FICTION: Top 10 Entries for the JB Afenfia Flash Fiction Contest 2018

Late last year, I announced a call for entries into the JB Afenfia Flash Fiction Contest. And as expected, entries came from everywhere. The stories were so good that it was tough for the judges to pick top 10. However, of the lot, these ten made it and were formally announced on the first day of 2019. (Check the call for entries here.)

Read and please let me know which is your personal favourite.

 

1^st

Israel Mercy (@nwachiii)

Mondays are like that: The familiar song of mother’s fists pounding into father’s flesh and his silent screams that deafen me. The neighbours must not hear this song. I sit at my corner watching them. Father cowers, holding in his pain. He’s a man, and mother, a woman. I’m used to this scene, so I walk away. I’m close to the door when mother screams so loudly that I look back.
Mother is on the floor. Father fought back for the first time but he’s trying to shake life back into her. Today can’t be Monday.

 

2^nd

Azeeza Adeowu (@the.zyzah)

Mondays are like that: busy, in haste. This haste is what I liked. It means people would rather give me naira than bring out their car documents.
A range rover was coming, “Stop the car,” I signalled.
“Car Particulars,” I requested as he wound down the glass, “tint permit too,” I added.
He smiled, reached to the pocket of his green agbada and brought out 1000 naira notes. No sooner had he driven off than I realised something was missing from my body.
My hands found my zipper. I ran like Monday, in haste, yelling, “My Penis, My Penis!”

 

3^rd

Terence Chijindu James-Ibie (@terence_jindu)

Mondays are like that for us who serve in our Lord’s vineyard. They are peaceful, days of rest and gratification. I’d call it my personal Sabbath but the congregation might term that blasphemy. I’m uneasy today however, after Christie and her husband presented their baby at thanksgiving last Sunday. I watched her husband observe me and the baby’s honey-coloured skin and light brown eyes. I’d been praying with Christie privately to bless her marriage with a child. Why couldn’t the man be grateful to God for answering their prayers? I just hope God answers mine regarding the paternity test results.

 

4^th

Obinna Frederick Nwachukwu 

“Mondays are like that,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” John replied.

With bodies laced in ecstasy, John quivered. His breathe rapid. “The traffic is maddening,” he stammered.

“Yeah. I know,” she replied smiling.

John had prayed for that day to come. To ride in his own Ferrari and wake up in his own house to the light of the morn.

And she was the perfect sacrifice. The tool to make his dream see the light of dawn.

Slowly, John pulled the knife free from his pocket. But his head was seen later, dangling freely from her grip.

John was the perfect sacrifice.

 

5^th

Bryan Joe Okwesili (purple_bryan)

Mondays are like that if you mean typing at work, red street lights, brown-yellow bolle wrapped in newspapers and shades of stress thickening into a piercing fatigue. But there is something about Ekene’s eyes that makes this particular Monday evening a little different – grey, the colour of lust. He leans forward and whispers in my ears, “We could do it once and never speak of it.” The warmth of his breath against my neck makes my nipples harden like pigeon peas. I do not touch him, do not look at him. The feelings are mutual but so are our surnames.

6^th

@_josephiinne_

Mondays are like that, silent – apart from the occasional crack of knuckles from the next room. Pa snorts a line of the white powder then nods to you to finish off the remaining. You always decline but today is different. Today you press your nose to the white and inhale deeply, hoping if it hits deep enough, it would obliterate the image of your wife writhing underneath your best friend, moaning out his name exactly how she used to do yours, so deep in pleasure she never saw either of the bullets coming.

7^th

Emmanuel Oluwaseyi (@Lazypoet__)

Mondays are like that. One more lifeless body of an innocent student lying, with 2 pieces of candies in his hand. I wipe my blood-dripping knife, place it in my bag and bring out my blood-stained jotter. “17/20”, I write. Mondays will keep being like this, for the next 3 weeks.

 

8^th

Victor Pelumi Akintade (@i_am_a_j_victor)

Mondays are like that. The scars of the night before, the white of the bed stained with the red of my innocence. Each Sunday night, the priest comes into my room with his whip, and his “loaded gun” ready to unload the weight of the service before.
My Mondays are generally uneventful, except for the occasional gait in my walk, as I go about cleaning the church premise, knowing that my pain is mine to bear, as the priest who has defiled me, will sit and listen to my confession in the evening on Monday.
My Mondays are like that.

 

9^th

Eze Ifeanyichukwu Peter  

Mondays are like that.

I mean like this. I’m squeezed among bodies like a worn clothe in a bus. The heat pricks like a thousand needles even though the harmattan is yawning outside.

The bus dances in and out of potholes like a child playing hide and seek. I can’t read the book I’m carrying because the words scamper before my eyes.

Fela’s I No Be Gentleman jams from the stereo. My heart leaps. My head nods vertically like it wants to leave my body. But it doesn’t leave because I’m still in bed, sprawled like rag, wondering why I overslept.

 

10^th

Oladipo Samuel‏ (@Olasammie_)

“Mondays are like that,” she says furiously. “Very naughty and disobedient beings.”

“I’m Sunday mah” He says amidst sobs. He couldn’t convince the principal that his identical twin brother, Monday, was the one who beat up the teacher.