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Issue #8 is coming on December 13th!
Featuring 10 new short stories and essays by emerging and established Black women writers from the U.S., Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe, this issue introduces characters fighting themselves and others to get what they deserve, accepting love and life in different ways, and understanding the power of choice.
Contributors include: Muli Amaye | Caitlyn Hunter | Courtney Johnson (@courtney_thewriter) | Leandra Marshall | Kendra Y. Mims-Applewhite (@kymwrites) | Valerie Morales | Justin Teopista Nagundi (@justin.teopista.nagundi) | Hannah Onoguwe (@HannahOnoguwe) | Crystal S. Rudds | Lesley Younge (@teacher.lesley).
[/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”BUY ISSUE 8″ color=”juicy-pink” size=”lg” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmidnight-indigo.com%2Fcollections%2Fliterary-journals%2Fproducts%2Fissue-8|title:Buy%20button|target:_blank”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]IN THIS ISSUE[/vc_column_text][vc_tta_accordion style=”modern” active_section=”” collapsible_all=”true”][vc_tta_section title=”“Blue and White” by Valerie Morales”][vc_column_text]
Mia and her daughter, Cleopatra, are all that is left of a four-person family. Daddy Henry is in jail. First born Josh is dead. How do they go on? First: they paint Josh’s room.
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PREVIEW
Gingerly, Mia tried to move to the music without something hurting. But her hips reminded her: she’d been on her feet too long. Unable to dance it out, she stopped abruptly, inhaling and fingering the lint in her pocket, unaware she looked like an elegant pencil.
Mia lived in a narrow house up the road from a playground. It was a popular neighborhood called Twin Doves with nearly all the houses painted some variation of white or gray. The houses bordered the Seamon Creek and when it rained Mia slept deeply, listening to the rising water outside her window.
As the sky darkened and still in her uniform—she had pulled a ten hour shift—Mia wondered about dinner, the choices. She hadn’t cooked in over a month. Casseroles were still in the freezer, some with crawfish, others with andouille sausage. Also, there was leftover ham. She called out to the television room and Cleo came in a hurry.
“Don’t run in the house I told you.” Cleo was fat like her father, Henry. Her gait was lopsided and awkward, and it looked like she was about to fall on her face. “Hungry?”
Cleo had to think on it. “No.”
“Okay then, follow me.”
She had spoken with Cleo about this moment. Before the wake. And then before the funeral. She told her what was next. What was coming. Mia hated surprises.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”My Sé or His” by Crystal S. Rudds”][vc_column_text]Twins Gina and Reggie disagree on how to make peace with being abandoned by their parents.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]PREVIEW
When the call comes, as Ma said it would, I am watching the rain weep small streams down my window. It’s as if a giant candle has been pressed against the glass, and on the side I can see, its wax melts like running water. Beads of rain zigzag then stretch themselves into determined, straight lines. They hit my windowsill, and like the thought of candles crying, its peeling paint depresses me. The phone rings, but I am listening to the thumps of water drops on the leaves. The rattling outdoors reminds me that my air conditioner is off, though I feel very cool standing where I am. It’s Reggie, of course, so I cradle the phone in my neck and watch my fists in the dough of the onion bread I’m kneading.
“I’m sure Ma has already called you,” Reggie says.
“Yeah, I talked to her.”
There is silence, and I try to picture what he looks like, reaching for words about our father’s death. Maybe his black knuckles drum on the kitchen counter, his left pinky drawn up tight enough to cramp. He does this when he thinks, but I know it’s a habit meant to distract people from his finger, which our cousin Knock-Knock maimed on a dare when we were children. Maybe he’s looking in the bathroom mirror and rubbing a worried hand across his brow. He has always been a worrier, my brother, even as early as six. The night before first grade, a week after D.C.F. released us to our mother’s mother, Ma, she had us curled up in a twin bed as awkward as baby goats, and for three hours, or however long until we fell asleep, Reggie burned my ears with his sniveling. But what about this, Gi? And what about this? And what about and what about…
[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”“The Other Side” by Kendra Y. Mims-Applewhite”][vc_column_text]
Two strangers and their husbands check in to Paradise Resort for a much-needed break. A problem with a room reservation sets off an expected chain series of events.
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Ruthie Collins sensed something was wrong the moment the concierge furrowed his thick brows and squinted his eyes at the computer screen, his gap-toothed grin deflating when he asked her to repeat her reservation number. She held up her phone to show him the confirmation email for the Chalet Deluxe, the most coveted suite at Paradise Resort. The reason she and Eddie drove five hours despite the winter storm watch.
Ruthie surveyed the lobby while she waited for him to sort out the matter. The gleam in her eyes returned as she took in her surroundings— crystal chandeliers dangled from the high-vaulted glass ceiling like diamond drop earrings, the marble floors glittered with specks of gold, and in the center of it all, four brass lion heads spouted water into the wall fountain’s flower shaped basin. The online photo gallery did not capture its beauty.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Collins, but I’m not seeing a reservation for that particular suite under your name,” he said, confusion seeping through his voice after she repeated the number for the third time. He leaned closer to the computer and adjusted his glasses, and with a few clicks on the keyboard, the crease in his forehead disappeared. His toothy smile returned.[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”“Forsythia” by Leandra Marshall”][vc_column_text]
Twelve years after the dissolution of their relationship, Winifred reconnects with her high school best friend, Alecia. Their reunion unearths memories of their bond and a fondness for Alecia that Winifred often mistook for typical adolescent idolization.
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PREVIEW
There are no yellow lights in the grocery store, no warmth to soften the hard cold outside the cloudy sliding glass doors, no muted glow to romanticize walking alone in the frozen food aisle, scanning the rows for low-carb, low-fat, low-joy single-serve meals, no golden film to wash the room in intimate sepia tones.
Last night, on the testimony of the stout, pie-faced man who sat across from Winifred with regret in the crinkled corners of his eyes and twisted upper lip, she was frigid. She carries it with her, still shivering from the shoulder he gave her when she had listed, in great detail, her needs and wants, her deal-breakers, her will and will-nots.
In the frosted glass door, she traces a heart with a slack fingertip and exhales opaque into the freezer where the boxes breathe too, as if to welcome her into their insensate company. When met with the choice between Salisbury steak and beef stroganoff, she chooses neither and turns her cart toward the exit, succumbing to the pull of the dip in her center sofa cushion.
At the end of the aisle, a woman catches her eye, familiar in looks and in the instantaneous, arresting effect her presence has on Winifred’s unsuspecting heart rate. Two children trail behind her, reaching for the rusted metal cart. A girl, round-cheeked with a dozen plastic barrettes clicking along with the bounce in her step, and a boy swinging his arms back and forth. They sing, in harmony, “Momma, momma!” Big dark brown eyes stare up at their mother and she sighs, something long-suffering and tired, a softness in her answering gaze that wraps its gentle grasp around Winifred’s throat.
They were friends once, communicating in whispers, huddled close in the hallways at school, giggling and cutting their eyes, each five-minute passing period a reunion in its own right. After school, they’d dance in her bedroom to scratched CDs and fuss with each other’s hair, sharing daydreams about their plans for their future, comfortable in a proximity that they had no reason to think was temporary.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”“A Threadbare Throne” by Justin Teopista Nagundi”][vc_column_text]
Ndagaano Esther, flees the village of Mukeeka and her mother’s resentment for Kampala city. Returning home in disgrace to confront the ghosts of her past, she realizes that womanhood carries obligations both in town and country.
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Muwanga’s reappearance in Mukeeka causes unprecedented commotion at the borehole. Unmarried daughters discuss him with gesticulating hands and incessant giggles at sundown. Disinterested wives thank the spirits they married in time to escape the tempest of emotions he unleashes in their younger sisters.
Ndagaano Esther nearly leaps out of her skin when she spies his unmistakable profile on her second day back home. He still sports a circular patch of hair on his chin; still scrunches his face, colored like a patch of dust on a window sill, when he concentrates. On seeing him seated on a bench outside the village dduuka, her shopping list flies clean out of her head.
Teenage rivalries with her well-endowed (and much sought-after sister) rise from the earth to haunt her. As she turns heel to march back home, he calls after her.
“Otya nno, Ndagaano?” How did you sleep?
“Bulungi, ssebo…” Very well, sir.
“Are you still at home?”
Does he wish to know how many times she has tried to escape her mother’s clutches ever since he left? It was one disastrous attempt; her ego still nurses the wounds.
“Yes, ssebo,” she says—ssebo, because he is her senior. Is he thirty-five now? “I am.”
Tilting his head as though his gaze was liquid, he looks at her head wrapped in a floral scarf, her brown face with spaced eyes and thin lips. He drinks in her short neck and hunched shoulders. When she thinks he cannot appraise her any longer, he looks at her midsection. City food does not agree with her. She still suffers stomachaches and indigestion. Her arms fly instinctively over her torso, over the drab dress with a lesu tucked under her armpits. Her feet are bare. She digs one toe into the earth until it hits a stone.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”“In Josephine’s Bed” by Muli Amaye”][vc_column_text]Josephine was a servant for many years, and on his death bed, the master promised her his bed and her freedom.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]PREVIEW
Josephine lay on the dirt floor in her newly built room.
“Measure,” she said, “from here so to here.”
The boy looked confused.
“But Miss Josephine, you did say was bed you want, not coffin.”
“Measure.”
Josephine’s six-foot slimness was portioned with a piece of grubby string to her satisfaction. The boy threw glances around the room, shoulders shrugging. She could feel these movements even though her eyes were fixed on the ceiling. A small undulating smile played on her full lips as she worried the gap in her bottom teeth with the tip of her tongue. The heat from the boy’s body tried to penetrate her worn cotton dress as he leaned across, trying not to come into contact with her old lady body. He smelled of the bush. Earthy and a little pissy. Like rain had fallen on a fresh dug latrine.
Three days later the bed arrived. Two boys struggled in the afternoon heat and the shimmering view from the doorway made the bed look alive. As though the wood was breathing, as though it was coming to her through fire. The boys huffed and called out to each other, arguing about who was carrying what and who wasn’t doing anything. Josephine smiled at their familiarities. The way they were so easy with each other. Clearly, they were brothers. They were together.
Standing aside she let them carry her bed into the room. The rawness of the boys made her catch her breath and step back and she just stopped herself from suggesting they use the water she stored behind the house. Instead, as they set it down, she couldn’t help herself as her eyes ate the bed in front of her. She pushed on the down mattress tucked into the centre of the frame and it gave under the weight of her fingers. She sighed. Pressing against the inlaid pillow on the headboard, it released a puff of air and freshly plucked goose. She rubbed her hands across the footboard, planed to perfection and waxed solid as she’d demanded. Directing them to place it up against the far wall of her room, she couldn’t wait for them to leave. Instead, they stood awkwardly, not meeting her eyes. Shuffling from one dusty boot to the other. Kicking up the earth she had smoothed down that morning.[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”“Men Will Not Surprise You” by Hannah Onoguwe”][vc_column_text]
Nimma has hard evidence that her husband is cheating. She is consumed with what the other woman might look like and has fantasies of confronting him with that knowledge. She is determined to shake things up—even if it destroys a friendship he values.
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Nimma visualized the female behind the text message: sultry of manner, husky of voice, long of leg, generous of ass. She tried not to feel lacking in comparison, the logical part of her brain acknowledging that things were rarely that straightforward. But the other part, the purely emotional part, flew with it and wondered if it was the stretch marks, the roll around her middle, the morning breath, the occasional fart.
Mfon was in the shower and she feverishly looked for a pen and copied the unsaved number onto her palm, the way she used to copy key points in secondary school before an exam. Quickly, because he showered the way Usain Bolt reached the finish line. The text had come into his charging phone just as she was removing the rechargeable lamp from the extension box; it had been connected all day due to the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t power supply and needed a break. Right before her eyes the words filtered in line by line, stilling her world.
When he emerged from the bathroom, her face was embedded in her laptop, Facebook ostensibly on the screen, number tucked away on a yet-unnamed document. Her heartbeat a hot, uneven rap, from the corner of her eye she watched his easy stride in the low-slung towel and resented his attractiveness. How could he?
“I made poundo yam,” she announced as the masculine scent of his bath gel teased her nostrils. He was heading straight for his phone. Was this how a marriage ended—with a relentless replay of banalities?
“Poundo yam?”
Like he didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Yes. Poundo yam.” Patiently. “The yam flour we stir in hot water over a fire.”
Mfon glanced at her briefly, then continued tapping his keypad. Was that the tiniest smile on his face? She watched his expression like it would give her a clue to the meaning of all life. Was he amused at what she’d said or the words of his just-received text which were currently dancing before her eyes like an apparition? She was still struggling to absorb their import.
“It’s a little late for something that heavy,” he said.
Maybe if he had come home earlier like he was supposed to, it wouldn’t be too heavy.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”“Free” by Courtney Johnson”][vc_column_text]It’s summer in the 1970s. Ten-year-old Katherine spends weekends with her grandmother, working in her hair salon.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
PREVIEW
It was a hot Friday evening. Grill smoke in the air. “All Day Music” by War played from a car stopped at the light on the corner. When the light changed green, Katherine’s mother eased in behind the third and last car closest to the white painted brick building. She barely listened as her mother’s voice droned on about people not knowing how to park and why anyone would mess up a good parking spot like that was beyond her. Katherine leaned forward from the back seat of the red station wagon kissing her mother goodbye before grabbing her duffle bag and getting out of the car. She closed the door lifting the door handle, so it locked when closed. She moved quickly yelling over her shoulder, “See you later, Ma!” Though she was in no hurry to work in the heat of the shop, she found it more desirable than listening to her mother fuss.
Yelling from the driver’s seat through the passenger side window she replied, “I’ll pick you up Sunday for church! Be ready when I get there!”
“Okay!” Katherine walked with a bounce in her step as she hummed a familiar tune in her head. The song made her do a little shimmy, to which her mother replied while pulling off, “…and stop all that flouncing and gyrating! And pull your shirt down in back!”
Katherine tapped on the metal surrounding the upper section of the screen door. A lady with a huge mole at the left corner of her top lip wearing a pink, yellow, and white, flowered tank top with matching pink pants unlocked the hook and latch to let her inside. She thanked the woman for letting her in while trying not to stare at the mole.
Heat rays of summer sun were finally giving grace, lowering slowly, like an exhausted eye lid. It shone through the screen door giving light to the hovering smoke inside. To the left of the door were two orange vinyl chairs with hooded dryers attached. Underneath sat clients with rollers, hair nets and plastic ear covers to keep the heat of the dryer from burning. They flipped through Ebony and Jet Magazines selected from the low wooden coffee table in from of them. The smell of pressed hair as Estelle dabbed grease from the back of her hand rose into the air like incense. To the right of the entrance was the sound of water squirting from hoses at the sink. There was a girl sitting atop phone books so that her head would lie gently in the cup of the shining black shampoo bowl. Katherine figured she must be eight or nine years old since she still needed a boost. Having recently celebrated her tenth year, in her mind, she was an expert.
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A married couple takes their family out for an adventurous outing. Damon and Nicole have secrets they are keeping from one another and struggle to reveal them as they navigate what should be smooth waters.
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]I put my hand across my brow to shield my eyes and scan the water. Out in the distance, sail boats and cargo ships float casually across the bay. I lean against the sun warmed railing and look down to see waves gently lapping the pylons below. Ziah grabs my hand, our identically copper fingers entwining. His are warm and sticky, covered in red popsicle juice, a bribe to keep him calm while we wait our turn. A breeze brushes past and momentarily cools the air, which is hotter and more humid than when we arrived.
On the dock below, a deckhand pulls in a green canoe. Three people climb out, two men and a woman. They are red-faced, young, and laughing. One of the men (Zach I name him in my head) reaches back in for their cooler and a plastic bag of empty cans that clank as he hoists them out of the boat. Zach joins Chad and Emily, who are already walking up the ramp. Emily stumbles, tipsy, and Chad grabs her arm. I look past them and their carefree youthful exuberance to see Damon walking down from the boathouse, arms filled with life jackets.
“Finally got one in his size,” he says, grinning victoriously.
I silently take the smaller blue one and slip it over Ziah’s head, then take my own bright orange vest. It is still a little wet from previous use but I poke my head through and slide it down over my week old twist out, focusing intently on clipping each buckle and tightening the straps around my chest.
“Are we ready?” Damon asks. He twists side to side, stretches his arms out to do a few wide swinging circles, and follows those with shoulder shrugs. He reaches forward with clasped hands and cracks his knuckles.
“Ready,” I reply, blinking back an eye roll. “Ziah, are you excited to go in the boat?”
“It’s a canoe, Mama,” Ziah corrects me. “You need sticks.”
“Paddles, sweetheart, we need paddles,” Damon corrects him. Like father, like son.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Black Girl, Coping by Caitlyn Hunter” tab_id=”1667699043601-b5159e7d-6002″][vc_column_text]
A narrative essay about how a tiny Yorkie was passed down through three generations of Black women in her family over a four-year span. She wrote this piece because she believes the dog was a coping mechanism for women, in the same way they were for him.
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]I never thought I would be the kind of bitch that would have a dog in a purse. And yet, here I was standing in front of my best friend’s house, a pink playpen folded under one arm, and a Yorkie in my bag like I was some kind of Black Elle Woods in the hood.
It ain’t easy being a Magical Black Negress. Nicole and I tell this to our therapists all the time. It took years to develop our friendship, but we have it down to a science. Our self-care, we call it, are weekly Black Girl Therapy nights. We take this opportunity to unload. We take turns dumping all of the ways the people in our lives piss us off, our convos with our therapists, the ways that our professions have tokenized or ignored us, the ways that our relationships with men will not be our undoings. The blunt becomes our peace pipe. Twerking to Beyoncé becomes our Bow and Arrow dance. The decibel of our cackling becomes our war cry. This is how I cope.
Overhead I heard Nicole’s laughter from her Perry South apartment window. As she leaned out of the window she shouted, “You need any help?”
I readjusted Harley. “ Naw girl, I got this. This is Black girl magic shit and I’m a goddamn unicorn.”
With three dogs in tow I waddled into her tiny apartment. Nicole sat on the couch and continued to roll the blunt. Sweat gushed from my forehead as beads of salty dew dripped onto the faux wood floor. I unleashed Rigby and Lucy to play and set up the playpen as Harley swung like a pendulum in the gray bag around my neck.
“So…” Nicole put the fresh blunt on the ashtray to dry, “ whose dog exactly is this?” I sighed, wiping the sweat out of my eyes, and explained.
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CONTRIBUTOR BIOS
Muli Amaye is a novelist and short story writer. She lectures in Creative writing at The University of The West Indies, Trinidad. Her debut novel, A House With No Angels was published by Crocus in 2019.
Caitlyn Hunter serves as one of the inaugural Emerging Black Artists in Residence at Chatham. Caitlyn Hunter is a current doctoral student in the English Department at Duquesne University where she focuses on African American literature and Black Food studies. She holds a MFA from Chatham University. She currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA. She has been a participant with Tin House Writing Workshop. Her book, Power in the Tongue is forthcoming with Tolsun Books.
Courtney Johnson is an author and lover of prose from Detroit, Michigan. She is a veteran educator specializing in Early Childhood Education. Her interests include experimenting with poetry, diving into music, increasing literacy in her community, mentoring girls and women, archiving her family’s history and the influence of African religion throughout the diaspora. After years of closeted journaling ,she has emerged for her necessary voice to be shared.
Leandra Marshall is a millennial from California and tends to behave as such. Her work has been published at Maudlin House and in OFIC Magazine. You can find her on Twitter @LeandraMWrites.
Kendra Y. Mims-Applewhite is a writer in the Chicagoland area. She holds a BA in Journalism from Columbia College, and is currently pursuing her MFA in Fiction at her alma mater. Her fiction has appeared in The Masters Review, Avalon Literary Review, Permission to Write, and Hair Trigger. She currently lives in Chicago with her husband, where she is an associate editor for a medical association. When Kendra is not writing, she can be found with her head in a good book, concocting a random recipe, or unleashing her inner movie buff. She is currently working on her debut novel and short story collection. You can find her on Instagram @kymwrites or kendraymims.contently.com/
Valerie Morales reviews books for the digital platform Book Browse, specializing in BIPOC stories. Other work has been showcased on digital platforms such as Huffington Post, The Talented Tenth- Medium, The Committed Generation, and in the periodical The Women’s Review of Books.
Hannah Onoguwe’s work has appeared in The Missing Slate, The Stockholm Review, Omenana, Timeworn Lit Mag, Eleven Eleven, and the Strange Lands Short Stories anthology from Flame Tree publishing. She was shortlisted for the 2020 Afritondo Short Story Prize and has work forthcoming in Mysterion. She lives in Yenagoa with her family where she often finds time to bake. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @HannahOnoguwe.
Justin Teopista Nagundi is a Ugandan writer, poet, and actress. She hides her identity behind a pseudonym to hoodwink her friends into reading her work objectively. Her work has been published in midnight & indigo, Months to Years, 101-word short stories, Miniskirt Magazine, and Writers’ Space Africa. She is also a member of the Footlights Playhouse in Uganda.
Crystal S. Rudds is a poet/writer teaching African American literature in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her chapbook, Fibroid-isms, is forthcoming from dancing girl press.
Lesley Younge is a writer, mother, and educator currently living in Silver Spring, Maryland. She teaches middle school English and Math in Washington D.C. She blogs regularly at teacherlesley.com about teaching and learning in independent schools, and two of her books for young readers will be published in 2023. Nearer My Freedom (co-authored with her mentor, Monica Edinger) is a middle school found verse novel that uses Olaudah Equiano’s acclaimed autobiography as source text (Lerner Publishing). A-Train Allen is her first picture book (Sleeping Bear Press). “Patching Leaks” is her first short story for adults.
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