I know what it means to set a time-bomb. It is your mother kneeling for the births of going-to-die children. That is what it means to be an Abiku; a sun that shines during the day and gets clouded by the spirits of the night. I walk in the streets like a squirrel, taking every [...]
The woman never looks at Nana. She is always bowing, her hands holding the hem of her black threadbare hijab and removing strands. Nana would ask if she slept well last night if the medication worked, and the woman would start shaking her head frantically. She would stand and pace about the room, muttering, littering [...]
I can never forget how I made my life fall apart. How I watched it tear, with my eyes bulging with anger and my legs walking to a path I never knew, without hesitation. I was amazed at the journey beyond my family walls until I finally saw how dark the world was, felt the [...]
An Abiku was born when the hands of an alien clock joined palms. Her blind parents couldn’t decipher what the dancing cowries of the great diviner said when he rattled them over an old white piece of cloth. They shunned him when he came to appease the road for the arrival of the Spirit-Child. He [...]
Deola insists that the market route is faster. You hesitate, because you hate its rowdiness and— "...and those silly boys that will be holding your hands and clothes because they want you to buy from them,” after saying this, you deliberately cringe in an effort to convince your friend to change her mind. "Calm down, jare," [...]
Mama and Papa eagerly await your return from school. Mama prepares your favorite dish of Ofe Onugbu and Fufu, with half a bottle of Fanta to wash it down. They both sit under the Mango tree watching as you wash and spread your uniform to dry. They chatter excitedly. It is the first time in [...]
The first day you saw your own image, it was like a nightmare. You were wide awake, yet unconscious. You jerked suddenly into wakefulness, coughing out your lungs and staring into the face of this stranger in front of you. A stranger you didn’t know was there, who looked every inch like you. He was [...]
Botoso was singing some innocent rhyme about the horrors of the great change at the top of his lungs. It was a new phase, and Lara was fervently hoping that it would pass as quickly as the rest had. It seemed only last week that the little five-year-old had contented himself with running around inside [...]
JonCarver of Barzoon, you misunderstood. The True Love whom you met in your dreams was the goddess of this planet: pluripotent relict of a vanished race, marooned here eons before you ever were (do not doubt her love; she was made for love). Your crash-landing awakened her to purpose. The honeyed tongue she thrust between [...]
On mild, cloudy nights on the island of Gran Canaria, you can hear the call. Some say when you put a shell to your ear at high tide, or when a ship docks at port. The figure of a woman hovers above the shore, and like lighthouses in the distance, two green irises scintillate from [...]
