentlemen, good night,” the bridegroom’s high-pitched voice echoes out of the microphone.   

Although “good night” is the appropriate greeting, since night fell a few hours ago, there’s some restrained laughter from the guests.

“With all protocol observed, I’d like to recognize the following people, who are very special to me,” the bridegroom continues, restrained laughter regardless. “Please stand up and wave when I mention you.”

The bride’s name isn’t the first, second, or third one that the bridegroom mentions.

Those who are present, those watching with their own eyes what’s happening, will say that long before the bridegroom mentioned the bride’s name, she’d started wheezing. But that it didn’t matter to him that she was having trouble breathing; that he insisted that she stand, wave, and walk toward him so that everyone could see what a lovely bride he chose.

“I have full confidence in her,” the bridegroom announces in a pinched voice, when he finally gets round to calling his bride by her given name. “She gets up while it’s still dark, and provides food for…”

The bride stands and waves, alright, but doesn’t get very far. She waddles to the edge of the platform and then stops as vomit erupts out of her in violent streams.

Since a first aid kid is the last thing people think anyone will need at a wedding, there isn’t one in the main house or nearby houses.

The bride collapses before a medic is found to check her pulse.

A few of those who are present, those watching with their own eyes what’s happening, will say the bride collapsed because of three reasons: one, she was heartbroken by the bridegroom’s failure to name her first. Two, the stress of wedding preparations got the best of her. Three, her marriage to the city-sized man was arranged by her parents; so, she swallowed rat poison to spite them.

But most guests will claim that everything, including the wheezing and collapsing, was carefully choreographed beforehand. For such is the way of rich people.

***

Let the record state that this is neither the first nor last time. The bride, Azza, has [almost] died many times before, and will [almost] die many times after. She has an undiscovered allergy to aubèrgines, you see, which is what triggers the wheezing, vomiting, and fainting spells. Like most allergies, it can be easily managed through vigilance and the proper medications.

But, in places like this, it is much easier to believe that Azza has been bewitched – perhaps by a stepmother or a malevolent, childless widow; witchcraft narratives are infinitely more interesting than tales of medical complications. Further, discussions about witchcraft tend to be democratic: you don’t have to have or be a PhD in witchcraft to speak boldly about its motivations or effects.

So, over the next few days, weeks, and months, community members will happily debate and weigh a variety of beliefs and judgments about who bewitched the bride, and why.

Meanwhile, Azza will slowly but surely recover in the ICU of the region’s only referral hospital. Lying in bed, she’ll think about the quiet, orthodox life she’s lived – a life which has culminated in a marriage to her father’s business partner, a man twice her age.

***

Although Azza has had many near-death experiences, there’s something about this one that promises to change her life. This is the first time she’s actually been afraid – the first time she’s ever allowed herself to consider the possibility of a different path.

All her life, she has done exactly what’s expected of her. But what if she doesn’t have to anymore? What if the most recent episode of her body’s hypersensitivity is the universe’s way of telling her to try a different track, beat her own path?

***

It’s unclear if the bridegroom believes in witchcraft. What’s clear, though, is that he intends to demand an investigation into “possible irregularities.”

The bridegroom will, of course, receive a detailed police report confirming that, yes, indeed, X number of “questionable activities” happened in the kitchen because of Bellden’s failure to perform the supervisory duties assigned to her.

Naturally, Bellden will be arrested (although she won’t spend more than a few days in the women’s wing of Murchison Bay Prison), and the widows will be heavily fined (as restitution to the bridegroom for “unplanned loss of honeymoon time”).

For that, interestingly, is the way of rich people.


Davina Kawuma is a Ugandan natural scientist, educator, administrator, editor, and storyteller. Her poetry has been published by platforms such as Brittle Paper, African Writers Trust, and FEMRITE. Her short stories have been shortlisted for the Afritondo, Gerald Kraak, and Short Story Day Africa Prizes. Her creative non-fiction, whose subject is racial justice trainer, community organizer, and systems change strategist April Michelle Jean, was published last year in a cross-cultural anthology by Ugandan and American women titled This Bridge Called Woman. Her flash fiction is forthcoming in the eco-literature and eco-art edition of the Global South Journal.

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favour iruoma chukwuemeka – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

Kelechi had never seen so many white walls in one house. In fact, she wondered how these people kept the place stainless. Kelechi was not someone to leave her questions unanswered, and that was why she came. The woman of the house, Madam Ibeneme, motioned one of the servant girls to bring Kelechi a drink. When the servant girl came, she asked, “Mummy, is it zobo or Ribena?”

Madam Ibeneme sized up Kelechi, and her eyes landed on her burgeoning stomach. “Bring her some zobo.”

Kelechi struggled to hide her displeasure. The zobo arrived – thank God it was cold because the air conditioning was barely touching her skin – and Kelechi found her answer. Since Madam Ibeneme’s boys were sent off to boarding houses since JSS 1, she must have repainted the walls white and never let the servant girls lean on them. Even when their five boys returned for holidays, they must have visited the sitting room for a few hours, and retired to their rooms to study. Kelechi had heard the rumours — how Madam Ibeneme and her husband never spared their boys. During the holidays when Kelechi and her sisters with their neighbours cooked in clay pots on the sand and caught lice in their hair, Madam Ibeneme’s boys were shut up in their rooms and forced to read for hours. No wonder they all secured fully funded scholarships abroad and became the only topic their Nigerian parents talked about. If her own parents had been that strict, Kelechi wouldn’t be sitting in this woman’s parlour, drinking her gingered zobo with caution.

“We will be going now, nne.” Mummy announced. “Sorry for the wait. My suppliers in the market must be waiting for me.”

“No problem ma.”

“Pauline, bring those market bags.” Mummy called out. “Tell Dairu to start the car.”

When the woman rose, Kelechi jerked up also. It was reflex, something she would regret doing later, because she never wanted this woman to feel she was doing her a favour. But inside this white house, Kelechi felt powerless, and that was a feeling she was desperate to shed. Inside the chauffeured car, Mummy held her phone out, punching the touch screen with her first finger, one step at a time.

“Do you know how to cook utazi soup?” Mummy eyed Kelechi.

“That is white soup, is it not?”

“The leaves are bitter. White soup doesn’t have leaves in it.”

“Oh.” Kelechi smiled sheepishly. Was she failing the test, already? If only she had paid attention while her own mother cooked. But they didn’t cook too many soups. All Kelechi knew was egusi, okro, ogbono, and ofe onugbu.

“White soup is the one we call ofe nsala.” Mummy continued, not lifting her eyes from the phone. “My husband loves it with catfish, but the boys prefer chicken.”

“Okay ma.” Kelechi nodded like this information was critical to passing the bar exam she had in a few weeks. The woman just hinted that her son, the one Kelechi would be getting married to, loved ofe nsala with chicken.

“I will teach you how to make the utazi, and I will watch you make ofe nsala. So, we will get fresh catfish and some kilos of chicken at the market. Let me see whether your barrister brain can still cook a pot of soup.” Mummy was laughing, but Kelechi looked away.

Kelechi dreaded markets. It reminded her so much of hardship because she never understood why people loved to make the trip to Sabo when they could go to the local street stalls to buy foodstuff. Sabo Market was hell, brimming with all kinds of people – Hausa load-pushers with their smelly bodies, little children shoving their wares in your faces, beggars clamouring for the money in your pockets, and even thieves trying to sell you spoilt foodstuff. She struggled to keep up with Mummy who was many steps ahead, despite her average height, and who seemed to know everyone in the market. They stopped in front of people’s stalls too many times because Mummy needed to greet and remind the market women to attend fellowship sometime. This was the Christian fellowship Mummy pioneered some fifteen years ago, the one Kelechi’s mother said she used to bring women in the neighbourhood to under subjection. Nobody who attended fellowship could defy Madam Ibeneme, and Kelechi noted when her own mother started avoiding the fellowship. Now that she would be marrying their son, her mother had no choice. She might not like the Ibeneme family, but she couldn’t deny that they were one of the most influential families in their neighbourhood. Kelechi would be joined to a dynasty – and her mother ought to be proud.

“Pack these ones for me. I don’t need anymore.” Mummy haggled with the sellers. The price of catfish was outrageous. Kelechi wondered why the woman bothered.

Soon, all the market bags were loaded on wheelbarrows owned by muscled Hausa boys. Mummy looked at her list and back at the market. She squinted at Kelechi. “I think we got everything.”

Kelechi smiled. She had no idea what was on the list.

“Oh, One more thing. Thank you, Jesus,” Mummy piped.

“What is it?” Kelechi’s legs were on fire. She wanted so badly to return home and return to her own house quick.

“Dog food. We need to get some dog food.”

Fortunately, Mummy haggled quickly this time. It was past two in the afternoon, and the sun was having a good time dealing with their skins. They bought two large bags of dog food and loaded them onto the carriers.

“Madam, your money na seven hundred oh.” One of the two Hausa boys spoke.

“Which kain seven hundred?” Mummy retorted. “Come on, carry this thing for me. Let’s go. See your black head like seven hundred.”

And that settled it. Mummy had this silencer effect on people. It was the reason she was so powerful. On the ride back home, Kelechi worried if this was going to be a problem in her marriage. She had not given this much thought. Yes, her fiancé, Mummy’s son, was the only son who moved back to Nigeria to reside, and that meant they would be closer to the family. Not that Mummy would make the trip to their home every week, but didn’t she control her son as well? So far, Mummy was the one who introduced both of them, who insisted that Kelechi was a perfectly good-natured fit for her son. Kelechi was not sure that her son cared for her, as much as he cared for his mother’s words, but after some months, he asked her to marry him.

“How does your mother make oha soup?” Mummy slashed through her thoughts. “Does she use uziza or what leaves?”

“She uses uziza and oha leaves. Both of them together.” Kelechi was happy the woman was smiling. So, she added, “Oha soup is my favourite soup.”

“Eh hehn! I thought all you children of nowadays only like egusi.”

“I am not an egusi person oh.” Kelechi chuckled. “It’s my sisters that will finish egusi soup in one sitting. Me, I like to eat it slowly. I think it’s too sweet.”

Mummy laughed. “It’s good. Not all these shawarma generation. The boys, when they were younger, they only wanted egusi and rice and bread. I had to force them to eat all kinds of soups.”

Madam Ibeneme only understood force. Kelechi noted this somewhere in her head. She must be prepared for moments when Mummy would attempt to force her son against her wishes. Right now, she was forcing him towards her, Kelechi knew it – she wasn’t stupid.

“Ezenduka will be coming this evening. Did he tell you?”

“Oh.” Kelechi went pink. She had not gotten comfortable with talking about one of Madam Ibeneme’s boys as her husband-to-be with anyone. Not even with his mother.

*

“Have you guys finalized the wedding date?” He asked.

That piece of information was the reason Kelechi wanted some time alone with Ezenduka. It wasn’t supposed to be a discussion between his parents and hers. But theirs. So, she asked him to come pick her up at the market – she was going to cook him dinner. She wanted him to look her in the eye and tell her he was as excited to get married to her, the same way she was. He was an accomplished and good-looking man, and she was lucky to have him. But Kelechi wasn’t roadside food herself – she was a full spec. She needed him to see this.

“We’re supposed to pick our wedding date. Both of us.” She looked at him, as he started to reverse out of Sabo market.

“Kele, I told you that I am fine with any date you choose.” He pushed up his glasses – one habit Kelechi found very charming. Was there anything she hated about him?

“Where do you want to spend the honeymoon?”

“Paris.” She said without thinking.

He chuckled. “Stereotypical. But I thought you’d have chosen Florence.”

“It’s Florence that’s more cliché. Why do we need to go to the city of love if we’ve already found love?”

“Fair point. So, you said you wanted to cook for me?”

“Yes. Let me be sure I know what I am doing.”

Ezenduka laughed some more. “I really don’t mind. I do all my cooking. But the gesture is nice. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Kelechi smiled. She looked out the window. Hawkers were brandishing kilishi, suya, drinks, and bread at her.

“You want to buy anything?”

He was being polite, too polite. Kelechi knew he was trying to be nice to her – but she was willing to be patient. She also planned to sleep over at his place today, something she didn’t discuss with Mummy.

“Not really. But this bread looks fresh. And maybe some kilishi too.”

Ezenduka tossed her his wallet and kept his eyes on the road. “I don’t trust Lagos kilishi but buy if you must.”

She had already wound down the windows and started selecting food. Impatient drivers honked from behind, forcing Ezenduka to move the car, and the hawkers started chasing their car. Kelechi threw some money at them, only after they’d given her the correct change.

“I can’t wait to see where you live. I’ve been curious,” she said when they were many miles on the highway.

“Really. It’s nothing special. If the space is not enough for us, we’ll move to a bigger place.”

“How many rooms?” Kelechi asked.

“Three.”

“Sounds okay to me.”

Ezenduka’s apartment smelled of lavender. The walls were stained white, and it was clean. Ezenduka moved all her market bags to the kitchen. She wanted to empty her bladder, so she found the restroom. She washed her face, ears, and hands before returning to the kitchen. She noticed how it was devoid of foodstuff, and she smiled at the opportunity. She wanted to make plantain porridge and some ofe nsala. If she had time in the morning, she would make some egusi.

“Your kitchen is naked.” Kelechi remarked.

He shrugged. The space in the kitchen suddenly felt small. “I cook all my meals; I told you that.”

“Oh. I imagined you ate mostly takeouts in school.”

His phone buzzed. He looked at it and ignored it.

“My brother was my flat mate, and he insisted we cook on weekends. It was our way of keeping up with African food. Courtesy of my mum who loaded us with supplies.”

Kelechi laughed. “I can imagine her transporting produce from Sabo to Europe.”

“Yes, she went to those lengths. At first, it was annoying, But I soon started to appreciate it. Because we ate Nigerian food, well, it was easy for me to come back here. I really missed the culture here.”

“Won’t you take the call?” Kelechi was already poised like a proper wife, peeling the plantains and arranging spices for the porridge.

“Oh, it’s work stuff. How can I help?”

Kelechi smiled. “As if you can.”

“Yes oh. Look at this woman, I can cook.”

“Okay. Peel some onions. Later you’ll pound fresh peppers.”

“Tough job for the tough man, right? Give me a minute. We need some music here.”

He left the kitchen, and soon, The Cavemen boomed from the speakers in the living room.

When he came inside the kitchen, he was swinging to the Afrocentric highlife fusion. Kelechi watched him move this way and that – he had some moves. She started laughing, cheering him as he moved. He stretched his hands to her, and Kelechi dropped the plantain, and planted her hands in his. They moved in rhythm, their bodies syncing into the highlife beats, as if The Cavemen were a private band playing in Ezenduka’s kitchen.

“Wow. You are a dancer,” Ezenduka commented, with sweat soaking his face and shirt.

“If the mood is right, yes.” Kelechi was ecstatic – she never wanted the moment to end.

But it did end, because someone appeared in the hallway and screamed. The strange woman was taller than Kelechi, with fuller breasts. She must have had a house key, because Kelechi was sure that Ezenduka locked the house when they came in. The intruder kept screaming, “this is why you didn’t take my calls?” And she had a heavy British accent.

Kelechi felt the walls closing in on her, the plantains, and her foodstuff bags, so she left the kitchen and disappeared into the bathroom. The Cavemen was still playing, yet it was easy for Kelechi to hear their brawling. He was asking her to leave, pleading that he would call her tomorrow, but the woman wouldn’t budge.

Kelechi tried to forgive herself for being stupid. Of course, she didn’t expect him to be single. That was too high an expectation for a successful man living in Lagos. But she expected him to be cutting off his side girlfriends since he was soon to be married. She paced in the bathroom and was tempted to call Mummy. But she thought against it – and then she remembered her cooking. She would go out there and enter her husband-to-be’s kitchen and cook him dinner. If the bloody woman decided to stay, she was welcome. But Kelechi would not exchange words with a prostitute. At the end of the day, Ezenduka would be indebted to her. Perhaps, Kelechi could finally have some of that power that Mummy had acquired for herself.


Favour Iruoma Chukwuemeka is a creative writer from Eastern Nigeria. Her writing has appeared in Afritondo, Conscio, Cypress Journal, Lolwe, The Shallow Tales Review, Kalahari Review, and African Writer. She is an alumnus of the 2021 Creative Writing Cohort with Chigozie Obioma. She can be found on twitter at @heeruomah.

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mungai mwangi – Issue #2: Food, power, and powerlessness

General Kamiti could smell a nice aroma coming from a distance. Before joining the liberation movement in the forest, he was a chef to the colonial settler. Immediately he smelt the nice aroma, he flashed back to how he used to cook nice food for the colonial settler. So tasty was his food that the settler decided to increase his salary. He used to cook delicious food for his bosses like fish and chips, Sunday roast, cottage pie, steak, kidney pie, English breakfast, and more. Since he never learned to prepare British cuisine from school, he taught himself how to cook them. When he served his boss in the dining room, his boss was very happy and asked for more. Kamiti could not disappoint, and he made sure that his boss ate to his satisfaction. This made the White settler very happy, and he decided to increase his salary. One day, Kamiti had prepared very delicious food such that Peterson, his boss, had ordered a second and third helping.

Once Kamiti smelt the aroma, he decided to follow it to see what made his saliva come out uncontrollably. He decided to follow a footpath hidden in a deep forest to conceal his footsteps from British soldiers who were hunting the Mau Mau fighters like wild goats. Kamiti had been sent as a spy by his seniors back in the forest to go and look for food supplies back in the village. The freedom fighters had gone without food for several days and had to rely on wild fruits to survive. After the imperialist government learned that the fighters were getting food supplies from villages, they forced the villagers to dig deep trenches to surround the villages and cut off the food supply from reaching the forest. So, after this trench boundary, Kamiti and his seniors knew that if things went on like this, the freedom fighters would starve to death.

He tried to hurry up while following the food scent for he knew he had to return to his deep forest hideout before dusk. Therefore, he followed the sweet smell carefully without losing it; he knew he was on the right track. The experience he had in food production could not let him err in something important like this. Apart from preparing European foods, he was an expert in preparing his community’s traditional foods. Most of the time, when there was an occasion in the village, he was the one who was assigned the duty of guiding the cooks on how to prepare important foods like meat. As he hurried towards the village, he felt bitter about the colonial rulers in the country.

He could remember very carefully that this was not the first time they were using food as a weapon to suppress the Africans. When they were coming to colonize the country, they brought in soldiers from Europe to come and fight the Africans. The Africans fought the battle tooth and nail, and when the imperialists realized that they were not easily defeated, they decided to use a tactic called the scorched earth policy. This was where they burned down crops and killed animals that might be used by the Africans as a source of food. This policy affected Africans so much that finally, they succumbed to brutal colonial rule. When this happened, Kamiti was in his early teens. He had experienced the brutality of colonial rule, and so he had vowed to use all powers at his disposal to see that they succeeded in the fight for African liberation and freedom.

It was approaching around five o’clock in the evening, and Kamiti took bigger steps towards where the aroma was coming from. He reached a large, cleared area with no bushes or trees. He stopped abruptly and peered while hiding in a bush. From where he was looking, it was very clear that the colonial administration might have told the village to clear a large section of trees so that they could spot any freedom fighter coming out of the forest for food. At a distance, he heard a crowd of people talking and laughing loudly. At this level, he knew that any wrong move would see him dead or rotting in detention camps. When he listened carefully, he heard that the people were talking in English. Immediately he heard this, he knew that those were colonial settlers or police officers. He decided to go no further but look for another plan. In his pocket, there was a binocular he had been given by one of the visitors who used to come to Peterson’s home. This binocular was awarded as the visitors were happy with his cooking. Without wasting any other minute, he climbed a big tree that was nearby, and when he was at the topmost part, he took out his binocular and looked through it. The binocular was single-lens, and he could see the whole village. He remembered the book he had read about Egyptian history where a certain Egyptian god called Horus had an all-seeing eye where he saw the whole of Egypt kingdom.

 Looking carefully, he noticed that a group of White police officers stood guard over scores of African trench diggers. Standing on their side was an African chef roasting meat for them, the police officers were laughing at an African worker who lay on the ground and looked very exhausted. One of the police officers kicked the guy hard on the stomach and exclaimed, “This stupid African thinks we are fools. How can he claim that he can no longer dig the trench because he is very exhausted?”

Kamiti felt sorry for the young man, but he could do nothing. He knew that despite his carrying his gun with him, he could not manage to fight the ten officers who were mistreating his tribesmen. All the same, his mind turned back to the roasted meat that was being barbecued near the trench. He had not eaten for two days, only surviving on wild fruits and water. The best he could do was to go back to the forest and inform the other liberation fighters what he had seen. They would then lay a plan on how to find food because they knew that they could not fight or survive without it. Without the food supply, the fight for freedom would not succeed. Once he surveyed the area skillfully, he climbed down the tree and sat on the ground holding his chin. From what he had seen, it was almost impossible for any human to cross the other side of the trench to get food for the fighters. The trench was so wide and deep that anyone who would try to reach the other end would find himself or herself breaking their limbs.

Kamiti regretted the colonialists coming to his country. He remembered his family he had left alone back in the village and felt sad. At that time of the year, he could have been planting cassava and arrowroots on his farm. His farm was big, and many people came to buy foodstuffs from there. Right now, he had been demoted from being a farmer and chef to a gunslinger, but he never regretted it because he had to fight for the freedom of his motherland.

The sizzling sound of the roasting meat continued to meet his ear as he left the scene. He hurried towards the hideout where he had left the other freedom fighters. It took him about an hour and a half to get there. When General Wachuka and the other fighters saw him, they all stood and looked at him anxiously. General Wachuka was the head of the battalion. They respected him for his leadership and combat fighting.  They were very anxious to know what message he had brought to them. At this time, the hunger pangs were biting them seriously. Many of them had no energy left to fight the enemy. Immediately Kamiti arrived at the scene, he ordered everyone to gather at one point so that he could tell them what he saw.

“I had the honor of being sent to look at what we could do to get food supplies for our soldiers,” he began. “The works of emissaries belong to younger scouts, but the nature of the work required a more experienced person. Therefore, I was the one who was chosen to take this noble task,” he continued as others listened.

“I went to where the trench is being dug, and to say the truth, the trenches are very deep and wide for any human being to cross. Even our best cliffhangers I guess cannot cross the other side of these trenches. Hence, I think we have to know what to do to get food supply from the village other than crossing this dangerous trench,” he concluded. And at this point, the fighters became astonished.

 Everyone looked disappointed and hopeless; it was only General Wachuka who shot up and suggested that anyone who had got an idea of what they could do should stand up and say it before it was too late. There was one young man in his early twenties who stood up and said he had a suggestion. He was given a chance to speak.

“When I was attending a Sunday school with missionaries, we were told about how a young boy called David in the Bible used a sling to kill an enemy soldier by the name of Goliath. I would suggest we write a letter and tie it on a stone. One emissary will go to where we take our letter and fling the letter to the village using a sling. The letter would advise the villages to also bundle food in small packages. They would then fling the food using the same slings to the place where we used to collect it before,” he said.

After he finished his statement, everybody clapped, and they looked excited. They almost forgot that they were in a hideout in the forest. As the young man suggested, the letter was written and given to an emissary. As the letter described, the freedom fighters would be waiting for the food the next day very early in the morning at the designated scene. As the young emissary disappeared at a distance, the fighters wished the hours could fly off so that they could go and look whether there was any food to eat.

It was almost two hours since the fighters arrived at the suggested scene. They wondered whether they were the ones who had arrived earlier, or if the people designated to bring the foodstuffs might have forgotten. General Kamiti kept on moving from one place to another looking at his scratched wristwatch. When he looked at the watch again, it was four o’clock in the morning; he started to get worried but never told anyone about it. Another twenty minutes elapsed, and he was about to open his mouth to order his troops back in their hideout when a big lump of something soft hit him hard on his forehead.  At first, he thought it was British soldiers who had ambushed them. But when he came back to his senses, he thought he had smelt the sweet aroma of fried meat and potatoes.

After the first lump landed, others followed and within a duration of fifteen minutes, the whole place was awash with foodstuffs. A few minutes later, the food bundles stopped coming and everything was silent. General Wachuka and Kamiti ordered his troops to gather the food quickly and head back to their hideouts before the dawn light came out. Some of the fighters were very hungry, and they secretly went back into the hideout while eating what they were carrying. Soon the fighters reached their destination, and Wachuka told them to keep what they had gathered at the front.

“Today we are very lucky. We have managed to get food supply, but there is one issue that I would like to raise. We have seen how we have struggled to get food again after the enemy ordered the trenches to be dug. We need discipline when using our foodstuffs. Please eat only what is enough and keep the rest safe for next time,” Wachuka said.

The fighters did as they were told, and the rest of the food was kept safe in a cool dry place. That night, both General Wachuka and Kamiti told the fighters that they had to resume back fighting the enemy. So, when night came, they prepared their guns and other weapons. Before they could embark on the mission that night, Kamiti said he wanted to talk to them.

“Gallant soldiers, there is one thing I would like to request of you when carrying your guns, remember to carry slings and stones. This weapon has helped us a lot, and it may help us again. We can dismiss now,” he said as the fighters cocked their guns with much strength showing that they had regained the energy to fight the colonialist until they got their freedom.


Mungai Mwangi is a prolific writer. After high school, he attended college for an information technology course. He studied creative writing through correspondence. He has written articles for newspapers and blogging sites as well as a novel titled The Godly Merchant. He has received awards such as The Reading Ambassador from the the Start A Library Trust Organization and Story Moja Publishers. Currently he is working on novels and short stories. He can be found on Facebook at Mungai Mwangi.

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ngumi kibera short story october 2022

The train slowed down at the northern end of Uthiru village, its monstrous engine stopping finally opposite a borehole. A big hose pipe was rolled out and fixed to add water for the steam boilers.

Chege got up, careful not to disturb the man next to him sleeping a fitful sleep. Like him, he was another soldier returning home after eight years.

He wrapped his few belongings in a worn military trenchcoat and jumped out, walking past the clouds of the engine’s steam hissing out from under the carriages. At the top of the hill, he set down the roll and surveyed the land below grimly. There were sprawling coffee farms where most of the homes he had left once stood.

He picked the roll and walked on down a new wide dirt road cutting through big farms, his anxiety mounting. Then he came to his parents’ one-acre homestead and stood frozen. There was a new stone bungalow standing where their old house once stood, and the old banana trees and sticks of cassava were the only familiar things left.

A new driveway to the bungalow was lined by young cedar trees, and by their height, he could tell the colonialists, or the chief had seized the farm not long after they had forcibly recruited him into war. Then his jaws trembled as he remembered the look on the chief’s face those many years gone. It had not been normal hatred but one of a deeply personal kind.

He heaved the roll back onto his shoulder and walked on just as a jeep came racing. He moved away to avoid the dust, but it swerved towards him deliberately, forcing him to jump over a ditch.

Eight White British soldiers jumped out like a pack of wolves, surrounding him and staring at him menacingly. Then they turned to one another grinning.

“My, my. What do we have here? A nigger in the wrong part of town,” said the oldest, stepping forward, his tattooed upper arms showing out of rolled khaki sleeves. Then before Chege could answer, a blow caught him in the stomach, but he rode much of it by bending slightly, tensing his muscles at the moment of the impact.

He feigned pain although he hardly felt the blow, aware the rest of them had their pistols drawn out. He could tell they were looking for any excuse to shoot him so they could write more heroic letters to folks back home about how they killed another Mau Mau terrorist in action.

He straightened up studying them. They were locally known as Johnnies since Johnny was the name they usually called one another. The oldest among them was not more than twenty-four, and his attacker was around five foot ten while Chege was six. They locked gazes and the soldier flinched as if disturbed by something he had seen in Chege’s eyes.

“What are you doing here, and why were you staring at the D.O.’s house?” he demanded, but Chege could tell the bark was just to sound commanding.

Chege realised they must have been lying in wait for lawbreakers around the next bend. “I just got back from the war,” he said, and they grinned as if it was the best joke ever.  

“Another bloody Mau Mau from the Aberdares,” one of them spat.

“Couldn’t bear the heat of our bombardment, eh?” said another.

“Shut the hell up!” the leader silenced them, still studying Chege. There was a peculiar air about him uncommon to the locals; an air born of confidence rather than arrogance, and his English was unusually good.

“Which war?” he asked.

“Burma,” Chege said picking up his roll and walking off before they could recover their surprise.

One of them flicked the safety catch of his pistol on and the leader stopped him. “Let him be,” he said jumping back into the jeep, still staring after Chege. That is one bad… he told himself.

Chege went asking about his family once he got into the new village, but the villagers avoided him fearing another convoy of Johnnies swooping down on them for talking to strangers. But finally, someone told him that his wife lived in the farther end of the long rambling reservation.

The kids playing outside her hut shrank away as he passed, their eyes filled with fear until he smiled. She came to the dark doorway as he knocked, and they stood staring at each other, suddenly hurtled back to years gone and shocked to see how much they had changed.

The soft lines on Ciro’s forehead were unfamiliar and the full cheeks Chege remembered so well were no longer as supple, but her beauty was the kind that carried through life.

She had aged well Chege thought again while she studied his powerful build, her gaze returning to his face. There were tiny crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, and the face was no longer boyish. That only made him even more handsome man, she thought. Then that moment passed as well.

Chege’s attention turned to the two strange kids next to her, his eyes going from one to the other. His chest congealed looking at the girl with an oval face. She must be about six. Too young to be his. But the boy — aged about eight — he had his slightly hooked nose and broad shoulders.

As Ciro stared at his hard face, her mouth thinned into a bitter line.

“The chief…he…he told me you died!” she stuttered pleadingly as Chege picked up his roll and started for the door.

“Chege!” she screamed, running after him reaching for him, tears pouring down her face. “Chege, listen! it’s not what you think!”

He shook off her arm and walked on, leaving her rooted there, her arms at her slim waist, her fingers intertwined.

“Chege, please!” she screamed, “I have been dreaming each night that you would come back…even after the chief cheated me you died,” she sobbed.

Chege slowed his step, then walked faster, his jaws pulsating again. “Is that why you went with him;had his child?” he growled back, seeing heads peeping out of doorways, people wondering what was going on, and who he was.

 “I never went with him!” Ciro whispered fiercely. “I…I just wanted to let you know that after we married, I promised myself I would never let another man touch me; that I would rather die.”

“So far as I can see, you’re alive and well, and you have a bastard kid!” Chege said brutally, choked by the utter futility of it all. Each day he lived in Burma as others died, it was for her. Thinking of her had given him the will, the reason to go on — turning his fears and doubts into a wall of anger so formidable that no enemy could destroy it.

“I did my best to die! I smashed your gourd of wine on his head giving him concussion! “For that I was jailed for six months. My mother had to take care of Gikeria. It’s okay, Chege if you don’t believe me,” she sniffed, wiping off tears and turning back, finally accepting she had lost him forever.

Chege stopped and retraced his steps. “You said the boy is called Gikeria?”

She nodded, still sniffing. “I…I named him after your father.”

“And the girl? “he asked quietly.

“Wamaitha. I didn’t know if you would like it otherwise, so I named her after my mother.”

Then she stared around worriedly. The sun was setting, throwing an orange glow over the baked countryside.

“We shouldn’t go too far, Chege. Especially you — a man. This far beyond the village and the mzungus demand to see your kipande.”

Chege flinched as if slapped. “My what?”

“It’s a pass. They declared a state of emergency while you were away and now all males over seventeen must show the pass on demand called kipande.”

Chege’s jaws hardened again. His people forced by colonialists to show IDs just to move freely in their own country.

*

They sat in her darkening hut, stealing occasional glances at each other, their faces etched out of the darkness by the glow of the fire. Ciro had confirmed what he already knew — that his parents’ farm had been taken, and that it was now where the D.O.’s house stood. They had also built a fort at the other end of the sprawling farm called Fort Smith. A lot had changed in all those years they had not shared.

Chege took a gourd of muratina which Ciro had procured from some neighbour and leaned back and took a sip. Outside the children were playing in the bright moonlight.

“Looks like there is a famine,” he said, and she nodded.

“People are surviving on government rations, but the White man only gives it to those in their good books — the collaborators and those willing to work in their shambas for free.”  

“And others?” Chege asked.

“They are helped by others or left to starve,” Ciro sighed. “I can never bring myself to work for the same people who have enslaved us!” she said fiercely. “I too would be dead if it was not for my father. Much as he hates me, he can’t stand the shame seeing his only daughter dead of starvation.’

“Hates you? You mean he’s still bitter with you for marrying me?”

She nodded. Then, before she could talk, there was a distant gunshot. He cocked his ears, but there was no other one. He turned back to her.

“Is that why he didn’t intervene when that gikuruwe was harassing you?” he asked, using the hated chief’s nickname which meant big pig.

“Gikuruwe protected my father from losing his property, then later helped him also be named a chief. The two are now part of a clique of favoured Africans for whom greed for power and wealth supersede their own dignity,” she said bitterly.

He took another sip of the muratina then paused and again cocked his ear at another gunshot.

“They are still rounding up people?”

She nodded. “Just the other day, they came at night to a neighbour’s.”

Chege hushed her as a series of booming shots came suddenly. Listening, he gauged they were coming from somewhere at the centre of the sprawling village. Then there was screaming, women screaming in high pitched voices repeatedly warning others to get out and run.

 “Things will change, Ciro,” he said quietly, and she glanced at him, his words both chilling and warming her. She had been stealing quiet glances at him as they talked, seeing a change in him she could not define. He looked composed, frighteningly composed for someone just arrived from a war which had claimed countless millions of lives.

Her hand searched his, and she was gratified he did not pull away. Instead, their fingers intertwined and like that, they sat, both of them content to just sit and listen  to the children playing outside. Then the children suddenly went silent, and Chege and Ciro heard rapid footsteps, followed by a slap.

Wamaitha came running back into the hut shrieking, and by then, both Chege and Ciro were by the door. Wamaitha buried her head in her mother’s dress, sobs wracking her as Chege stepped outside.

Gikuruwe and a home guard were glaring down at his son demanding to know what he and his sister were doing outside at that hour. Chege brushed past the boy who was holding his bleeding nose, refusing staunchly to cry or show fear.  

“That is my son you slapped, a mere child. I don’t see any reason why you should have hit him.”

The obese chief staggered back laughing, and his guard raised his rifle ready to bring its butt down on Chege’s head.

“Hold it,” the chief told him pushing him back and facing Chege, his beady eyes glittering with malice. “I heard you’re back,” he said throatily. “We followed the news about the war — the carnage. Terrible!” he said, feigning sadness. Who would have thought you would survive? Not many did, so I guess that makes you feel like a hero, right? Just a word of caution; you don’t play big shot around here, boy. Understand?”

Chege flinched as if slapped. The fat sell-out was calling him boy, aping his White masters.

“Oh, I forgot to mention,” the chief went on, “I did my best to keep her company. After all, you were gone such a long…”

Chege had been steeling himself but now the dam burst. He stole glances at the guard noting the lazy way he was holding his weapons, and why not? He and the others They were now the masters of the land. They had nothing to fear.

He faked a grin which said the chief was the original Casanova, and the guard joined in grinning and winking at the chief knowingly. In turn, the chief smiled sheepishly, basking in their praise. Then it happened.

In the split second the guard was distracted, a devastating hook sent him reeling backwards doubled up, his gun slipping from his hands. Chege had it before it touched the ground and spinning it around in one smooth upward move which laid a haymaker to the jaw of the chief. He collapsed in a heap and Chege turned to the guard. He was just straightening up, holding his stomach, his face creased in pain. A fist slammed into his jaws like wood on wood.

 “I’m back,” he said calmly, “from one war to another.”

He walked into the hut and grabbed his roll of clothes. “I have to go,” he told Ciro starting out. “They will be all over soon searching for me. But I’ll be back. Promise.”

She nodded, anxious to see him leave before the enemy arrived and choked with a sense of loss.

He stepped out, looking at the guard’s rifle, tempted to take it along, but decided that would only tell the enemy he had gone to the other side. Better to let them assume he was fleeing for assaulting the law.

He took out his war medal — the only thing they had given him apart from transport money. “Here. Keep this for whatever it is worth,” he told her, then hurried away into the night.


After high school in Kenya, Ngumi Kibera attended Bradford College in Massachusetts to study business, music, painting and writing. He graduated from both Ramapo College in New Jersey with a BSc in Business and the University of Minnesota with an MBA. An early retirement left him time to write his first book, The Grapevine Stories which won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature. To date, he has written over twenty-six titles for pre-teens to adults, among them The Devil’s Hill, winner of the Burt Prize for Kenya. Born at the height of the colonial suppression, it is inevitable that memories of its brutality and devastation remain indelible. He can be found at (99+) David Ngumi Kibera | LinkedIn, Ngumi Kibera | Author (@ngumi_kibera) • Instagram photos and videos, and (20+) David Kibera | Facebook