The Inheritance

by C.T. Muchemwa

Taona did not shed a single tear when his baba died. Not when he heard the news. Not when he greeted his father’s wife and she wailed at the sight of his face. Not even when they lowered his father’s shiny black casket into the grave and his sea of half-sisters wept.

Those who watched him at the funeral would say that Taona stood like a man. But he really stood as an only son whose father had never recognised him because his mother refused to be a mistress. She was holding out to be a second wife. A lot of good that had done her. She lived in poverty while her competition enjoyed the benefits of being the girlfriends of one of the richest men in Harare. So, no, Taona had not cried.

But now, standing outside Baba’s lawyers’ offices, a solitary tear formed in Taona’s right eye, and gently rolled down his cheek, a perfect drop burgeoning with feelings of absolute joy. For he was now holding the keys to a second-hand Honda Fit. It wasn’t new, but it was his. His inheritance. The bespectacled old man standing next to him told Taona the message his baba had left for him.

“Your father said this car will make a man of you,” the lawyer said. “It’s the kind of gift that forces you to decide who you want to be. Choose wisely.” (Continue Reading…)

Carina

by Anna Kahn

“I’ve had a baby. Still feels strange that you don’t know that — I’ve been looking forward to telling you. She’s called Sophie, which you might have feelings about, and that’s OK. I want you to know I think of you fondly and often. I guess that’s everything.”

Sophie replayed the recording. Carina’s lovely soft voice.

“You just missed her,” the citadel’s newest receptionist said.

“I always do.” A baby? There was joy in that, behind the anger — not just normal existence-of-babies joy, but fiercer, an illogical, selfish joy that the Carina Sophie knew fighting and scrabbling through her twenties would have a baby.

“Can’t you catch up or something?”

Sophie hadn’t realised the receptionist was that new. She could already feel herself slipping away. (Continue Reading…)

The Immortal Rabbit

By Audris Candra

Your most painful death fell upon you when your soulmate had forgotten who you were.

You’d shared a kiss in a previous life, under the lush grape vines on the cusp of Mediterranean hills. His lips were tender with wine, yours raw from his two front teeth.

“We’re immortal,” you said. “Because when our flesh fails us, I will find you.”

You had died together then, on the same battlefield, to defend your homeland against the Romans.

In this life you’re forced to balance on your toes under the golden brush of the ginkgo tree just to catch a glimpse of him. Here he sat on a porcelain garden stool, spine straight and hands smooth from a good life led as a Qing dynasty imperial official. (Continue Reading…)