By F. C. Stanley A thousand stains had his gift inflicted itself on him. And then a thousand more. Each time the line of events was the same: an argument, borne of some desire or deception, the decision to go to war, followed by a sharpening of swords, a buffering of shields, a whisper of plea to the […]
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By Fungai Chigumbura, Zimbawe: Every night it’s the same. The sequence always follows a specific pattern, a worn-out road to the same conclusion. The dream always starts with me. I’m on a hill in the middle of some grassy plain. My men are down in the valley, sweeping what remains of the enemy. None stand before me anymore. The wind […]
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By Fungai Chigumbura, Zimbabwe: I've been out on nights like these many times in my life. The cool air always stings when your drunk off your rocker. It's as if nature herself is slapping you in the face, caressing you with laughing fingers. I'd often wake up with a slight cold, my body worn from having to weather both my […]
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By Fungai Chigumbura, Zimbabwe: There’s a clinical detachment about hospitals that I’ve always found unnerving. My first experience with it was when Kaz was hospitalised for a few days after what I assume was one of his father’s worse beatings. The sickly, sticky scent of chemicals clung to my nose, and as I looked down at my friend’s swollen, unconscious […]
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By Fungai Chigumbura, Zimbabwe: I knew I had messed up the moment Patrick opened the door and gave me that look. It was the same show of disappointment and mild disgust he had given me all seven times that he had bailed me out. That look cut through me every time; realising I had let down the one person who had […]
3,141 total views, 2 views today
By Fungai Chigumbura, Zimbabwe: Is it possible for a man to believe in the devil when he knows God is a creation of man? I wouldn't have thought so…not until I saw that abomination that Baaba birthed. Shrivelled and ugly as all sin, it looked like the physical manifestation of everything I'd gone through these past 9 months. That creature […]
4,566 total views, 4 views today
By Fungai Chigumbura, Zimbabwe: The thunder in our souls sounded long before the lightning struck. Even as I drew those clean, long blades across the veins of our fulcrum—I knew the end had come. The rush of time had led us farther out than we even thought possible to begin with. And to what? Pain? Or, perhaps, it’s indistinguishable cousin, […]
3,809 total views, 2 views today
By Fungai Chigumbura, Zimbabwe: A sliver of sunlight filtered through the blinds. As Myk's eyes caught it, so too did the faint sounds of moving traffic break through the surface of his sleep and bring him forth to the new day. He smiled to himself, eyes still half-closed. Another minute in bed and he rolled out, feet planting squarely on […]
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By Fungai Chigumbura, Zimbabwe: It came one day, the madness. Like a torrent of inevitability, washing away the man's sanity. He started acting crazy, as they say. But I don't think it was acting—if anything, it was the sanity that was always a play at pretence. At some point, I gather, he simply felt keeping his sense was no longer […]
2,793 total views, 2 views today
By Fungai Chigumbura, Zimbabwe: Hell probably feels a lot like this. Searing heat, no breeze to speak of, air so dry it could shear off a baby's skin. It is the kind of weather that those old detective stories are set in—a summer heat wave that makes everything leaner and more dangerous. You lose your mind in the blaze, and […]
2,755 total views, 1 views today