They say by the time Captain Jerry returned from the oyinbo people’s war, his wife had taken a new husband, and his daughter, an infant before his departure, became a seven-year-old pikin who called another man baba. And because the war had taken everything from him, drained him of his resolve, cooled the fire that was once Jeremiah Adio into still water, he had no willpower left to fight with. They say he did not try to win his wife and his pikin back, choosing instead to fade into the silence and solitude of his own making. And that was why he was now living in a flat in the decrepit house owned by Iyaafin Alake, the one that sat solitarily near the stinky, sewage-colonized canal separating Ilu Adun from the neighboring town.

This was on my mind the first day I stood in the hallway of the house, in front of the door with the “I Love Jesus” sticker. It was faded, the sticker, chipped at the edges. Captain Jerry did not strike me as a particularly Christian man, not from the stories I had heard at least. I concluded the previous tenant must have left it there and the captain was too apathetic to care to remove it. 

The hallway was a sight no eyes should be unfortunate enough to behold. The paint was peeled off half the walls, the asbestos ceiling covered in black cobwebs. A rat fell through a hole in the ceiling. It squeaked in pain as it managed to get back on its limbs and then it spotted me in the hallway and sped off. I knocked on the door.

“Coming,” said the voice on the other end. It was rather commanding, his voice. Peculiar too. Full of depth and luster and sonority. He could have been a choir baritone. Just like Lakunle.

I grabbed the things I had dropped at my feet, canvass and a bagful of paintbrushes in one hand, paint and palette in the other. The door creaked as it dawdled open to reveal a wheelchair-bound man with a scattering of grey hairs shooting out of his scalp, his face wrinkled and bumpy. Even underneath his lime-green jalamia which veiled most of his frame, you could tell he was lanky, his flesh barely there, his presence much less commanding than his juggernaut voice. He looked me up and down, as if he saw something beyond my appearance. 

“Hmm,” he began, “you must be the fellow they sent. What’s your name?”

“Adeyemi.”

Something was wrong. The man I was supposed to meet was in his early forties. This man before me had to be at least sixty. I must have been given the wrong address by the councilwoman.

“Forgive me, sir. I am supposed to meet Captain Jerry.”

“Well, I’m not really a Captain but I am him,” he said with a forced grin. His teeth were an unsettling perfect white. He wheeled away from the door and into the room, beckoning to me. I hesitated to walk in, feeling as though I was being pranked.

“Mister, won’t you come in?” his voice was one of impatience masked as urging. 

Still feeling displaced, I creeped into the room, as though the owner had not personally invited me in. The air was a mixture of lemongrass, lavender, and perhaps a little hint of vanilla. The sickly-sweet scent stood in stark disagreement with everything else about the room: it was a self-contained flat with a sheetless mattress, a kerosene stove by the smoke-darkened wall with a grease-stained pan and a transparent polythene of yellow garri lying next to it. A small wooden apoti sat in the middle of the room. There was a door which I imagined led to the toilet and bathroom.  The man had no other belongings in sight. 

The destitution on display would not have surprised me, really, if not for the circumstances surrounding my presence in this house, a thirty-minute bike ride from my mother’s. Two days before, my mother had told me that she heard from Iya Kadijah who heard from Mama Suliya who heard from Iya Kofo who heard from Sisi Jemimah who heard from Mama Segi who heard from Aunty Kosironu that a certain councilwoman was looking for an artist. I raced to the town hall to meet with her that same day. The councilwoman—a real patrician type, with her French lace iro and buba adorned with triple-strand ileke necklace—told me of her friend, a war veteran who was looking to hire an artist to come to his house every Friday to paint a portrait of him. He was offering one shilling for each visit. Not even my part-time job at the local primary school was paying that much. I needed the money. In a few weeks I could afford a bus ticket to Lagos at that rate. I could finally be reunited with my person. “When do I start?” 

Looking around his house now, I wondered how someone who did not have proper bedding could afford to give me a shilling. As if reading my mind, he fished a coin out of his pocket and handed it to me. I took it and ran my fingers across the engraving that spelled out “BRITISH WEST AFRICA ONE SHILLING” around the image of a palm tree.

“I like to assure people by handing the money in early.”

The man had to be crazy, I told myself, if he thought this was a wiser way to spend his money than on, say, furniture or bedsheets or food that was not garri, the poor man’s source of nutriment. But I was not getting paid to judge him. I was there to paint. Eyes on the prize, kid.

“Thank you, sir,” I said as I pocketed the coin.

I sat on the apoti and arranged my art supplies on the floor in front of me.

“How do you want us to begin, sir?”

“Did you bring any chewing gum?”

“Sir?”

“Chewing gum. Orbit. Bazooka. Chiclets. Any will do.”

“N-no, sir. I don’t carry candy with me. Sorry.”

He sighed, looking me up and down. “How old are you?”

“Twenty, sir.”

“Ah, a baby. How long have you been painting for?”

“Four years, sir.”

“So, who is it? Picasso? van Gogh? Caravaggio? Rockwell?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Who’s your favorite among the greats? 

“I…don’t know any of those people.”

“Ah, they must all sound like random oyinbo men to you.”

I nodded. He laughed, and there was something about that laugh, the way it lit up his face and rang in my ears like music, that made me join in.

“So, who taught you to paint?”

“My mother. She used to paint trees and things like that.”

“Fantastic, and now you have picked it up. Intergenerational talent,” he said more to himself than me. “So, did you bring any gum?”

“No, sir. Y-you asked me before.”

“Ah, sorry, my friend. The memory is not what is used to be. Speaking of…you said your name was Ade-something, correct?”

“Adeyemi.”

“Yes, yes. Adeyemi.”

He wheeled himself to the other door in the room and swung it open. The toilet, like I guessed. I watched him pick out a bottle of mouthwash from a compartment just above the wash-hand basin. He rinsed his mouth and spat it out. He scooped water from a bucket beside him and washed out the mouthwash with it. He wheeled back into the room.

“Sorry, where were we?”

“I was asking when you wanted us to start.”

“Any time.”

I started with the grey wisps of hair that sat on his head and formed the outline of his battle-aged face. He was a couple of feet away from me, his back to the window from which poured the bright white of a hot November afternoon light. His brown eyes radiated optimism, but beneath them was a sadness he could not hide. He looked decades older, like someone who had been starved of his youth and light by something unspeakable. 

When I was done with his portrait, I handed it to him. He signaled for me to hand him something on his bed. Letters were scattered on the bed, but in the midst of the chaos of papers was a pair of glasses. I picked them up and handed them to him. After he’d put them on, he held the painting at arm’s length. Even beneath the thick of the glass frames, I could see his eyes well up. He took off the glasses to dry his eyes, clearing his throat.

“This looks fantastic, mister.”

“Thank you, sir. Is there anything else…”

“No. Same time next week?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. See you then.”

—

Back home, pounding yams in the kitchen while my mother added salt and crayfish to the egusi soup, I thought about Captain Jerry. 

“How was he?” my mother asked, reading my mind as she had a habit of doing.

“I don’t even know,” I responded, wheezing as I crushed the yam slices in the mortar with the pestle. “He seems strange. Really strange.”

“Yes. Mama Kadija said the same. They say he eats live frogs. Did you see him eat live frogs?”

“What? I did not see that, but who knows? It might as well be true,” I said, laughing.

“Just go there and get your money. That is what matters.”

I nodded.

“Did you know that he’s a cripple?” I asked.

“Yes, he lost his legs in the war.”

—

The next time I was there, I went with a pocket full of chewing gum. Who knew if that could help? With the way the Captain’s brain worked, he could choose to increase my pay just for that gesture. I handed it to him the moment he opened the door. He grinned. He unwrapped it immediately before letting me into the house. He relished the taste, moaning as he chewed. It was quite the spectacle.

“Come in,” he said, finally. He wheeled himself into the same spot as the last time, the clothes the same. 

“Sir…I was wondering if you wanted us to change the scene a bit. Otherwise, we might end up having the same portrait as the last time,” I said.

“It does not matter,” he insisted. 

I began to set my supplies down, considering if to change the position of the apoti to give me a fresh perspective, perhaps paint him from the side this time.

“Ah, before I forget,” he said. “I have something to give you.” 

He reached into a bag and handed me a book. 100 Greatest Paintings of the Renaissance Era. On the cover was an image of a naked oyinbo man with golden hair and olive skin. He had pink nipples and well-toned arms and legs. His penis was too tiny to be visible, if you could even call it a penis. He pointed his index finger at an older oyinbo man who had paler skin, his hair a prayer of silver and grey, draped in pink. The older man also had his finger pointed at the younger man. There was a sensuality to the image, an understated passion that made me both uncomfortable and filled to my brim with ecstasy. I wondered what Lakunle would think if he saw it.

“Thank you,” I said, overcome by the effect that singular image had on me.

“You ever heard of Michelangelo?”

I shook my head.

“You will love him. He was just like you and me.”

“What do you mean ‘just like you and me’?” I asked, utterly confused. Perhaps, I was not confused. Perhaps, I knew what he meant. Perhaps, that was the problem. My heart thundered in my chest; my palms were wet with sweat.

“Do you mean he was an artist?” I added quickly, terrified he would say something I did not want to hear if I dared to leave the question open-ended.

“Yes, let’s go with that,” the Captain said, curling his lips. “Let’s get down to painting, shall we?”

I sighed, happy to change the subject.

“Do you have something to ask me?” he said as I settled to arrange my art supplies on the floor.

“Sir?”

“You had questioning eyes. I could tell you were curious.”

“I—I suppose.”

“So, what did you see? The first time you painted me—what did you see? What answers did you see?”

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me. Really answer,” he said, throwing another piece of gum in his mouth. “Every artist worth his salt learns to impose judgement on everything he sees in the world. It is what we do. It is how we survive. Perception is estimation.”

“You’re a painter too?”

“I used to dabble,” he said, a small, quiet smile creeping into his face. “I will add half a shilling. Tell me what those painter’s eyes see.”

I shifted in my seat. It was an experience of utmost strangeness, an older Yoruba man earnestly seeking out the younger’s opinion of him. But I had the incentive for it.

“I…I sense a lot of hesitation in you,” I began, “like you have a lot on your mind you are trying to hide…or maybe understand? I am not sure which it is.” 

“Wow. Aren’t you quite the observant portraitist?” he said without the slightest hint of sarcasm. “You could do with a bit more eloquence, but you have such sophisticated eyes. I’m impressed.” 

My lips spread into an awkward simper, unsure if to take it as genuine praise or a backhanded compliment.

“Let’s find out what you see this time.”

Midway through the session, he stopped me thrice to go to the toilet. It was on the third interruption that I realized he had been going to use the mouthwash. He had almost exhausted the four packs of chewing gum I brought with me.

“Can I ask why you do that all the time? Is it compulsive?” I asked when he returned the third time. Typically, I would not be so forward to ask an elder such a personal question, but nothing about this man was typical.

“What’s that?”

“The mouth rinsing. You use the product all the time.”

He looked me up and down, then slanted his eyes and took in a deep breath, making me regret, in that moment, asking such a rude and intrusive question. Stupid Adeyemi! Where is your home training?

“I do it to clean off the terrible taste on my tongue,” he finally said.

I only knew of pregnant women who complained of bitter tongue, or people who had mouth diseases of some kind, and if his perfect dentition said anything about him, it was that he had great oral hygiene. 

“What taste?”

“The taste of bombs,” he said matter-of-factly, with no hint of humor or rhetorical mischief.

“Captain,” I said, chuckling to myself at the absurdity of his response, “what does a bomb taste like?”

“I hope you never know,” he said to me, his eyes welling up. They were the eyes of someone who had been broken by more than he cared to speak about. “Please, go on with your painting.”

—

The light of the atupa elepo was waning but I tried to focus on the page, concentrating on the supposed beauty of the white woman called Mona Lisa. In the near-dark, my mother plaited my sister’s hair koroba style, the kind of hair all the girls her age wore.

“Gbara duro,” my mother cautioned my sister who twisted and turned from the pain of the firmness with which mother handled her hair. “What are you reading, n ti e? Shouldn’t you be asleep? Are they overworking you in that school?”

“No o,” I said, finally looking up.

“So, why does an Arts and Crafts teacher have to stay up so late studying? Is it that serious?”

“Mama, I am reading a book given to me by Captain Jerry jare. It is about old European art. Some of these are really good sha.”

“Se you and the Captain are now friends ni?”

“He seems like a nice man.”

“What has gotten into you?”

“What?”

“That man is an outcast in society. You are there to collect his money and nothing more. All this fraternizing, emi o ri sii o.”

“He is not a bad man. He served in the war and we disrespect him so much,” I responded, surprised by my own defensiveness. 

My mother hissed and continued to plait my sister’s hair in silence. 

—

The third time I went to his house, I knocked. Five times. Nothing. I knocked a sixth time. The only thing that reacted to the impact of my knuckles against wood was the rat that zoomed off in the corner of the hallway. The silence worried me. The Captain knew what day and time our session was supposed to be. 

I opened the door with caution. There was no one there.  I knocked on the toilet door. Nothing. I found about a dozen letters on the bed. I hesitated to pick them up. They were a private affair. I sat on the apoti and waited, but my anxiety worsened with every passing hour, till the point that I started to suspect the man had gone to off himself and the letters were suicide notes left for me to find.

I picked up one of the letters. It had no typical letter format, no addresses or anything, which gave the impression it was not meant to be sent out at all.

Dear Emeka Jideofor 

I woke up thinking about Beethoven again today. I still have no love for white people’s music, let alone the classical kind, but I remember you loved it. The way you would light up talking about how Für Elise was the greatest musical achievement of the 19th century. That was one of the things I loved most about you. I wrote a song for you last night. Maybe I will get to sing it for you someday.

Love, Your Cherie Jerry

I dropped the letter. I felt like an intruder. The letters were clearly not intended for my eyes. They were meant for Emeka, whoever he was. Still, I picked up another letter.

Dear Emeka Jideofor,

I think I am going to do it tonight. I have been waiting for us to meet forever now, I think I am finally brave enough to travel to come meet you. Pray for me. Pray that I have enough courage to do what must be done. 

Love, Your Jerry.

Another letter:

Dear Emeka,

A part of me is wondering if I made you all up. You feel like a fever dream, my dear. Both a fantasy and a nightmare. None of it is your fault, of course. I am losing sight of what is truly real and what is not. I am living life in stream of consciousness. I am not sure what that means. I am not sure what anything means anymore. I miss you. Love, Sweet Jerry.

I took another letter.

“What do you think you are doing?”

I turned to find the captain by the door with a loaf of bread and a bottle of Dr Pepper in his lap. He had such raging eyes, his right hand was clenched in a fist.

“Sir, I, I—I was just—I thought—I—”

“How dare you?!”

My throat was parched, my tongue dry, the world was spinning. “I was looking…”

He wheeled over as fast as he could and snatched the letter from me, pushing me with all the might he had. I sank to the floor. 

“You had no right!”

As he was reaching for the other letters on the bed, he collapsed from his wheelchair to the ground, the bread falling and the Dr. Pepper bottle shattering. I rushed to pick him up but he pushed me away. He crawled to the bed and picked up all the letters.

“You had no right!”

I heard the crack in his voice. He was crying.

“You had no fucking right!” he screamed again before breaking into a profuse sob.

“I—I am so sorry, sir. I thought you’d left a message for me.”

“And your name is Emeka?”

“I am really sorry, sir. Let me clean this up for you.” I looked around for a broom and packer to clear the broken bottle.

“No, you have done enough for today.”

I was ashamed of myself and even more remorseful for the hurt I had caused this man by meddling in his business. I packed up my things and headed for the door. I had one leg out when he asked, “What do you know about the war?”

“Sir?”

“The Big War, what do you know about it?”

“Um,” I began, unsure if it was a trick question. “N-not a lot. I know some of our people went to fight for the white man and some of our people came back.”

“My legs were not the only things I lost in the war,” he said, staring into the distance and wiping off his tears. “Everybody thinks the measure of a loss is the eye or the limbs or the scar on your stomach. But the war took much more from a lot of us.”

“What else did it take from you, Captain?”

He beckoned me to come back into the room. 

I sat on the floor and listened, though a little unsettled by his quick switch from rage to gloom to pensiveness.

“I was twenty-nine when I was forcefully conscripted into the British Armed Forces. They said we were going to fight a terrible man called Hitler. I did not think it the greatest tragedy then. My wife had just left me for my cousin. The child I thought was mine was actually his. I decided this was some sort of…silver lining. I might as well do something with the rest of my meaningless life by joining the army. You know, do some good in the world. Make the world a better, much saner place even if my own life had fallen apart. I was stationed in Burma with some other Nigerians in the 81st Division. Some were as young as sixteen, much younger lads than you are now. They were forced into the army at the beginning of their lives. All they wanted to do was chase after girls, drink palm wine in the moonlight and learn a trade or two to feed their families. That is for those who were not interested in school. But none of that mattered. The colonial masters needed them in the line of fire.

“In Burma, we had this nasty commanding officer, he had a moustache that looked like a smudge of paint under his nostrils. It was very similar to Hitler’s. The irony was lost on him,” the Captain said, laughing and sniffling at the same time. “He always smelled of alcohol. Every time he talked you would think the room was drenched in schnapps. The Brits loved their drink, even in the face of death. Anyway, he would bark orders all around the camp. Even the Indian soldiers we had the jungle training with did not like him. After he left the room, we would all mock him, imitating his accent and everything. But I managed to be on his good side. I never had any trouble with him, until one day during training, I had done something wrong during one of the drills, I don’t remember what. But I know he humiliated me in front of the battalion. He called me “a fucking wanker, stupid nigger”. I remember wanting to knock the bastard’s yellow teeth out. It was one of those moments you just can’t explain, you know. You are overcome by a wild rage and you just unleash the beast in you.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Slow down, mister. Let me tell the story.”

“I’m sorry.”

“His back was turned to me and I wanted to hurt him so much. I was not thinking straight. We had been training in the rain for a whole day straight, no food, no break, nothing. I had reached my breaking point and here was this oloriburuku talking to me like I belonged to him. I clenched my fist. I remember someone grabbing my fist softly from behind. I turned to find another Nigerian soldier. I had met him before but never paid much attention to him. He always kept to himself. But something about the way he held my hand, the plea in his eyes, brought me back to my senses. My anger washed away in the rain. It was rather poetic in hindsight.

“After training, I went to his tent, where I found him cleaning his gun. ‘You have to learn to control your temper, big guy,’ he said when he saw me.

‘If not for you I would probably be dead.’

‘A Nigerian soldier killing a colonial master. Now, wouldn’t that be an interesting spectacle? The Western communists would have a field day with that one.’

I smiled even though I had no idea what that last sentence meant.

‘My name is Emeka,’ he said, stretching his hand.

I shook it. ‘Jeremiah Adio.’ He had such a firm grip despite the slenderness of his arms. He was all slenderness. Slender arms. Slender legs. He was elegantly thin in a feminine way. 

‘Adio,’ he said. ‘I knew that was a Yoruba accent I was picking up.’

‘You monitor accents?’ I asked in jest, not expecting any actual response.

‘Only south-western accents like yours. I think they’re attractive,’ he said, biting his lower lip. 

I laughed nervously. The forwardness was jarring.

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Say thank you.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, smiling, avoiding his eyes.

After that, Emeka and I would spend our free time together. I learned everything about him: he was the son of a university professor, studied in London, mixed with some far-left intellectuals during his stay there, fascinated with European music and art. He painted too. He would paint me whenever we were able to get time alone in the tents. He had this uncanny ability to interpret me on his canvass in ways I did not think possible. The first night he kissed me, under the sheets while everyone else slept, it was as if I was feeling the touch of another human being for the first time.”

I shifted, unsure what to make of what the Captain had just revealed to me. But it made me think of Lakunle, of Lagos.

“For many reasons. I came to the War believing it to be the end of my life,” the Captain continued. “My wife had just destroyed me. I had nothing left to live for. But there I was, for the first time in my life, I found another man who loved other men. I had thought it was a problem with me, a disease that needed to be eradicated, but I loved Emeka like no one I had ever met in my life. He was not new to it, though. He was well-traveled and he had met other men like him—like us. He said there was a whole world out there full of people like us. He told me of places he would take me after the War: Berlin, New Orleans, London—places I could only imagine.

“But that is the thing about War, it leaves little room for fantasies or happy endings. War, by its very nature, is a cruel reminder of the futility of believing in things like happy endings. Our love affair would end when we reached the Kaladan River. Our battalion was attacked by the Japanese. I was not a major part of the war, though, because the signal that the Japanese had closed in on us was a major explosion. I was crouching next to Emeka that night. We were hiding in the bush, thinking we were laying an ambush for the enemy when they had been watching us the whole time.

“The explosion sent us flying in the air. I remember the ringing in the air. Emeka’s body had become splatter that covered my face, his torn flesh and blood on my tongue. I could taste the ashes, too, the fried bodies of my brothers in arms. That was what the bomb tasted like. I could taste it. I still taste it now. After all these years, it is still on my tongue, the blood, the flesh, the smoke, the defeat. The taste returns anytime I remember the explosion.” The tears had returned. The captain did not intend to wipe them this time. 

“I was there for hours before the combat medics found me among the bodies. My left leg was impaled by a shrapnel. Days later, they concluded it had to be amputated,” he said, biting his lip and sinking his nails into the wool of his mattress. “Later, when they said Hitler had fallen, that we had won the war, I remember wondering who this we was. Because as far I knew, I had lost. I had lost everything. I had been used and discarded by the Crown. And what did I get in return? Eh? The only true person I really loved had been turned to meat and bones and a fountain of blood, right in front of me. The person I had held close to me just the night before, the person I had told all my darkest secrets. There was not even a corpse.”

He fell silent. I waited for him to continue but the silence became a potent presence in the room, swallowing us both in the grief that had been unleashed.

“So, those letters are not really to him, are they?” I finally asked in a delicate tone.

“I like to pretend he will read them someday,” he said. “I’m sorry. I might have overreacted about the letters.”

“My fault, sir. I had no right, like you said.”

“Does your family know? About you?”

“About what, sir?”

“You like men,” he said, wiping his tears with the sleeves of his jalamia. 

“How…”

“I have developed a sixth sense about these things.”

Perhaps it was his generosity in sharing his story with me, perhaps it was his offer to lift the weight of the secret that threatened to crush my sanity, but I no longer felt the need to hide from the light in his presence. 

“No, they don’t,” I replied.

“You don’t think they suspect already?”

“Not at all.”

“They always do.”

“Not mine.”

“What’s his name?”

“What makes you think there is someone?”

“You are not the only one who knows how to read people, Adeyemi.”

“His name is Lakunle. He moved to the city, to Lagos, two months ago. He is not coming back. But I am saving up to go and see him.”

“Good. Lagos is a big place. More privacy. Does he love you back?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking about our conversation the night before he traveled. He had got a government job in the city and he had to leave. It only made sense. He promised to find a way to send money to help me come join him. 

“Good. Please, don’t be like me. Don’t repress yourself to the point where you are getting into a marriage you do not want just because of fear.”

“But it is dangerous, is it not?”

“You would not need bravery if there was no danger, would you? Take a leap of faith,” he said and if not for the sincerity of his voice, the solemness of his soaked eyes, I would have been certain the speech had been rehearsed.

He crawled back to his wheelchair. I helped him up. 

“Let’s see what you paint this time.”

I understood now what this meant to him: a chance to see himself through the eyes of another. I started with his eyes. They were brighter this time, nothing hidden behind the glowing brown bulbs of light. 

When we were done, he threw another piece of gum in his mouth.

                                                            —

That evening, I sat in the blue dusk of my mother’s kitchen, waiting for her to arrive from the market. 

“E ka abo,” I said as she walked in.

“Kuule, oko mi,” she greeted in response, smiling. “I changed my mind about cooking asaro tonight. I started to crave amala and ofe onugbu, so I bought stuff for that instead. Sebi we still have palm oil in the cupboard? Elubo too?”

“Mother,” I said, my voice not above a whisper. 

“By the way, you won’t believe what I heard today o,” she said, placing the polythene bags of bitter-leaf, bell peppers, tomatoes, eja panla, saaki, abodi and bokoto on the kitchen counter. 

“I have to tell you something,” I whispered, trying to calm my throbbing heart.

“You know Sadiku, Mr. Aliyu’s daughter, the one with the tribal marks,” she continued anyway, her eyes lighting up as they did whenever she had gossip for me. “I heard she got pregnant for Wakili, the palm wine tapper that impregnated Chief Adeeko’s daughter last year. Can you imagine? And she had a very bright future o.”

“Mother, I have something to tell you.” My regular voice had returned.

“What’s that?” she asked, focusing all her attention on me.

“There is something you have to know,” I began, readying myself for the worst outcome, though nothing could slow down my racing heartbeat or dry my sweaty palms. “It is about Lakunle. Lakunle and me.”

The light in her eyes disappeared. Her face took on a new intensity. Was it sadness? She turned away, brought the bitter leaves out of the bag. She soaked them in the bowl of warm water I had placed in the sink before her arrival. As she washed, she planted her eyes firmly on the dirt-stained green of the leaves, as if avoiding my eyes.

“I’m… I’m listening.”

About the Author:

Kanyinsola Olorunnisola is an experimental writer of Yoruba descent. His work explores Black realities, the diverse ways his people navigate the world. He has been published in Al Jazeera, FIYAH, Popula, Jalada, Harvard University’s Transition and elsewhere. He is the recipient of the 2020 Speculative Literary Foundation’s Diverse Writers Grant, 2020 K&L Prize for African Literature, 2022 OutWrite Chapbook Prize, 2022 Best of the Net Anthology inclusion and a Truman Capote Literary Trust Scholarship, among others. He was a finalist for the 2020-2021 Glass Chapbook Series Contest, 2021 Gerald Kraak Award, 2022 Jerome K. Phipps Prize for Poetry and 2019 Koffi Addo Prize for Creative Non-Fiction. He was nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prize, and 2022 AWP Intro Journals Awards in two categories: Poetry and Non-Fiction. He earned an Honorable Mention for the 2020 L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest and was longlisted for the 2019 Short Story Day Africa Prize and 2020 Toyin Falola Prize. He has published two chapbooks: “In My Country, We’re All Crossdressers” (Praxis, 2018) and “Shakespeares in the Ghetto” (neon hemlock, 2022). He is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama where he is working on a voodoo-inspired novel. Tweets @kanyeeeen

*Feature image by Bianca Van Dijk from Pixabay