He went to bed that night trying to dream about moving beyond his fears. He again saw the black rhino, the spotted leopard, and the machete-wielding woman, still in her pristine white wraps. But the rhino was now kneeling before her in surrender, next to a slain leopard lying palsied on its back. Blood ran down the machete that the woman pointed at the rhino...

In time, with a little concentration, as if tuning in to a long wave radio station, she singled out the voices from below and their stories and laughter seemed to fill the empty spaces in her life. She heard talk of sick babies and vicious in-laws, torrid affairs and family reunions. She did not always know to whom they referred but relished weaving the disparate strands together. She spent many days and nights tallying facts, piecing together the lives of others...

Kyakkyawa she was called. I knew why she got that name. I was there when the morning sun glinted mildly in her innocent eyes; I carried her in her birth shawl. Yes, I was there at the beginning as every father should be. And I was there, too, at the end...

Tarbo was shocked to see the Police. They were always at least thirty minutes behind. Obviously, the Inspector General’s reforms were already paying off. If only the Power Company could catch up with reforms too. As if on cue, a powerful ray of light caught him in the face. It was at that precise moment that he knew the danger he was in...

I watched his wife as she followed behind, confused, her hands on her head.  Half running, she cried and begged the villagers to let him go.  She tripped on her loose khanga, then got up and followed the crowd, parting the throng with her hands, trying to reach her husband who was being shoved and pushed angrily...

Every Friday, when the sun folded the shadows directly beneath objects under its scotching brilliance, the adults in Zaria would have their hearts in their mouths until sundown. Activities of the spirits that often spilled into the real world characterised that period. Azumi became victim one Friday. She kept four goblins and sacrificed the blood of two-legged creatures to them. The blood of birds was the usual. On that Friday in the evening, however, the goblins demanded for human blood...

A little boy came to me and said; “I want to go someplace I can study and be a great man.” I looked at him. The flame of ambition beamed in his eyes. He smiled at me – that sort of smile that reached the ears without showing the teeth...

Xiexie’s first acquaintance on entering the woman’s house was with the smell, which ought to be written with a capital S. It could not be helped. It was not an unpleasant smell but it was strong and not exactly pleasing. Like a ferment of beans left to slowly rot in a kind of manufacturing process set off with sprinkles of sulphuric spices...

The clouds squirmed sickeningly in unvoiced protest. The fumes looked unhealthy, contrived, special effect smoke from machines hidden inside the clogged bowels of countless chimneys. I poked the clouds with a dithering finger and there was rain. The unclothed children who hadn't seen water since they were manufactured laughed and played in the black rain until they died of pneumonia...

She died slowly every day. He was a vampire sucking away the essence of her soul, draining the remnants of dignity she had. She became numb and her tear wells dried up. She did things like an automaton, mostly oblivious of the things going on around her. A thick shroud of self-hatred and depression insulated her..

An over powering sense of loss overwhelmed him. He saw his self-worth melt away like butter out in the sun. His spiritual strength accordingly plummeted and he knew that he had reached rock bottom. He could not possibly fall any further from grace. He was a wretched failure, a conceited, superficial old fool who had outlived his usefulness...

He saw the old woman from afar, motionless, a dark island of solitude surrounded by a surging wash of bodies. She appeared to be having a Bluetooth ear-piece moment, listening...or was she communicating with anyone walking past her outstretched right arm, the fingers splayed as if to conjure attention in the wind?

Under the bridge in Ikeja, Faith walks past the jumbled row of stalls selling weave on, past the area boys who call out to girls lewdly. Usually, she stops to price the chunks of costume jewellery on the tables by the road side. But today she walks past all of it; past the women who pull her and say “fine girl, come and make your hair”, past the election posters with faded faces of politicians staring at her...

Remember me for the girl I once was, she tried saying to herself in the empty room. Her depression was like a big, terrible shadow over her that threatened to overwhelm her with its strength. It shut out the light but kept the darkness within - the enemy within...

Our father’s youngest wife went outside to empty a calabash of threshed groundnut shells. She returned into the compound panting, trembling and sweating. Her calabash was not emptied. She rushed straight to our father and said, “Father of Children, war has come to your home today.”

You guys are lucky that he looks like Michael Jackson’s zombie. At least all you dissect is muscle and skin. You should see Fatty-bon-bon, our cadaver. And they say she died from cancer. I’m dreading the day we get to Abdomen in class. Her insides must be all mush...