StoryTime Recent Stories
I am standing at the edge of the Lagos Bar Beach with the waves roughly beating at my feet; hard and fast. The sea looks stormy and I half turn to catch a glimpse of one of the warning flags - that tiny piece of cloth on a stick - which has been put up to inform people about the temperament of the sea. The flags could be the difference between life and death if heeded... Full Story
Solid high heels clicked against the hardwood floor. Tall and curvy, she smelled like meatloaf, with a dash of mustard. She had just glided by. Now she stood in front of the table which displayed assorted wines, spirits, lemonades, and mineral water. Curtis, the host, had assumed the role of unofficial barman behind the table mixing drinks; his smiles seemed too generous you wondered if he was familiar with melancholia... Full Story
We used to play hop-scotch (pada) in our backyard watching the sun steal away where the earth ends. Our noises would sink into the early evening breeze like the lovely voice of cheese in our little mouths. Girls tugged their size one skirts into their innocent under-wears as they hopped with spread legs on the boxes marked on the ground. Their whole front look was almost as plain as ours just that their pretty faces used to keep us on the edge of our juvenile curiosity and the ribbons on their young hair would radiate our semi-ignorant hearts. We were never love-slaves, just passive artists... Full Story
Willie fingered the small packet in his side pocket. He had opened it several times these past three days to look over the small pink tablets inside but each time, he had suppressed the urge to throw two of those pink things down the throat. Perhaps this Viagra business was really meant for old white men who live in cold places and could really damage a tropical African like him in the long run. And what if he became one of those users who ended up with a stubborn erection for more than 24 hours?.. Full Story
Maina came with Mai Dendera from Chiredzi. Mai Dendera’s husband, Mr Dendera worked in the Hippo valley Sugar Estates. He was a tractor driver. He hardly came home. Mai Dendera was the one who visited him every month end. She could stay in Chiredzi for a week. Every time she came back she would find her house broken in. The thieves normally stole sugar and cooking utensils. But on their first month they stole the family radio. Maina was short and very beautiful. Every man would admire Maina. No man’s eyes could resist her smile... Full Story
I have always been a lucid dreamer. Once, as a child, my grandmother told me that dreams as clear as mine - as clear as spring water - were my mind’s own way of diluting its distresses. Some people, she said, cried out their woes. And others, like me, found clarity and peace through their dreams flowing with cool relief and reassurance. Sometimes I imagine Trevor to be such a dream – a still pool of peace amid the chaos of my tainted being, a yearning of my subconscious for purity. But he is real... Full Story
I was just seated, without even the faintest knowledge of what makes a screenplay. And the day to deliver my work to Toby was fast approaching. My room lay littered with papers ripped off the notebook, screwed up, and hurled out of frustration. My wife walked in smiling, with a cup of coffee for me. She placed it beside my notebook and glanced around. “What a mess you have turned your room into,” She said. “Does it matter?” I responded with as much calm as I could muster, not wanting to give my frustration away... Full Story
“Why didn’t you tell me that I had a son?” Tom was staring at Eliza with blood shot eyes. He painfully surveyed her beauty from a distance as he waited for her response. Neither of them was distracted by the rain drops that were falling on the roof of the old barn that held so many of their precious memories. Eliza looked at him, no longer with the eyes of adoration that once held Tom in high regard. Instead, they carried the weight of years of pain, years of waiting and years of disappointment... Full Story
There is something deceptive about the born-again phenomenon. I think of this every Sunday when I drive down Church Road to the golf course to honour my weekly challenge with a couple of friends. The buildings -some mere batches- of different designs which line the entire length of that Road with their noisy loudspeakers directed at each other told many tales of what cynicism and hopelessness could do to a people. But perhaps more absorbing are the church goes themselves... Full Story
He was tall and dark. And very handsome. And it was to him that my eyes were instantly drawn the minute the band started playing that sultry night all those years ago at the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti's night club, known as the Shrine in Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria. The attraction was magnetic. I'm not sure that I remember which of his songs Fela sang that night, or how lasciviously Fela's female dancers gyrated their nearly naked bodies, or how amazingly the musicians played Fela's mind-blowing music. It was him, just him for that night... Full Story
MaKhabo walked into the kitchen. Zodwa sat alone at the table, a cup of mahewu in her hand. Another cup was in front of an empty chair on the same table. ‘I don’t want to hear anything about it anymore,’ maKhabo said as she pulled the chair in front of the cup. The cup was also full of mahewu, and it had been prepared by Zodwa as maKhabo had been on the phone in the sitting room. She heaped two teaspoonfuls of sugar from an enamel sugar basin into the cup and stirred, her brow furrowed... Full Story
Father was very particular about his belongings. Take, for example, the time when Mama burnt his shirt, the cotton one with the brown embroidery and the buffalo in the middle. The shirt was frayed and the colour was fading, but the way he punched Mama you would think it was yet to be worn. Ever since then Mama had always tried the iron on a cloth first, then carefully pressed his clothes, hesitantly, as though she expected at any moment the smell of roasted material to waft to her nostrils... Full Story
“I sure say na here I keep the money. Look, see the waterproof, now? They tore it.” Mesiri was distraught – his shoe-polish black complexion glistened with sweat in the cool morning. We had a lot of guests left over from Tuesday night. It had been a boys’ night and we had had fun, unbridled since no girls were allowed. Even Roscoe’s girl, Mamode, who had been the immediate reason for the ‘celebration’ – she came back to school in the first week of December – had been escorted to our junction for a bike at ten pm... Full Story
Footsteps rattled in the building very close to ours, and seemed to be headed for the room in which I was just about taking my pound of flesh. Then I stopped to wonder if anyone had discovered my plot, and was rushing in to stop me. Sudden rush of adrenalin compelled me to trot quietly into the empty wardrobe that was beside the bed on which my target lay, sleeping... Full Story
Susan’s letter arrived late Wednesday the 7th of May. It was addressed to mama. The letter read: ‘Mama, I have tried all the tricks you taught me to at least have Munya back to me. He seems to have been given a muti to forget all about me. The heat here is too strong that it is pushing me to the grave. Munya’s mother, of all the people wants me to leave this place... Full Story
The door grumbled as it opened. Tunji stepped in and while shutting the door with his left hand, scanned the room for the Director's Secretary. He had been here two hours ago. The lady secretary had not reported to work. Indeed, no one in the office had. He met a cleaner in blue overall sweeping the office. She didn’t look very pleased with what she was doing. She was muttering to herself while flogging the tiled floor with the broom when Tunji stepped in... Full Story
“My name is George Franz. Although I am not entirely sure, I suspect that a disastrous fate has just overtaken me. I will set down the bare facts: about ten minutes ago an insect probably settled on my temple, extended its proboscis, and sucked approximately a quarter of my brains out... Full Story
“Anita will you quit going on and on with that thing, you’re driving us crazy down here,” Anita’s mother yelled from downstairs. “It’s not ‘going on and on’ mum, I’m just practicing on my guitar,” Anita shot back. “Well stop it, its driving us nuts with all that noise you’re making. Give it a rest and read a book or something.” “And don’t talk back to mum,” her elder brother Mugo joined in. Anita rolled her eyes in exasperation. Honestly! She never had any peace at home... Full Story
I was, born and brought up in the capital city, Addis Abbaba, in the central part of Ethiopia. It is not a modern city, but it’s big. My father was a businessman. I had three brothers and four sisters. My mother was at home. After school, I did mechanical engineering at university. My father and mother have both died now. I met Eshetu about 12 years ago. We were neighbours. She was also born in Addis Abba. She has four sisters, one brother... Full Story
Of course, I had expected to see a car, any car, so I was overjoyed when I saw the big-wheeled, black Jeep, which they parked in the shade of our Muzeze tree. They had arrived in in the middle of the day, so as mother and I ululated our greetings, several people raced to see them too. Some crowded around the car, talking to it, while others jumped with us in joy. We had stood there under the tree for what seemed like an hour, and when the last villager returned to her home, we entered the compound, where our roofless, brick house awaited their entry.... Full Story
He loved. No, he adored, his home country of Mozambique. His wife and his three little children. Abraham the first-born boy with whom he explored the hills and mountains surrounding drought prone Sofia village for palatable game. Remembrance now thinned him like a toxin. The South African orange shadow peeped through the window as if asking him, “How is it there?” He looked around the house, eyes squinting. The photograph of Abraham his son... Full Story
He sat on the bed, holding the green passport in his hand, his thumb precariously stuck on the visa page, keeping it open; the date of his study permit as well as the legendary script reading “the leave to remain for study purposes only, no recourse to public funds” seemed to assume a life of its own, glaring at him from the page in all its glorious purple colour... He had to leave this country within the next three days, or else face the wrath of Her Majesty’s Immigration Police; or alternatively, become “hot”; and live in the fringes of society, illegal, on the run... Full Story
It was trapped inside his mind, which was a world falling away into a sort of darkish greyish shimmering soot. He opened his eyes. Pale light filtered into the room through the curtain, but, groggily, he knew that it was a moon beam, and it was still night. He turned inside the blankets on to his left side, and removed his palms from his ears. The trill was still there, incessant, and now outside his head. He ground his palms over his ears again, tightly. The sound pierced on, now inside his head again.... Full Story
Why I finally decided to take the test, I no longer remember. There was no compulsion whatsoever beyond the recurring curiosity that was never strong enough to overcome all reasonable and unreasonable resistance. After about a week in and out of the clinic getting one immunisation injection or the other, the last thing I wanted on my arm was another needle jab – much less one that involved blood-letting... Full Story
It all started when the Shepherd of the church that was located at the far side of the compound behind the house pronounced that the Nestbury tree in the yard was a haven for witches and had to come down. Now, this was a church my parents had built and the Nestbury tree was a tree my grandfather had planted as soon as he bought the property. He had brought the Nesbury sapling with him from Kingston in Jamaica when he migrated to Lagos. It had been his most precious possession and he had guarded it diligently... Full Story
Dear Kwesi, This letter comes with a reminder of the best gift I can ever give to anyone - my heart, my love, my life. It is very late here but I am very much awake, 'cos my dear, you are on my mind. Always on my mind. Cupid sent his arrow my way and I lurched forward with my bosom once I espied your name of the tail of the arrow; come and see the hole it has created in my heart. What sweet pain! You know, the heart is not a locket that is opened easily, and once opened, the holder of the key becomes so significant! You hold those keys, Kwesi... Full Story
A star seared across the dark sky – then, without sound, it quickly exploded, sending lemon streaks of flame spurting in all directions, almost lazily. In the white centre of the explosion, a human being appeared, hurtling towards the glowing orb of the earth in a graceful dive, its naked body haloed by a golden light. It plunged into a deep pool below a waterfall that savaged down a steep cliff. Water exploded upwards where it disappeared, the spray curling outwards... Full Story
Josh sat behind his new Mac computer staring forlornly at the screen. He wasn’t thinking about the $2300 he had recently spent on the laptop. He wasn’t thinking about the report that was pending that he had to write. No, he wasn’t thinking about any of his pressing obligations. He was staring at her picture and thinking about her. Josh stared at his ex-girlfriend’s face and felt a pang of pain and regret, and it was getting worse with each passing day. And that was mainly thanks to Facebook. They’d gone their separate ways years ago. When they broke up 10 years ago, he was sure it was over. They’d tried to stay friends... Full Story
When we pulled up outside the large house in Mabelreign, Rudo asked me if I was still nervous. "I've already told you I am not nervous!" I snapped, peevishly. She laughed, that melodious laughter that always struck at something primaeval deep inside me, the accumulated subliminal memories of courtship rituals etched in my y-chromosome. Only she could do that to me, which is why all this that was happening now- her about to formally introduce me to her Tete (paternal aunt), the first step on the ladder in our society towards getting married-seemed so right... Full Story
'My name is Hamadziripi, the last of Homo sapiens sapiens, the last of the modern human species, as once we called ourselves. Even as I speak the Delphi are coming, they have my trail, and it won’t be long now. But perhaps in between postponing the inevitable I can broadcast this record, of the final days of man. To you who hear these words no matter how or who, I congratulate you. You have succeeded thus far, where we failed. To you I give this message of warning. Recognise the whole survives because of each part. Life, and that’s all biological life as we humans knew it, for we never managed to physically reach further, than our planets single moon. Life has long term plans. To late did we learn... Full Story
"I expect you not to have touched anything!" Sergeant Sambiri bellowed ominously, eyeing the corpse as though he expected it to shape-shift into The Swamp Thing at any moment from now and run amok, and he badly needed it to stay dead in order to complete the investigation. He swung his gaze towards the two detectives, his bulk hiding the clock on the wall so that they could not see that the time was nearly 3 a.m. The sibling duo exchanged glances. He towered over them, and they both thought his demeanour was reminiscent of Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin in the recent biographical movie. "Well?" he roared, jolting them to the present... Full Story
