This House
by Ahmad Adedimeji Amobi
I mustn’t take a step further. This house hoards the memories that shred before me. My father, sitting on his long back chair, holding his pipe in his hand, blowing flames into the air. My mother, preparing Amala and any soup that goes with it in the kitchen, going from here to there and from there to here, picking a pot, a spoon, a stirrer, a cup, some water, vegetables and sniffing back the mucus trying to sneak out of her nose. My brother, tapping palm wine from the palm tree outside while the thwack-thwack of his cutlass makes him sweat and breathe faster and seem oily.
I must not take a step further into this house that cannot save my father and his chair from burning. This house that cannot save my mother from the flames clouding her up in the kitchen and cannot save my brother from jumping in. This house has become dust already, I must not take a step further into the ashes of the bodies of my family.
Ahmad Adedimeji Amobi is a penultimate student of English and Literary Studies at the University of Ilorin. He was shortlisted for the 2018 League of Wordsmiths, prose category and was long listed for the maiden Punocracy Prize for Satire. His works have appeared online and imprint on Ethel Zine, LitroUK, Kalahari Review, African Writer, Agbowo and others. He can be reached on Twitter and Instagram via @ahmad_adedimeji.