The Essays
Hold for Brian’s editor’s statement
—Brian Borchard
Creative Nonfiction Editor
the weight of other people’s expectations
Jeffrey Ejekhine
Instances of injustice, big and small, have a way of lingering with me: I find myself examining the world before me. Sometimes they appear as huge, systemic failures. Sometimes they occur in the backseat of a stifling keke maruwa.
It was a sunny afternoon, and I was on my way to my best friend Tonye’s house in Badore, within Ajah, near Co-operative Villa. The Ajah bus stop still pulsed with trade activities. A crazy world where noisy traders, passengers, and vehicles perpetually contended for space. The air was heavy with the pungent odors of feces, urine, and unmanaged waste, mixed with the bitter smoke of revving engines, that created a suffocating haze. I always walked briskly whenever I arrived at Ajah bus stop, as if the quicker I moved, the less the city could touch me.
sensitivities
Jon MacDougal
My behaviour was an issue, which is why we were going there in the first place. Ritalin-laced ice cream, attachment therapy, beatings, and vague but constant threats about being sent to a boarding home had failed to soothe my wild, nine-year-old spirit, so this was the next logical step.
“You’re to be on your best behaviour, understood?”
I gave a perfunctory nod to Mom’s non-question. Her voice was on edge. Her voice was often that way, as she had been living on black tea, rye crispbreads, and angel hair pasta for months. She had also learned that she was allergic to sunlight and grass, which meant that my sister and I hardly left our neighbourhood that summer.
