My book of short stories will be free on Amazon from 5 to 9 October. I wrote this collection of short stories during the MA Creative Writing course at Rhodes University. I found the experience exhilarating and explored different ways of telling a story, which is evident in this collection.
Below an extract from Akere, a fantasy. The meaning of Akere in Africtionary: a word used in Setswana and Yoruba languages. In Setswana it means “isn’t it?” or “is it not?” while in Yoruba, it can mean a diligent person, a small frog.
“You were watching the mating dance of the deer-men. They had formed two lines with their antlers held high. You noticed that their white and tan hair lay flat on their bodies. Kick-kick, shuffle-shuffle. High jump. Forward, backward. Side to side. Their hooves, polished for the occasion, reflected the light from the blue haze of the fertility goddess, a statue of a mother and child. The air was filled with cologne from their musk glands situated under one of their back hooves.
Your eye fell on a tall one. His antlers had many branches. When he danced, his hind leg muscles rippled. You saw that he could probably run fast. He was so taken up by the movement that his loose lips peeled back to reveal the tough membrane of his top gums and uneven lower teeth. You were amused. Your eyes met and then he was dancing for you alone.
Later his loose lips fulfilled its promise of being a good kisser. Then Jessie appeared. She sat down at your table, uninvited, drinking, staring at him from under her lashes until he felt the heat of her gaze. Her unmistakable offering entrapped him. Glancing from a maybe to a sure thing, he was in a quandary. And then he was gone.
Amid the merriment you were sad. You had lost your suitor, your best friend and part of your motherland. You noticed that there were no flowers in the occupied territory. Then you remembered that the deer-men ate the grass, plants, flowers, buds, twigs, stems and the leaves. When food was scarce they ate the bark off the trees.”
I found my confidence as a writer on this course for which I’ll always be grateful.
If you’d like to read my collection please click here
Cornelia Smith Fick 