Nights Come Faster – Abasiama Udom.
Nights Come Faster Nnenna watched her infant son nestle against her breast, his greedy little lips sucking. She did not let the shudder run freely down her 4.5 inch frame. She settled for a shiver. His lips smacked and she reminded herself again that, she did not want this thing. She did not want him, this alien rubbing against her body like he owned it. Who was he? Mother sat beside her smiling and nodding. “He is a strong boy,” she said. Nnenna had barely touched this thing since her body ejected it like a mass of solid waste. She prayed for Mama to leave for Ogbunabali today so she would not have to touch it ever. “Ele dim?” Where is my husband? Mother said nothing. She smiled one of her small smiles first. The smile that said, ‘I want to tell a lie that will suit you for now’…
How Fast Can The Heart Spin? – Ikechukwu Henry.
How Fast Can The Heart Spin? At first, he thinks she is merely scouring for what to buy next as her eyes comb through the rice lane of Eke Eziachi market, her hand fiddling in the black handbag on her arm. Then she shouts but not enough to attract everyone’s attention. “Wheelbarrow!” Ifeanyi sees it coming as he jolts to his feet, scrambling to get his wheelbarrow to her before someone else will do. Luck eludes him. He tries to squeeze through the throng of crowds scurrying back and forth at every pathway of the market. A boy is already grinning at the woman before he reaches her. He sighs, daubing away the sweat that’s now coursing down his cheeks like tears. The first time it happened to him, his stomach churned, anger misted around him that he nearly fought the little boy that got to one of his customers…
Aches of Memories – Wisdom Adediji.
Aches of Memory For the chibok girls, Nigeria. v. Rhoda sits still on the cold peeling tiles and watch the moon purge its light shyly on the wall like every other nights in her dreams. The dreams are frequent these days, more like a fading vision or a blurred sight. On some nights, all she could recall were faint sobs wriggling through bleak faces in white and black visions, she doesn’t identify colours in her dreams, not anymore, since the thirst of time keeps aching her memory into indefinite and dynamic horrors. She leans softly against the wardrobe, listening to crickets chirping from nowhere, the fan hangs tiredly from the ceiling as it whirls slowly like a wind mill, the night seems like a frail connection to the past, reminding her of the night that birth terror into her dreams. iv. It was a night like this, around prayer time…
Adderall – Abdul-Ahmed Soyebo.
Adderall That morning when their result was released, two weeks after their first-semester exam, Farnaz was sitting on his bunk bed and flipping through his journal. He stared at his journal entry dated February 28. He had penned down those words of Dr. Oyin while she was giving an address on how to succeed as a student at their white coat ceremony. February 28, Quotable quote; “The fact that you made it into this prestigious department at all means that you are above average, and you have all it takes to pull through to the end.” Dr. Oyin. The entry was meant to be a source of motivation for him and it was but for a brief period before he saw his exam scores in red ink. Before he was first advised to repeat his year two. The more he stared, the more the entry looked faint and almost…