Chuma Nwokolo, author of a new collection of short stories entitled 'The Ghost Of Sani Abacha' is currently on tour in the UK as his initial Nigerian tour had to be suspended due to the recent strike action. This collection of 26 humorous short stories is set in a post-autocratic country whose indigenes suffer varying levels of Post Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSDs) caused by three decades of military occupation.
Called to the bar in 1984, Nwokolo worked briefly for the Legal Aid Council and was managing partner of the C&G Chambers, Lagos. He was also writer-in-residence of The Ashmolean, Oxford, and chair of Leys Newspapers. He is a public speaker and publisher of African Writing Magazine.
His books include 'Diaries of a Dead African', 'One More Tale for the Road' and the poetry collection, 'Memories of Stone'. The first 'Diary of a Dead African', originally published by London Review of Books, was selected by La Internazionale as one of the three best stories worldwide in 2001. African Writing Limited publishes an eponymous four-year-old literary magazine. The company is also promoting a national book club dedicated to young adults with an adventure series, The Thriller Club.
Jan 25, 2012 - Liverpool
Jan 26, 2012 -Manchester
Jan 28, 2012 - Swansea
Nwokolo will also embark on a reading tour of South Africa, Ghana and Kenya.
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Monday, January 23, 2012
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Till Death By Eghosa Imasuen
We featured Eghosa Imasuen in October. Here's a short story from him. Warning: it's quite long. Enjoy!
He stood in the doorway. Out of the dank tree-lined culvert where it was just starting to drizzle outside. Beads of water ran in rivulets down his jacket – an equally expensive accompaniment to the slightly more faded trousers he shook as he stepped out of brown horse-leather shoes. He toed the shoes to the corner of the doormat and spoke, “Is she ready?”
The undertaker was worried for the man. The things he had asked for on his first visit, they made no sense. But they did make sense. The more the undertaker had dwelt on them over the last week; the demands had become easier to understand.
The man did not want his wife buried. He had said so in a quiet voice when the hearse had dropped the corpse off a week ago. He had repeated the demand after the undertaker asked him what he had just said.
“But sir, this is most unusual,” the undertaker had said.
“There must be something you can do, undertaker. There must be some chemical or machine or something.”
“I don’t know . . .” The undertaker had felt uncomfortable under the glare of the man’s eyes. They were big and doe-like. The earnest stare irresistible.
The man mistook the undertaker’s shiftiness for an imminent refusal, “See, mister. Her people will not know. She died four days ago and I have already insisted on a small ceremony. I don’t care what they say about burying their own in the village . . . So you see nothing can go wrong. This casket will be buried in a private mausoleum in my compound.”
If it wasn’t so sad it would have been funny. Both men had circled each other around the coffin that first visit a week ago. As though the man wanted to touch the undertaker and as though the undertaker didn’t want to be touched. But watching their eyes you knew they were doing something different. They both stared at the figure in the open coffin. Only God knew what was going on in the man’s mind but on the undertaker’s was how beautiful she looked in repose. How her fair complexion made her look pale in death and not grey like . . . How much she reminded him of . . .
“I will help you,” the undertaker said.
The earnestness on the man’s face slowly cleared and morphed into, first, thankfulness, and then, incredulity. He looked up from his wife, the light reflected off her white lace dress making his big eyes look like they had disappeared into mammoth-sized sockets. “But how?” he asked. “You must know that what I want will not be easy to accomplish. I do not want my house stinking like in here . . .”
While the man spoke, the undertaker allowed himself a moment of self-pride. About what he had achieved, about what he could do for the man. He interrupted the man in a slow and even voice that became more and more excited as he dove deeper into his exposition: “You do not understand, sir. I can help you. Everything you need, I can help you.”
They slowly resumed their dance around the coffin, this time with their eyes never leaving the other.
“You see, I have invented this chemical. It’s nothing new, just a new mix of the same old constituents. You might think the reason for this new mix is that it preserves better, no? Ah, but that’s not the reason. My new mix is slightly less efficient than the old one. You stare at me like I’ve gone mad. I’ll tell you, sir, the reason for this. The problems with keeping a body looking alive and fresh are not with the chemicals. It’s with getting the chemicals deep within the body. For that I have constructed a machine. A new machine that will make your wife forever young. Just like she looks now. That’s the reason why my new mix is so light. I do not need it concentrated.”
He searched the man’s eyes for understanding that day, but only saw the big eyes unblinking under the glare of the overhead, dangling, swinging light bulb, the shadows of both cheekbones lit up from below by the sheen-like reflection off the wife’s dress.
Is she ready?
He searched the man’s eyes for understanding today and still came up blank. The honk-o-tonk of the raindrops on the roof’s corrugated sheets increased in tempo and became a blur, a constant drone that, intriguingly, receded into background silence like that of office air-conditioning. He wanted to tell the man not to bother taking his shoes off but instead replied the question, “Yes, she’s ready.”
On the man’s second visit the undertaker had shown him the machine. It sat in his basement, a not-so-secret subterranean extension he had dug up when his wife, God rest her soul, complained that his business was making the neighbours uncomfortable. That just the other day Mrs. Ogbomo had smirked at her, asking what her husband prayed for during church service; whether they prayed for business to be good. He had to admit he had found it incredibly funny. On that visit he led the man down the short flight of steps, unconsciously sweeping at the now absent cobwebs he had swept soon after the man’s first visit.
“There it is.”
The man took a step forward and leaned into the upright, redlined box of gleaming masonia wood. “How does it work?”
“It’s a pump. It pumps, through those needles you see at the bottom, my special chemical around the body constantly replenishing and changing the fluids. And that bottle of reddish goo, that’s the chemical mix. I’ve coloured it red so that the subject retains his, sorry, her complexion as it was in life.”
“Have you ever tested it?” the man asked.
“This is the second one I have built. The first was for my wife. After her suicide . . .”
In grief it seemed both men understood themselves perfectly. The undertaker saw, or thought he saw, understanding in a slight movement of the man’s shoulders. He saw the man’s eyes turn away from the red inner lining of his brand new eterno-meter (yes, people, that’s the name of the machine) and flicker back at the machine. Yes, the man understood grief.
Yes, she’s ready.
The man came into the light. The centre of the room where they had first met eight days ago. He looked worse. The rivulets of rain slowly sunk into the fabric of his expensive wool jacket. What would have otherwise been his big hazel eyes had taken on an air of death, eyelids halfway down, the irises red-rimmed.
“How was the funeral?” the undertaker asked.
“Like I said, the family had no idea the casket was empty. The funeral went well.”
A moment of silence passed. Both men stared at the unopened six foot long box in front of them.
The man nodded and the undertaker understood. He opened the lid of the coffin.
The man gasped. He leaned forward into the light and said, “She’s so beautiful . . .”
She was. Her pale skin pulsed in time with the small droning pump just on the other side of the red lining. Imperceptible changes in colour that the unconscious human mind registers as signs of life. Her eyes were open and fixed. The whites impossibly white, the irises . . . A deeper shade of brown than they had been in life.
“Did the chemical do that too?” the man asked.
“No. I tried but preserving the eyes is extremely difficult. Those are glass. Actually it’s impossible to preserve the eyes to the standard you wanted. There’s a reason why market women pricing fresh fish always check the eyes for milkiness.” The undertaker had this irritating habit of rambling into trivia whenever he felt nervous. “I hope it is to your satisfaction.”
The man nodded and replied with the question, “Was the money you received to yours?”
“Very much so, sir. Thank you.”
But the undertaker knew the man had stopped listening to him. The undertaker watched as the man leaned into the coffin.
A kiss.
A kiss on warm pulsating lips. The undertaker could hear the man gasp. For joy. It was good that the undertaker used the body as the heat dissipater – the radiator, so to speak – for the machine. The eterno-meter was a wonderful machine.
A blur of motion.
Warm goo splashing on the undertaker face, breaking his thoughts. He refocused his eyes and saw what the man was doing. What the man was saying.
The man had a long suya knife in his right hand. And with each slash and each stab the man spoke.
You think say you smart?
You thought you could take this easy way out!
Bitch. Whore. Twenty years of torment and then you die in you sleep?
No, you’ll suffer every week, every visit, until I die.
For what you did to me. For what you did to her.
The undertaker screamed; for his work, and jumped at the man’s shoulders grabbing his right arm from behind.
The man struck him across the face with the back of his left hand and threw the undertaker to the ground with such force that the poor grey-suited fellow slid across the floor on his wash-and-wear clad bottom and bumped his head against a wall.
He came to exactly four seconds later. The man flashed the blade, dripping goo, across the undertaker face. The man’s eyes were dead now, sunken and dead. His breadth smelt like tobacco and a brothel’s spittoon.
“You are going to fix her? Nod if you understand. Yes, you’re going to fix her every week. A visit a week. You’ll be paid well. Just like this time. Nod if you understand.”
The undertaker felt his head shaking up and down. But he froze when he heard what the man said next.
“You said you built the first machine for your wife. Take me to her, now.”
The undertaker whimpered as he was pulled up and dragged down to the basement. He pointed at a corner to the man and slumped down when the man dropped him. His head hurt. He stared as the man went over to the box that contained his wife, the cream-lined one.
The undertaker’s heart broke when he heard what the man whispered, what he said as he took the undertaker’s wife’s face in his hands, hands that were dripping with the red goo, “You should have waited. You should have waited. Now she’s dead and it’s too late. You should have told me about that phone call. What did she say to you, Martha? That I wouldn’t leave her because you were pregnant? (The man was crying uncontrollably now.) You should have waited, Martha. We would have left both of them together.”
"Till Death" was first published by African Writers here.
He stood in the doorway. Out of the dank tree-lined culvert where it was just starting to drizzle outside. Beads of water ran in rivulets down his jacket – an equally expensive accompaniment to the slightly more faded trousers he shook as he stepped out of brown horse-leather shoes. He toed the shoes to the corner of the doormat and spoke, “Is she ready?”
The undertaker was worried for the man. The things he had asked for on his first visit, they made no sense. But they did make sense. The more the undertaker had dwelt on them over the last week; the demands had become easier to understand.
The man did not want his wife buried. He had said so in a quiet voice when the hearse had dropped the corpse off a week ago. He had repeated the demand after the undertaker asked him what he had just said.
“But sir, this is most unusual,” the undertaker had said.
“There must be something you can do, undertaker. There must be some chemical or machine or something.”
“I don’t know . . .” The undertaker had felt uncomfortable under the glare of the man’s eyes. They were big and doe-like. The earnest stare irresistible.
The man mistook the undertaker’s shiftiness for an imminent refusal, “See, mister. Her people will not know. She died four days ago and I have already insisted on a small ceremony. I don’t care what they say about burying their own in the village . . . So you see nothing can go wrong. This casket will be buried in a private mausoleum in my compound.”
If it wasn’t so sad it would have been funny. Both men had circled each other around the coffin that first visit a week ago. As though the man wanted to touch the undertaker and as though the undertaker didn’t want to be touched. But watching their eyes you knew they were doing something different. They both stared at the figure in the open coffin. Only God knew what was going on in the man’s mind but on the undertaker’s was how beautiful she looked in repose. How her fair complexion made her look pale in death and not grey like . . . How much she reminded him of . . .
“I will help you,” the undertaker said.
The earnestness on the man’s face slowly cleared and morphed into, first, thankfulness, and then, incredulity. He looked up from his wife, the light reflected off her white lace dress making his big eyes look like they had disappeared into mammoth-sized sockets. “But how?” he asked. “You must know that what I want will not be easy to accomplish. I do not want my house stinking like in here . . .”
While the man spoke, the undertaker allowed himself a moment of self-pride. About what he had achieved, about what he could do for the man. He interrupted the man in a slow and even voice that became more and more excited as he dove deeper into his exposition: “You do not understand, sir. I can help you. Everything you need, I can help you.”
They slowly resumed their dance around the coffin, this time with their eyes never leaving the other.
“You see, I have invented this chemical. It’s nothing new, just a new mix of the same old constituents. You might think the reason for this new mix is that it preserves better, no? Ah, but that’s not the reason. My new mix is slightly less efficient than the old one. You stare at me like I’ve gone mad. I’ll tell you, sir, the reason for this. The problems with keeping a body looking alive and fresh are not with the chemicals. It’s with getting the chemicals deep within the body. For that I have constructed a machine. A new machine that will make your wife forever young. Just like she looks now. That’s the reason why my new mix is so light. I do not need it concentrated.”
He searched the man’s eyes for understanding that day, but only saw the big eyes unblinking under the glare of the overhead, dangling, swinging light bulb, the shadows of both cheekbones lit up from below by the sheen-like reflection off the wife’s dress.
Is she ready?
He searched the man’s eyes for understanding today and still came up blank. The honk-o-tonk of the raindrops on the roof’s corrugated sheets increased in tempo and became a blur, a constant drone that, intriguingly, receded into background silence like that of office air-conditioning. He wanted to tell the man not to bother taking his shoes off but instead replied the question, “Yes, she’s ready.”
On the man’s second visit the undertaker had shown him the machine. It sat in his basement, a not-so-secret subterranean extension he had dug up when his wife, God rest her soul, complained that his business was making the neighbours uncomfortable. That just the other day Mrs. Ogbomo had smirked at her, asking what her husband prayed for during church service; whether they prayed for business to be good. He had to admit he had found it incredibly funny. On that visit he led the man down the short flight of steps, unconsciously sweeping at the now absent cobwebs he had swept soon after the man’s first visit.
“There it is.”
The man took a step forward and leaned into the upright, redlined box of gleaming masonia wood. “How does it work?”
“It’s a pump. It pumps, through those needles you see at the bottom, my special chemical around the body constantly replenishing and changing the fluids. And that bottle of reddish goo, that’s the chemical mix. I’ve coloured it red so that the subject retains his, sorry, her complexion as it was in life.”
“Have you ever tested it?” the man asked.
“This is the second one I have built. The first was for my wife. After her suicide . . .”
In grief it seemed both men understood themselves perfectly. The undertaker saw, or thought he saw, understanding in a slight movement of the man’s shoulders. He saw the man’s eyes turn away from the red inner lining of his brand new eterno-meter (yes, people, that’s the name of the machine) and flicker back at the machine. Yes, the man understood grief.
Yes, she’s ready.
The man came into the light. The centre of the room where they had first met eight days ago. He looked worse. The rivulets of rain slowly sunk into the fabric of his expensive wool jacket. What would have otherwise been his big hazel eyes had taken on an air of death, eyelids halfway down, the irises red-rimmed.
“How was the funeral?” the undertaker asked.
“Like I said, the family had no idea the casket was empty. The funeral went well.”
A moment of silence passed. Both men stared at the unopened six foot long box in front of them.
The man nodded and the undertaker understood. He opened the lid of the coffin.
The man gasped. He leaned forward into the light and said, “She’s so beautiful . . .”
She was. Her pale skin pulsed in time with the small droning pump just on the other side of the red lining. Imperceptible changes in colour that the unconscious human mind registers as signs of life. Her eyes were open and fixed. The whites impossibly white, the irises . . . A deeper shade of brown than they had been in life.
“Did the chemical do that too?” the man asked.
“No. I tried but preserving the eyes is extremely difficult. Those are glass. Actually it’s impossible to preserve the eyes to the standard you wanted. There’s a reason why market women pricing fresh fish always check the eyes for milkiness.” The undertaker had this irritating habit of rambling into trivia whenever he felt nervous. “I hope it is to your satisfaction.”
The man nodded and replied with the question, “Was the money you received to yours?”
“Very much so, sir. Thank you.”
But the undertaker knew the man had stopped listening to him. The undertaker watched as the man leaned into the coffin.
A kiss.
A kiss on warm pulsating lips. The undertaker could hear the man gasp. For joy. It was good that the undertaker used the body as the heat dissipater – the radiator, so to speak – for the machine. The eterno-meter was a wonderful machine.
A blur of motion.
Warm goo splashing on the undertaker face, breaking his thoughts. He refocused his eyes and saw what the man was doing. What the man was saying.
The man had a long suya knife in his right hand. And with each slash and each stab the man spoke.
You think say you smart?
You thought you could take this easy way out!
Bitch. Whore. Twenty years of torment and then you die in you sleep?
No, you’ll suffer every week, every visit, until I die.
For what you did to me. For what you did to her.
The undertaker screamed; for his work, and jumped at the man’s shoulders grabbing his right arm from behind.
The man struck him across the face with the back of his left hand and threw the undertaker to the ground with such force that the poor grey-suited fellow slid across the floor on his wash-and-wear clad bottom and bumped his head against a wall.
He came to exactly four seconds later. The man flashed the blade, dripping goo, across the undertaker face. The man’s eyes were dead now, sunken and dead. His breadth smelt like tobacco and a brothel’s spittoon.
“You are going to fix her? Nod if you understand. Yes, you’re going to fix her every week. A visit a week. You’ll be paid well. Just like this time. Nod if you understand.”
The undertaker felt his head shaking up and down. But he froze when he heard what the man said next.
“You said you built the first machine for your wife. Take me to her, now.”
The undertaker whimpered as he was pulled up and dragged down to the basement. He pointed at a corner to the man and slumped down when the man dropped him. His head hurt. He stared as the man went over to the box that contained his wife, the cream-lined one.
The undertaker’s heart broke when he heard what the man whispered, what he said as he took the undertaker’s wife’s face in his hands, hands that were dripping with the red goo, “You should have waited. You should have waited. Now she’s dead and it’s too late. You should have told me about that phone call. What did she say to you, Martha? That I wouldn’t leave her because you were pregnant? (The man was crying uncontrollably now.) You should have waited, Martha. We would have left both of them together.”
"Till Death" was first published by African Writers here.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Changing Shapes: Uche Umez
Here's something very interesting to start your week. We hope that you enjoy 'Changing Shapes' by Uche Peter Umez and respond with your comments!
1.
Something is wrong. Emeka isn’t sure when and how it started. But it is obvious something is just not right with her body; it seems to have evolved. Maybe it has something to do with his sight. His eyes sometimes water, other times an ache pulses behind his temples. The optician did suggest bifocal lens. It’s unnecessary, he thought – at the time. He puts away his files in the cabinet and cracks his knuckles. Soon he will be leaving for home.
2.
Certainly. Something is happening to him, too. Maybe he’s growing less religious, more open-minded. Of late, he has begun to size Ogechi up. Cast sly glances at her when she moves through the sitting room. She puffs easily these days. He is familiar with her strained breath, every time she busies herself with some chores: she never pants before. Emeka doesn’t want to think of home at the moment, but –
She used to walk in silence, as though she had cat’s feet. Not anymore. He rests a hand on his forehead. This is why he wants to believe some shape-shifting thing has sneaked into her body, so he set about to deconstruct or precisely reconstruct her shape. Mentally, though.
3.
Always. The sight of Ogechi sprawled out on the couch shocks him: a Barney hunched up in a tiny chair. His two boys love Barney. They rock with laughter, but that thing stuffed in that seat is no joke. This is not the woman who was a spring in his bed – before the nuptials, before the babies started coming. She’s no longer his woman. She is somebody else’s – his children’s, perhaps.
There are times Emeka fears the seams would burst when her hippo-size butt sinks into the plaid-patterned fabric. Puffing, she’ll heave herself off the floor, but he wouldn’t lend her a hand. Instead, he sees himself turning away. She will feel no pain, of course: she’s well cushioned for slips, what with all that flesh.
4.
It is wrong, he knows. He can’t help it. Whenever he holds Ogechi in bed, his mind races to that girl in the beer joint. They both have large boobs, but the girl’s looked tight and firm; a clenched fist, without veins. Makes him wonder...
He once caught a man drooling over her. He thought the man was drunk, then pondered if he was single or married, if the man’s wife’s breasts were like his own wife’s: pendulous globes that remind you that a politician’s potbelly is even more tolerable than a woman’s. How can Ogechi, in a short space of time, barely six years, evolve into a lumbering mass of tissue?
5.
She was (still is?) unlike the girls he once dated: sofa-cradling, spur-of-the-moment, and breezy. They can’t carry on a conversation that is removed from fashion and cars. He was pleased when he discovered during those heady years that she wasn’t crazy about make-up; not that she was godly. Cosmetics are vain, a poor screen for beauty, she said.
Thus, she adores the simple look, low cuts and neat plaits; no mascara or rouge – and never obsesses about perms, bangs and wigs. Horsehair and wool, she called them. A waste of money and time, Emeka quite agreed. He knew how much he spent on some of his ex-lovers.
The last girl was addicted to Mary Kay. He’d found it juvenile and vexing – though not as vexing as her weakness for chicken or her ignorance of whom the Liberian president is. Yet she was a graduate of political science.
If there is one thing he can’t stand in a girl, it is stark ignorance especially when she speaks fluid English. So he ditched her. He married Ogechi instead – she can mesmerize you with her viewpoint. A storm of wits, when engaged in a conversation. He likes that in a woman. I like being different from the sheep, she once mentioned. He had smiled.
6.
Those qualities had drawn Emeka to her. Bring up any subject, and she would go on without fail. She likes Animal Planet, National Geographic; she watches CNN as though there is something therapeutic about it. His friends complained about their wives. Africa Magic has possessed their minds; not his wife’s. She wrote off that channel as ‘Superficial, ethnic and indolent,’ as if nothing good will ever come out of Africa.
A couple of times he had tried to change the channel so the both of them could get amused by the buffoonery and antics of Nkem Owoh or Sam Loco, and she was like, ‘Honey, please don’t.’
‘Aren’t you bored with all this whitewashed things?’ he said.
‘Better than the stupid things they call home videos,’ she hissed.
One of these days he would throw out that chair or smash it to pieces. Imagine her slouching and glued to the screen, adding so much flab that was unbefitting for a twenty-eight-year old woman. He doesn’t want to imagine what Ogechi would look like when she has two more kids.
7.
As the clock chimes six, he wonders if being thickset and matronly is her idea of being unique. He fears he might someday just pull out a suitcase from the top of the wardrobe, cram it with some clothing, and speed off to Jos. There, he will start a new life. Or pick up his old philandering life. Instead of driving straight home, Emeka makes a detour. He glances in his side mirror and heads in the direction of the bar on Douglas Road. The bar with the poster of the big-breasted movie actress.
1.
Something is wrong. Emeka isn’t sure when and how it started. But it is obvious something is just not right with her body; it seems to have evolved. Maybe it has something to do with his sight. His eyes sometimes water, other times an ache pulses behind his temples. The optician did suggest bifocal lens. It’s unnecessary, he thought – at the time. He puts away his files in the cabinet and cracks his knuckles. Soon he will be leaving for home.
2.
Certainly. Something is happening to him, too. Maybe he’s growing less religious, more open-minded. Of late, he has begun to size Ogechi up. Cast sly glances at her when she moves through the sitting room. She puffs easily these days. He is familiar with her strained breath, every time she busies herself with some chores: she never pants before. Emeka doesn’t want to think of home at the moment, but –
She used to walk in silence, as though she had cat’s feet. Not anymore. He rests a hand on his forehead. This is why he wants to believe some shape-shifting thing has sneaked into her body, so he set about to deconstruct or precisely reconstruct her shape. Mentally, though.
3.
Always. The sight of Ogechi sprawled out on the couch shocks him: a Barney hunched up in a tiny chair. His two boys love Barney. They rock with laughter, but that thing stuffed in that seat is no joke. This is not the woman who was a spring in his bed – before the nuptials, before the babies started coming. She’s no longer his woman. She is somebody else’s – his children’s, perhaps.
There are times Emeka fears the seams would burst when her hippo-size butt sinks into the plaid-patterned fabric. Puffing, she’ll heave herself off the floor, but he wouldn’t lend her a hand. Instead, he sees himself turning away. She will feel no pain, of course: she’s well cushioned for slips, what with all that flesh.
4.
It is wrong, he knows. He can’t help it. Whenever he holds Ogechi in bed, his mind races to that girl in the beer joint. They both have large boobs, but the girl’s looked tight and firm; a clenched fist, without veins. Makes him wonder...
He once caught a man drooling over her. He thought the man was drunk, then pondered if he was single or married, if the man’s wife’s breasts were like his own wife’s: pendulous globes that remind you that a politician’s potbelly is even more tolerable than a woman’s. How can Ogechi, in a short space of time, barely six years, evolve into a lumbering mass of tissue?
5.
She was (still is?) unlike the girls he once dated: sofa-cradling, spur-of-the-moment, and breezy. They can’t carry on a conversation that is removed from fashion and cars. He was pleased when he discovered during those heady years that she wasn’t crazy about make-up; not that she was godly. Cosmetics are vain, a poor screen for beauty, she said.
Thus, she adores the simple look, low cuts and neat plaits; no mascara or rouge – and never obsesses about perms, bangs and wigs. Horsehair and wool, she called them. A waste of money and time, Emeka quite agreed. He knew how much he spent on some of his ex-lovers.
The last girl was addicted to Mary Kay. He’d found it juvenile and vexing – though not as vexing as her weakness for chicken or her ignorance of whom the Liberian president is. Yet she was a graduate of political science.
If there is one thing he can’t stand in a girl, it is stark ignorance especially when she speaks fluid English. So he ditched her. He married Ogechi instead – she can mesmerize you with her viewpoint. A storm of wits, when engaged in a conversation. He likes that in a woman. I like being different from the sheep, she once mentioned. He had smiled.
6.
Those qualities had drawn Emeka to her. Bring up any subject, and she would go on without fail. She likes Animal Planet, National Geographic; she watches CNN as though there is something therapeutic about it. His friends complained about their wives. Africa Magic has possessed their minds; not his wife’s. She wrote off that channel as ‘Superficial, ethnic and indolent,’ as if nothing good will ever come out of Africa.
A couple of times he had tried to change the channel so the both of them could get amused by the buffoonery and antics of Nkem Owoh or Sam Loco, and she was like, ‘Honey, please don’t.’
‘Aren’t you bored with all this whitewashed things?’ he said.
‘Better than the stupid things they call home videos,’ she hissed.
One of these days he would throw out that chair or smash it to pieces. Imagine her slouching and glued to the screen, adding so much flab that was unbefitting for a twenty-eight-year old woman. He doesn’t want to imagine what Ogechi would look like when she has two more kids.
7.
As the clock chimes six, he wonders if being thickset and matronly is her idea of being unique. He fears he might someday just pull out a suitcase from the top of the wardrobe, cram it with some clothing, and speed off to Jos. There, he will start a new life. Or pick up his old philandering life. Instead of driving straight home, Emeka makes a detour. He glances in his side mirror and heads in the direction of the bar on Douglas Road. The bar with the poster of the big-breasted movie actress.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The Kenyon Review Short Story Contest
The Kenyon Review will publish the winning short story in the Winter 2010 issue, and the author will be awarded a scholarship to attend the 2009 Writers Workshop, June 20th to the 27th, in beautiful Gambier, Ohio.
Submission Guidelines
* Writers must 30 years of age or younger at the time of submission.
* Stories must be no more 1200 words in length.
* One submission per entrant.
* Please do not simultaneously submit your contest entry to another magazine or contest.
* The submissions link will be active February 1st to February 28th. All work must be submitted through our electronic system. We cannot accept paper submissions.
* Winners will be announced in the late spring. You will receive an e-mail notifying you of any decisions regarding your work.
The final judge will be Richard Ford, acclaimed author of the Frank Bascombe trilogy, including the novels The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land. He is also the author of numerous short story collections, including the seminal collection Rock Springs, and editor of The Granta Book of the American Short Story.
For more information, visit: http://www.kenyonreview.org/contests-sf.php
You can read winning entries for the 2008 Contest here:
http://www.kenyonreview.org/kro/sf08-adams.php
http://www.kenyonreview.org/kro/sf08-bergman.php
http://www.kenyonreview.org/kro/sf08-ripatrazone.php
Submission Guidelines
* Writers must 30 years of age or younger at the time of submission.
* Stories must be no more 1200 words in length.
* One submission per entrant.
* Please do not simultaneously submit your contest entry to another magazine or contest.
* The submissions link will be active February 1st to February 28th. All work must be submitted through our electronic system. We cannot accept paper submissions.
* Winners will be announced in the late spring. You will receive an e-mail notifying you of any decisions regarding your work.
The final judge will be Richard Ford, acclaimed author of the Frank Bascombe trilogy, including the novels The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land. He is also the author of numerous short story collections, including the seminal collection Rock Springs, and editor of The Granta Book of the American Short Story.
For more information, visit: http://www.kenyonreview.org/contests-sf.php
You can read winning entries for the 2008 Contest here:
http://www.kenyonreview.org/kro/sf08-adams.php
http://www.kenyonreview.org/kro/sf08-bergman.php
http://www.kenyonreview.org/kro/sf08-ripatrazone.php
Friday, February 13, 2009
THE COMMONWEALTH SHORT STORY COMPETITION
Are you a young writer? Do you need ways to get your writing out there?
Maybe this is your opportunity. Enter for the Commonwealth Short Story Competition. Here are some details:
About the competition
The Commonwealth Short Story Competition is an annual scheme to promote new creative writing. The winner receives a prize of £2,000 and there are regional prizes of £500.
How to enter
The competition is open to all people who are citizens of a Commonwealth member country.
There is no age limit or requirement to write about a particular theme. Entries may be made by both amateur and professional writers.
The deadline for entries is 11 May 2009.
The following are the rules of the competition.
• All entries must clearly state the author's name, date of birth, full contact details and country of citizenship.
• The stories must not exceed 600 words. Entries over 600 words in length will be disqualified. The word count should be stated on the entry.
• The stories must be original and should not have been previously published anywhere in full or part. Entrants must confirm this in writing as part of the application.
• All entries must be in English.
• A maximum of three stories may be entered per person.
• Entries must be made by email to e.dcosta@commonwealth.int, either as an attachment in a mainstream software format or in the body of the email. All entries must use the subject line 'Commonwealth Short Story Competition'.
• The competition administrators reserve the right to disqualify any competition entry which does not meet the conditions outlined above. No correspondence will be entered into in this regard.
For more information, visit: http://www.cba.org.uk/awards_and_competitions/Short_Story/2009_ShortStoryComp.php
Maybe this is your opportunity. Enter for the Commonwealth Short Story Competition. Here are some details:
About the competition
The Commonwealth Short Story Competition is an annual scheme to promote new creative writing. The winner receives a prize of £2,000 and there are regional prizes of £500.
How to enter
The competition is open to all people who are citizens of a Commonwealth member country.
There is no age limit or requirement to write about a particular theme. Entries may be made by both amateur and professional writers.
The deadline for entries is 11 May 2009.
The following are the rules of the competition.
• All entries must clearly state the author's name, date of birth, full contact details and country of citizenship.
• The stories must not exceed 600 words. Entries over 600 words in length will be disqualified. The word count should be stated on the entry.
• The stories must be original and should not have been previously published anywhere in full or part. Entrants must confirm this in writing as part of the application.
• All entries must be in English.
• A maximum of three stories may be entered per person.
• Entries must be made by email to e.dcosta@commonwealth.int, either as an attachment in a mainstream software format or in the body of the email. All entries must use the subject line 'Commonwealth Short Story Competition'.
• The competition administrators reserve the right to disqualify any competition entry which does not meet the conditions outlined above. No correspondence will be entered into in this regard.
For more information, visit: http://www.cba.org.uk/awards_and_competitions/Short_Story/2009_ShortStoryComp.php
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