“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, unwinding my scarf and piling my layers on an empty swivel chair beside the stylist’s station. The crumpled clothes looked shabby in the gleaming, mirrored room, like something you’d find under a bridge. I was wearing pretty much everything I owned. This little jaunt was the first time I’d left the house in weeks, and let me tell you, you could die out there. A band of polar winds high up in the atmosphere held the city hostage, locked in a bitter freeze. I exhaled … [Read more...] about Appointment
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Lobsters
Tom’s barrel chest jerked up, then down at regular intervals, following the dictates of the hospital ventilator. Attached to the machine, he seemed all torso, his lower half an afterthought, like the straw-haired Resusci Annies that he’d haul around the high school gym during CPR units. That was long ago, when he was the coach and Helen was the music teacher and they were, improbably perhaps, in love. Fluids skied down IV lines and into his arm. Bruises bloomed at the injection sites. Soft … [Read more...] about Lobsters
Contributions
We have been practicing esusu for a long time. Our mothers did it, our mothers’ mothers did it. And probably their own mothers, too. We’ve never had a problem of this substance before, nothing so significant until this woman showed up. Nothing we couldn’t fix, anyway. This is how our system works: each woman has one month to contribute a certain amount of naira. Our names are on a list, and when that month is over, whoever’s number one takes it all. Then the contributions begin again, and at … [Read more...] about Contributions
Ara’s Man
Ara killed my dog so I had to screw her man. His mouth was still swollen from the tooth he lost and he tasted terrible, but I did it anyway. I had to. Afterward, tearfully, he told me a story about a boy from his part of the land who stole an arrowhead from a neighboring clan. They caught the boy and fed him white clay from the river until he exploded. Blood and bones and ropes of glossy pink organs everywhere. This was during the hard times when there was barely a weed to suck on, and no … [Read more...] about Ara’s Man
The Moths Came
In a cloud, at night. Or like an army at sunrise. To every tree and every spike of grass, every ridgepole, every windowsill, they came. To every clothesline, especially. From the candy-coated wires, they formed strings—onions braided together by their tops—and we woke to find them swaying. Don’t open the door, we say to our daughter. Our daughter puts her hand on the knob, but the lock catches. Click. We imagine the chubby tips of her fingers nibbled down to their pin-thin bones. They’ll come … [Read more...] about The Moths Came
Life on Land
https://soundcloud.com/americanshortfiction/life-on-land-by-nina-maclaughlin Katya can hold her breath for over seven minutes. She’d practiced alongside us in the pool. Up to her chin, she kneeled in the shallow end and took a deep inhale and long slow exhale, so long it seemed impossible her lungs had gathered that much air, not balloons for birthday parties there below her ribcage, but hot air balloons, enough to attach a basket and float over hills. Her heart slowed, something went … [Read more...] about Life on Land