‘What can I do? I’ve tried everything,’ said Isabella, her voice choking with sobs. ‘Have you tried nothing?’ Asked Dr Matthew with a kind smile ‘What do you mean?’ ‘In the four months you’ve been working on this musical composition, how many [...]

He latches the solid wood door behind himself and sends his jacket flying onto her armoire. He nonchalantly glares through the dark to make up how she must be lying on the King-size. With his right foot, he shoves off his brown oxford shoe off [...]

Khaya looked at the bright blue coffin, wondering why anyone would choose such a tacky colour to be buried in. Coffins were supposed to be dark, elegant and made of mahogany, not something her 8-year-old son could have coloured in. Her stomach [...]

I looked in the mirror and admired the pretty beads in my hair. I positively looked like a child with my Minnie mouse t-shirt, wide-legged blue jeans and braids adorned with beads of multiple colours. I must confess, I had missed wearing beads [...]

Mother never buys me any toys. I cry until I sleep. When I wake and remember what I was crying about, I wail some more. I understand now that she had the option of getting me a toy or feeding us. She chose what I could easily forget about. [...]

“You might want to check this out!” Lydia’s partner who was still in utter shock had called her in. And when she came around, she realized that the woman who had been reducing the population of twins over the past few years was her long-lost [...]

Sally swayed from the weight of her khaki backpack. News of gorillas in the land of a thousand hills had left her gazing at the sky’s lamps for a fortnight. Now standing in the heart of Africa, she wished for many things; fresh air from the [...]

Those were the last days of May. Little ragamuffins kicked the skull around. They were playing football. Children who had survived the very worst, children who would be the victims of the very worst. They kicked the skull around. They laughed. [...]

Anna loved telling her patients jokes and light-hearted stories to distract them from their troubled minds that led them to psychiatry Ward B. Imms was a new patient, a man who was the lone survivor of a bus accident. He didn’t speak much, he [...]

You know what I see when I try to recall you? It’s not the gaping maw that was your mouth as you lay on the dusty road. Not your necklace of blood, not the bits of flesh clinging to the hot sand, not even the scattered teeth gleaming under the [...]

My mother was a fighter. It was all she ever did. She spent three days in labour fighting to give birth to me and spent the rest of her life fighting for mine. All Mother ever did was struggle. I don’t remember a moment when her hands were not [...]

“Look at your face,” they say. “Look how it holds lifetimes of people who loved each other. Their loving is nestled between the gaps of your teeth and cradled in the rooks of your ears. It swings across the tips of your lashes.” I look at my [...]