When she left my house that Sunday, smiling and dressed in my favourite white dress, my strawberry lipgloss shining on her lips, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, a beaded purse dangling at her shoulder, I hugged her and told her to be back before six.

You curl up on the bed trying hard to shut out the memory. When you close your eyes, you still see him glaring at you with bloodshot eyes; you can even perceive the marijuana stench that he wears like perfume.

There was only so much time before everyone else knew what she knew about bodies: they hide nothing and betray everything.

Your dermatologist, Dr Patik, says it’d get better, but there is really no cure. You’re a wilting tree.

He cooed over our newborn and gently stroked his cheek, smiling in unabashed adoration.

You pushed the doctor into the waters of desire and made him drown in it. What is it about sorrow that makes humans just want to do sensual things?

Sometimes, my roots—Ife, Babalawo, his cowries, the gods, maami—they make it hard not to believe.

To make things worse, she had no child—something that, in the eyes of her detractors, was the ultimate proof of her witchcraft.

I wondered what Mama was protecting about my late father. What dirty linen had she discovered and hidden before anyone came across it?

Imagine that as the song plays in your head, you wonder why your woman has chosen to change her skin.

Christina Purity bought a bottle full of curry spice and thyme and stuck it deep into her vagina so she could spice up her sex life

Shortlisted for the 2021 Afritondo Short story Prize

The first thing we saw was a big chimney that expelled the soot of lost brothers and sisters that couldn’t breathe anymore.

I don’t understand why a man should not once in a while prefer the natural feminine scent of his woman. All this fake fake perfume lifestyle is not my thing.

He was called farmer’s boy within the household, he said, because of what his fingers could do on a piece of farmland.

But then the war came, and they rapidly became adults, people who could make their own decisions.

When you give him rice, he barely eats a spoonful. You don’t know if it is because the rice is plain even for your standards or if it is because pain has filled his stomach.

I just remember that he looked like a man in no hurry, like he owned time.

Short story by Joshua Pregbaba

His eyes were what set him apart. But not because one pupil was black and the other blue. It was because, unlike the rest of the population, they held something aside from emptiness.