Blunt Tales and Coffee ☕️

  Fiction: Photo: Martymaine RA. Nyreath Salmon was a woman who firmly believed language was more than just a tool for communication. She held that language was more of memory ingrained into sound. Since she’d initially wanted to become a linguistic anthropologist before finding herself amid blueprints and models, searching for proportion and light, whenever time permitted, she’d bury herself in dead scripts, converting and translating what she could, and mourning the loss of indecipherable things. However, as time progressed, Nyreath’s interest in linguistic anthropology intensified when she began hearing and seeing recurring syllables in languages demarcated by millennia and continents. That was when she realized: something was being said in code—something someone, or a group of people somewhere, didn’t want the average human being to understand just from staring.  Nyreath’s first experience was with a repressed language of the Imazighen, which was initially a symbol on a 1...

  Short story Photo: Pinterest  Umar started texting me again immediately after I got off the plane in Montreal. I told him it was going to be a long week, because I had a lot on my desk, and was currently heading for a shoot at the Notre-Dame Basilica. He said he was going to be there for me all the way, and I told him the only place he could be was his apartment, all the way in Abuja—thousands of miles away from me. He replied with two laughing emojis and said he couldn't wait for me to return to Nigeria. To his aching arms.  ⚫️ The Aftermath ⚫️ I go into the semi-tight locker room and change from my previous attire into my current one. This show will be my last in Montreal, and I am quite nervous because I want it to go smoothly . Fuzz comes in, sweating lightly, telling me I have been called to perform. I nod and rush over my outfit and make-up, dabbing the beauty blender unevenly over my foundation-filled face. Occasionally, I take a few glances at my phone, looking ...

Short Story Photo: Pinterest Folks don’t give a f*ck why you’re on the road. They just know you've got to do what you've got to do when you're on it. Me? I never wanted this life, but I learned to live and love it. I didn’t get up one morning and think, “Yup! I’mma risk jail to flex on the gram. Need dem peng tings to see me clad up in a dark green uniform and cuffs.” Nah, bruv. Mandem was starving, innit. Mum was working four jobs and still couldn't keep the heater or lights on half the time. It was a blessing that we could even afford rent. The clothes on my body were wearing off. Fading. Like my dreams and aspirations to be a star. You sleep at night with a stomach and mind filled with wishes, and you wake up in the morning to realise they actually were just wishes. ‘Cause your likkle siblings are by your side now, talking in hushed tones about their stomachs rumbling. And your mum is away again, busting her ass off for a country that barely cares if you live or die....