This is where I publish my list of flash fiction and short stories

The Man from Garrison
An aggressive stance from an aggressive looking man. He stands under the barren mango tree with a hint of a smile on his face. His skin is black, black like charcoal and he has a large stomach. The kind that introduces itself before he does.

Then there is his smell. Of tobacco, of palm wine, of trouble.

"Is it Kenechukwu?" I ask. The last born. The one who was more prone to trouble and always had daddy bailing him out from a station due to one misdemeanor or another.

"I'm not at liberty to say," the man answers me. The vague smile still lingers. Perhaps he enjoys this, this torture of suspense.

"What is it then that you want?" I ask. A few moments ago it was Nkechi who had run into the room saying, "There is a man downstairs that says he is from garrison."

It sounded funny: A man from garrison. It reminded of a song I had sang in the church choir about the man from galilee, the one who had come to save.

"What does  he want?" I had asked. Did he come to save?

"I dont know oo," Nkechi had replied me. And so I had come running down.

If you must know 'garrison' is that bustop so far away from Obigbo. The one where when it was announced loudly by the conductors that called the drivers 'pilot' in the large city buses, you had gotten forgotten yourself amongst the barrage of fortune preachers and herbal salesman.
Also the bustop was named after an actual garrison.

"Where is the madam of the house?" He finally asks.

"It is I," I reply because I in fact am the Ada of the house and would take the place of 'madam' in the absence of my mother.

"No you are not," he says defensively. He stands in a funny way, resting the weight of his body almost entirely on one leg. "I must speak to the madam, it is quite important."

And so I send Nkechi off. She runs at top speed to our mother's roadside shop where she sold hair extensions and attachments and ate groundnut and gossiped with her sales girls.

I imagine Nkechi telling my mother that a strange man had come all the way from garrison. I wondered what my mother's reaction would be. Surprise? Shock? Or anxiety due to recollection? Perhaps I should have gone myself.

The man brings his hands out his pockets and crosses. He switches his weight to his other leg. He looks at me and I look back. We continue in this strange dance of ours.

The man who loved me

Row row row away

I run into the river, each step harder than last. As if the water also conspires me.

He watches, his gaze quiet. How could something as much as stare be 'silent'? But he never spoke, unless he absolutely had to. He was silent while we ate and I yapped, while we made love in the hot mud hut, when he brought me fish he had caught from the river. He was silent when he spoke, when he told me, "I've been conscripted into the army." He was silent while I yelled and he packed his clothes as if suddenly he couldn't listen to me anymore, as if I made no sense.

And now he's silent while the two men row away. He watches just silent.

My clothes are wet, I'm neck deep into the river.

Row row row away.

The other Fishermen save me. It's gone, it's all gone. Our perfect little world torn apart.

I sit, wet and out of breathe and watch. He watches me back in return.

He was the man who loved me. The man who whispered in my ears while we made love in the hot mud hut that nothing would ever come between us, not even the war.

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Sylvester
And perhaps, because Sylvester was the kind of person everyone wanted a piece of, she found herself quite drawn to him.

He was a vague and fleeting person. Not one to hold the breath for. One minute he gave her all the attention there was to give, the next minute, he was cold and her ‘hi’s were left unanswered for long stretches of time with an apology given down the road.

They became closer during the impending protest. The one organized by students against the proposed school fees hike. She had replied to his ranting on WhatsApp about the economy and school’s politics with; My class is planning a benefit for the protest.

“Really?” he asked. “Mine is doing nothing. How can I help?”

And so she organized that they met at a nice student-friendly-in-terms-of-price restaurant. It had large floor to ceiling windows and blunt, rude waiters.

He was breathless with ideas, “We could do this and that!” He supplemented her ideas with so much gusto. She wasn’t necessarily listening. Instead, she was trying to determine what it was exactly that drew her to him. He was not strikingly beautiful but he seemed to have a face that grew on her.

When she finally flatly asked him out after numerous not-so-sure flirtations, he mumbled under his breath, wordings she could not quite place.

“Eh?” She.

“Eh?” He.

“What did you say?”

“Go out as per how?” he asked.

“Like a date.” Even though she had done this before, she felt quite silly now.

He promised her he’d think about it and went away. Then he began avoiding her. She would not think much of it because she had the protest on her hand especially with screaming ‘Aluta continua’ alongside fellow ‘comrades’ and blocking traffic just close to the school.

Later he texted her; “Considering what you asked and why I didn’t say anything, it’s not because something is wrong with you. Just saying.”

It honestly hadn’t dawned to her that there was something wrong with her but her self-esteem took a sudden jolt. She said nothing.
Him: Are you still there?
Her: Yes.
Him: It’s just that I’m not in the right frame of mind at the moment. If it makes any sense?

It didn’t really make any sense and her effort to push further yielded no results. Finally, she dropped it.
He invited her for an outing and all through, he excitedly talked about how nice it was that they had ‘that dating stuff’ out of the way.
“I really like you as a friend,” he told her.
The next time she saw him was in between classes at school. By now, the protest had quelled and the school fees had been increased.

He was with a girl, a fair girl he was being very chummy with. He said, “This is my friend, Uju,” and the girl jokingly said, “So we are just friends now abi?”

She watched them walk away, tickling each other as people who were in the cheesy beginning stages of a relationship did.

That evening, he texted her, ‘hi’ and she left it on read. Then she deleted his number so that she didn’t have to see his WhatsApp status.

She let herself imagine that he would come around, that he’d call and tell her he missed her and that perhaps he’d come to his senses and that he had left that obnoxious fair girl he had in his arms.

His call or text never came and after weeks, she forgot about him.

The next time she saw him, they were walking on opposite sides of the road. He waved at her; a greeting that announced its formality, that seemed to say, “Look oo, I’m greeting you no.”
She waved back.