Secrets: Kami’s Story| Winner of the 2016 ELSA Flash Fiction Award

Kami blinked her eyes a thousand times as the pungent gas of the onion wafted to her, forcing tears from her eyes. Then she continued chopping; the rhythmic clop clop clop of the knife on the board synchronised with the beats of her heart.

I shouldn’t have stayed so long at Shola’s.

It was the promise of Shola’s stories that had first drawn her to going to her shack to buy petty goods even though there was a kiosk right next to her little bungalow. On the day she decided to stay awhile at the shack, those stories kept her forcing her nipple into Baby’s mouth whenever she squirmed for a diaper change. Shola usually only paused in her ‘gisting’ when a customer came to buy one of the almost-expired things in her shop. It was only during this time that Kami would sneak out through the back entrance.

Yet that day sixteen customers came and went without Kami moving from her seat.

“That woman eh. She is a real ashi. I heard she sometimes goes on ‘business’ trips to Okwa to meet big-big men. The money her husband gives her is not enough. Do you blame the poor man for getting one small girl pregnant? Imagine!”

Kami stayed relatively quiet as she usually did during these conversations, with regular interjections of “Eehn?” and “You mean…