Here you’ll find merch, Issue #31 story excerpts, and the issue’s Spotify playlist. So take a look, and make sure you haven’t missed anything!
Artwork by Kaitlin Edwards
Story Previews
When the demon slayer arrived at Tse-Abiem village, everyone was disappointed. Before his coming, the villagers had conjured all kinds of possible and impossible images in their minds. Some said the demon slayer was the biggest giant that ever lived. Some said when he walked, the ground tremble, while others said he carried a spear so big, all the men in the village combined wouldn’t be able to lift it.
No one knew where the fantastic tales originated, but they were what everyone came to believe, so on the appointed day of the demon slayer’s arrival, the villagers paid no attention when a dwarfish man, just about four feet, six inches tall and barely a hundred pounds, walked leisurely to the village square.
“I’m here to see the Tyoor,” the little man said, addressing the eldest of the men playing cards.
The men cast brief looks at the little man and continued their game. One of the younger men replied, “The Tyoor can’t see you today. He is meeting an important guest. There won’t be time for trivial matters.”
A 70-year-old man was rushed to the hospital complaining about a horrible pain in his leg. A pain that would not stop no matter what he did. Every test, treatment and diagnosis has only resulted in more questions. The doctors, with no other choice, had to cut into his skin to find out the cause. What they found was an infestation of worms.
Maybe that story was true, or maybe it was just an urban legend. But these worms were now everywhere. From one-month-old infants to geriatric patients in ICU, anyone could become a nest to these awful creatures.
Yet no one cared.
The worms could cause the growth of extra teeth, irritation and inflammation of the tissue in the mouth, but the world seemed to have gone mad and considered this new ailment as nothing more serious than the common cold. The illness was not fatal so the infected were just given the instructions to wait out the symptoms and let it all pass.
It’s late afternoon, we just had nshima and everyone is catatonic, melted into place by this heat. I tried to convince Dad to take me to the salon to get my hair braided but he’d rather lock himself away, gathering dust in that stuffy office. I can’t wait for this year to be over so I can leave for university instead of endlessly trudging from my bedroom to the kitchen and back, stumbling over Auntie Jane as she sweeps or mops circles around me.
I’ve been having these dreams. So blinding I can almost feel them. Dreams always make boring stories, so I won’t even try to write them down in this notebook, but they are digging away at me, making me want to find out more. I told Dad about them at supper last night, not because I wanted to, but because the cloud of silence hovering over the dining table was choking me. Of course, he clammed up, just like he does whenever I mention anything to do with Mum. Which is weird because I didn’t actually say that Mum was in the dreams.
If he won’t talk to me, then I’ll just have to find out for myself, and that means pulling the sheets off the pile of stuff he’s hidden away in the garage.
“I musta been thirteen, the night the stars fell.”
Papa Ezekiel sits in the rocking chair, boards creaking as the ancient porch sags beneath his weight. His hand drums on the arm rest, and a flake of the long-faded paint drifts down to the boards below. June watches it fall. She loves to watch things fall.
“Tell me again,” she says. She’s heard the story as long as she’s been alive; hell, like as not she’s heard it longer.
“You sure you wanna know?” He lifts his head to her, the cataracts of his eyes as white as the moon that glows above them. Papa Ezekiel always knows where June is, even when she thinks she’s quiet. That man knows everything.
“Course I am. Told me a thousand times.”
Papa Ezekiel shakes his head; inclines it to the porch beside him. June in her weather-worn calico skirts obeys, sinks down onto the spot she’s sat in so many times she reckons the boards remember her. High above her head, the blue of the porch roof is brighter than the night.
Poem: “Giant Robot and His Person” by Akua Lezli Hope
Poem: “we stim to the moment” by Camille Hernandez
Poem: “Go Body Go!” by Taylor Mckinnon
Artist Interview: Kaitlin Edwards
Shop Issue Thirty-One
FIYAH #31: DISABILITY
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