The 'S' Hub

Captain Attah Nameless girl isn’t in the sitting room watching Telemundo, neither is she in the bedroom or any of the other rooms. I search the kitchen and all the closets and still don’t find her. I go out back in search of her and more than think of screaming her name, but there’s just no name to scream. I sigh and get back into the house. I check the wardrobe where all of her clothes had been neatly folded. They’re gone. I glance at the bedside stool where she’d left her handbag. That too is gone. “Now what the heck is this?” You don’t get to change girls like baby diapers and expect not to encounter an evil spirit. “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Well, every day, they say, is for the thief and one day for the owner of the house? “Who is the thief and who’s the owner of this house, huh?” It makes no sense speaking to oneself so I shut up, moreover, all the questions feel like fucking rhetoric. I don’t even need the small voice in my head, which has been restless as of late, to

Buchi Agwu Julie had asked to spend the night at my place as we’d left Njideka’s very late and her house was in a mess. As always, I said Yes. I usually can’t say no to a lady’s request, except one for sex, that is. But last night, Julie hadn’t asked for sex. She’d asked for the opposite, in fact. When we got to the house, my parents were already asleep, but mom, inquisitive as ever, had still shuffled into the sitting room dopey-eyed to check who it was breaking into the house. I’ve warned her several times to be stealthy about these checks and to always take along with her an object for protection. There’s the heavy store padlock, now useless like the store itself, lying idle on the old fridge in the kitchen, the pestle behind the kitchen door, knives on their rack, and even the mopping stick, if she doesn’t want to hurt someone’s son. She seems to have grown certain that no intruder will break into her house. She smiled at seeing Julie and even hugged her, but that was

DAY 3 Edisemi Thompson My kitchen feels alien without Njideka. I take out the soup she made before we both went to her place from the fridge and nuke it. There’s semovita and poundo to go with it but simply because I don’t know how both are prepared I decide I’ll eat the soup like that, the way you’ll eat up a bowl of porridge beans. I tell myself that I never liked to swallow stuff with soup, but I smile at the recollection of the feel of rolling into little balls the last poundo Njideka had made. It felt immaculate as well sliding down my throat. My mom always said Okro soup made the swallow meal more of an enjoyment than work. She truly hated swallow meals. Njideka’s Okro soup was more than enjoyment, it felt like having uncountable rounds of sex with Butch in one night with the AC sweetly prickling the skin. Now, about sex, Captain is still in bed in my room. I’m going to tell him he snored like a Hippo last night, forcing me to spend the remaining part of t

Njideka Ime Supper is ready, but as is a custom in the house, it isn’t eaten until 7 pm. I anticipate tonight’s supper because of our guests. We hardly have people hang around long enough for supper. We all await the arrival of Julie. Butch is back with my dad and probably getting some fatherly advice. I’m in the kitchen rechecking that every single item on the supper menu, if there ever is a written menu for supper , is ready; and my mom? Her absence in here is absurd. She’d always hang around long after the meals have been prepared, tidying up and checking that nothing was left uncooked. This is a culture I’ve been brought up to and albeit my mom should retire from it as I’ve come of age and can handle it all by myself, she wouldn’t drop it. Times when she was down with sickness, she’d still find the strength to sit in here – right in the chair where she’d sat stunned while Edisemi stormed out of the house in her fit of pique – and supervise the whole process. I trans