You left home to become a Ringmaster in the Island Circus. The rain had stopped. You looked outside the window and saw puddles. You’d skim the oily rainbow sheen off the puddles and apply it on your skin if it were up to you. Fifteen oar-strokes ahead, Mr. Shindey sat on his porch, stroking his cat, sipping his morning kadha. He waved to you. You waved back. The cat yawned, and I stifled a smile. But then, the sidewalk slid, taking mulch and stone with it, and the puddle became one with the water around our house. Barely afloat, our house thrummed with the possibility of sinking. You shook, I ..read more

I’m licking mala algae off a thin yellow and blue P sheet that says Nutterfinger when I notice the walls in my home are vibrating. Nothing ever happens in our world surrounded by P. P is what we call the material that makes up our world, and it’s what we call our world. PP, PET, PE, PS. So many Ps. We don’t know what it is or what it means. It’s a material between the living and dying. You can’t eat it, but it can be used for clothing, eating utensils, ropes, and among other things. But mostly, we use it to help us harvest more algae. Like I was saying before. Nothing ever happens here to us G ..read more

Like at least the five previous Constance Faradays—Connie’s mother, and hers, and hers, and on back like that—Connie had been born with a Whisper Girl wrapped around her neck. This presented difficulties suffered by no one else any of those troubled, dark-eyed women ever knew. Connie’s Whisper Girl claimed to be an incarnation of an ancient goddess of goats from the Caucasus Mountains called Dali. This had caused some misunderstanding when Connie was very young, and Dali had become Dolly Girl. Connie persisted in calling her that despite the girl’s threats and curses. Using the name was one of ..read more

For Julie, it was the cryptid out in the woods behind our old elementary school. Wings, red eyes. Yes, Julie came back knowing exactly when everyone she loved was going to die, but it was worth it, she told us. The six of us—well, five after Sophie left—were friends because we all understood why she kept going back, again and again. It was different for each of us, though. For Chrissy, it was the faceless monster that took her under the risers in the choir room during fifth period, when the windowless room was dark and empty. As long as she kept her eyes shut, it was excruciatingly good, she s ..read more

Name: Derrick Oduagbon Subject: Literature-In-English Teacher: Sister Agnes-Mary Onyeoma Assignment: Book Report for “An Introduction to Stories and Plays in English, Abridged for the Commonwealth Student” by Edmund Waite (twelfth ed.) OVERVIEW I did not want to write a report for this book, but Lady Koi-Koi convinced me to, even though she says it “does a disservice to our own stories.”1 I also have to pass my WAEC, and this book is on our reading list for the mock exam, so, fine. I will discuss the author of the book (“Author”) and the main ideas (“Main Ideas”). I will also tell you what I t ..read more

I’m one of the fortunate ones. Most decommissioned robots wind up recycled or squeezed into storage units with other obsolete models while their fate is decided—sometimes over decades. I don’t know why my owner brought me to the abandoned scrapyard rather than trade me in. Nor why instead of placing me next to the compactor with the other machines, he walked me over to an old, metal bench and told me to sit before leaving me. At the time, I knew only that I was of no further use to him. I was resigned but saddened to no longer serve a purpose. I believed this for a long time. For nearly forty ..read more

First there is smoke. Fire. Wind. Then the sea. There is always the sea. You think you are broken. Scattered into a thousand jagged pieces, but when you reach the sea you are whole. Painfully, heartbreakingly whole. And alone. When you walk out of the sea you are dry, but you’re too busy screaming to notice. Smoke. Fire. Wind. Sea. Your feet are pressed to solid ground, but your mind is still falling, still trapped, still reaching for… You don’t know. It’s the strangest thing. “Hello,” says a young Black man whittling on the beach. You wonder at the old-fashioned suspenders dangling from his l ..read more

The dogs started going missing when I was in third grade. First it was Mr. Muñez’s Chihuahua. He’d let it out in the backyard before bed and when he went to check on Paco, the dog had vanished. There were no missing links in the gate and no holes where Paco could have squirmed through. Poof, gone. Just like that. The only trace left was a splatter of warm blood smeared on the dried grass leaves. Every night, another dog would vanish. No one understood what was happening. No matter what we did to protect our dogs, something would find its way into our yards, our garages, our houses. “It was onl ..read more

Somewhere in the world, there is a man, seventy years old, a native New Orleanian who has never left the city except for the occasional Category 5 hurricane. He has a sixth-grade education but has always held some type of paying job. However, if you ask him a question in German, he will answer you without hesitation in an accent reminiscent of the region around Heidelberg. I still remember watching one of our Belgium-born board member’s eyes widen in shock as Victor—that’s his name—responded to a question in German. The executive immediately asked Victor where he had served in the army. No, he ..read more

We don’t believe in gods any more. We pray to needles and knots. A dressmaker can give you confidence that never falters, youth that never wilts, beauty that never fades. My mother is a dressmaker, but I’ve never met her. She didn’t even get to hold me before they took me away. Some of the other girls still remember bits and pieces. Marie remembers her mother’s curls and the rhythm of a nail file. Berenice tears up at the smell of violets. I study my mother’s creations. When I can, I hunt for her work in the collections. I run my fingers over perfectly felled seams and touch fabric dyed with m ..read more