Fading
He sat with his five-year-old boy and his nursing wife.
The boy wanted to know why they were wasting
time there. They had gone to see the lactation consultant,
he explained. When he was a child, nursing mothers
used to come to their house to have their breasts
massaged. It was believed unflowing breasts began
to flow when a twin-child kneaded them. There were
days he ran into the bush to avoid responsibility.
The breasts, fresh or saggy, used to scare him.
He would wish he was in the city like his twin brother.
His wife stared at the clock.
– Natty Nathaniel
Living Libraries
“Nobody survived the war.”
“But you and Grandpa did.”
“No, we didn’t. We became withered husks of ourselves.”
“How?”
“Before the war, greener pasture was at home. The
moonlight called out to us at dusk, casting
shadows that promised the sun would rise again.
We would sit around the fire – at the foot of
our fathers – and they would paint murals of ancient stories
on our minds. We didn’t need
screens because our fathers were living libraries.
Every character was named for his role
because naming was prophetic.
“Like my name?”
“Yes, Ogadinma – it shall be well.”
– Munachim Yvonne Frank-Dobi
Proud Flies
A heavy metal door guarded four walls connected by weathered carpets. Children appeared like ghosts peeking around bed sheets hoping to be curtains and boiling tea poured into sculpted glass that would become fly baths. We sat, legs folded, skirts tucked, scooched in with the flies. Loom-woven bags now peppered the carpets. Needles moved between fluid fingers and toes gripped coloured threads. Hums cascaded between concrete walls and echoed across the room. Pride filled the spaces between the flies. Lyrics passed between mouths like a relay baton while skilled fingertips grasped bedouin tradition, ready to be shared with the world.
– Kymberly Reid
Mwazi
Kalenga hated making Um’koti. It required too much for a drink that tasted like its store-bought variant, Mabuyu juice. “Gogo won’t know the difference,” he murmured as he secretly poured Mabuyu juice into a gourd partially filled with Um’koti he had prepared the previous night under the watchful eye of his semi-blind grandmother. “Endesa!” she beckoned, grasping a cupful of freshly made Um’koti from the gourd. “Mwanan’gu you made this?”
“Um’koti fit for the ancestors,” She proudly uttered. He knelt as her inaugural fly whisk touched his head, an endorsement he needed to finally become ‘Mwazi’, the village gatekeeper.
– Temwani Nkhoma Phiri
Torn Worlds
a blur between lines
IDENTITIES. She was. Of two faded boundaries. Lost in between the Labyrinth of two disoriented worlds. Blended. Lost in the land. The self dying, the other disappearing. She is a soul without a home. Wandered. Without expression. Trapped
in between cultures: Fading. WHISPERING AWAY. She is a chronicle of lost things. Lost tradition, heritage, tales UNHEARD. Torn worlds. The flickering embers of unbelongingness. She is the idiom lost in the modern tales. The story of our father’s days, who will tell? Take me to the world again_ she cries. Home. Once lived. Her Origin. Root.