Short Fiction & Essays
Published across literary journals in Nigeria and worldwide since 2014.
Short Story · 5 min
She shrugged. “I can tell you the date of your birth and what happened when you were born. I can tell you the kind of food you’d ever had… even, young man, the number of women you have bedded. . .” she paused. She held my gaze and said, “I know that you are going to die by this time next week.”
Temitayo closed the door. He peeped through the keyhole, watching her unbutton her shirt. His mouth flew open. Her breasts were massive and threatened to burst the brassiere. She folded and laid her shirt gently on the plastic chair by the foot of the bed, on top his pile of clothes. He swallowed all the saliva in his mouth and watched as she hesitated before unzipping her skirt. She pulled it down and folded it before placing it on top her shirt. She lay on his bed. He continued to watch, uncomfortable, filled with uncontrollable desire and lust. He heard her snores.
I know a man who concluded he had had enough of the troubles in the world and decided to kill himself.
So the night he talked about a second wife, she read him Haruki Murakami’s Scheherazade. He found it interesting. When the story ended, he took the iPad from her, placed it on the bedside stool and wrapped her in his arms; perhaps the affection between the characters in the story had affected him. She thought it possible that if they made love that night, she might conceive, and she cried—the kind of weeping that one does without producing any sound, yet tears stream down from the eyes.
Then the sky changed and shadows were cast to the earth, the wind blew and raised some dust, and the deity rose from the mask. It was in the form of a beast with seventy-seven horns. But the head was that of an elderly woman, for women were the greatest of deities and the most wicked of all, but when a deity was of good spirit and generous, it was often found to be female – such was the nature of female deities. Such was the irony of nature.
She brought out one of her breasts and asked him to put his mouth there. He was shivering, but he did as she instructed. She stroked his head with one hand and touched his manhood with the other and in less than a minute felt his ejaculation on his trousers.
Your mother was having an affair with a man in his late sixties who had just returned from Equatorial Guinea and never stopped talking endlessly about life over there.
It was the girl of the night earlier, still dressed exactly the same way – in flat striped slippers, leg chain and – possibly waist beads or chain – skimpy, fanciful short gown, and a chain with a pendulum pendant on her neck. She looked as elegant as ever, perhaps more so, because I was now seeing her in a different light. She stood a bit back, a hand on her waist, the other fingering her phone, waiting, watching, a hint of a smile on her lips. She had intention, I could see.
Jeremiah believed small women were trouble. He had dated many; seven, eight, he could not remember, but to him, all of them were difficult people, and he liked that they were.
You get to her flat and open the door, without knocking. The packet of condom is in your hand. What you see makes blood rush into your brain. She is standing facing the door, and kissing a tall, broad shouldered man so intimately. Her eyes meet yours and she untangles herself. The man turns and you hurriedly throw the packet in your hand to the back of the cushion opposite you. Her eyes implore you to be calm.
Talking to a Lizard is one of Obinna Udenwe's earliest stories, published in 2014 in the anthology, African Roar.
"I am the one who … who … had … who had an aff …" the young man looks away, before completing the sentence, "relationship with your wife that ruined your marriage."
Some of your patrons call you a killer. Others call you a murderer, hit man, thug, slayer, and all what-nots.
Then he saw it – billows of smoke rose from one side of the building. Was Patina burning some things
The lady took a drink and approached him, glass in hand. She poured the content of the glass on Dad’s head and before he could utter a word, he felt her mouth on his shaved head, licking, then on his neck, ears, chest, shirt.
This story published in full here first appeared in Gutter Magazine
While in the arms of the prostitute, Father dreamt again. In this dream, he saw Adaugo with his daughter dressed in what appeared to be nightwear, running away from him.
Salamatu thought about the girls. The first died in a very crude way, killed by marauding terrorists. The second disappeared and did not want anything to do with him after they made love by the tamarind tree – after he couldn’t get it up in his room.
The day Ugonne's husband discovered she was having an affair he had just returned from the construction site where the United Nations was building improved water channels across the city.
The line between fiction and reality is very thin.
Obinna Udenwe
Join the inner circle for exclusive updates on new releases, readings, and literary reflections.