Reliving Christmas by Ugo Chime

There were five of us that headed for the stream that hot afternoon. Mixed-raced Chibu, who came in from Abuja the week before. He would rather whistle strange-sounding tunes and giggle than participate when we argued at the top of our voices, but he knew things that the rest of us loud lot didn’t. Like the day we were debating how far his mother’s country was, he reeled out numbers so great that the calmness with which they were delivered belied their incredulous distance. None of us doubted him, even though we all knew that he had never been outside Nigeria in his life. Besides, which of us knew what ‘above sea-level’ meant?

This story has been selected for the StoryTime anthology African Roar 2012, please go to the African Roar site for more info.

Reliving Christmas was written by Ugo Chime.

Copyright © Ugo Chime 2010.

'Someone said to me: "how do I become a writer?" and I was baffled by it. The only way I know how to be a writer, is by writing.'

Ugo Chime is a wife and a mom, and when she isn't earning salary from her 8-5 job she's writing up a storm, or at least dreaming of all the things she'd write. She is a published author of contemporary short stories, and a co-author of In My Dreams It Was Simpler. She is presently working hard on another novel.