Wet Hair by Eghosa Imasuen

"I see my father look at the white foreign dogs with new eyes, trusting eyes. I see that he has new sons already, to replace the daughter he has just lost. The daughter he lost when he handed me as a gift to the leader of the visitors from across the sea. There will be no Igbadai for me, no inquiry into the cause of this tragedy. I am lost."
                                         - Excerpt from Wet Hair by Eghosa Imasuen

I recently read Eghosa Imasuen's new short story titled Wet Hair from one of the blogs I follow and I literally couldn't stop reading. The imagery in this book is captivating and he writes like he pours his soul into the words. 

Wet Hairs tells the story of Tonye, an Ijaw girl who was raped and killed by a Portuguese sailor living on the Ijaw land. Tonye was wronged by her own, her father, who sold her into marriage to a Portuguese sailor in exchange for trinkets. Tonye's one mission after she is killed is to avenge her death from beneath the sea... in her new form.   

The story reads like a poem but is a prose which gives it a two-dimensional side to it. It is also soulful with dark elements of revenge and murder; sad to put it simply. But if you are a lover of cryptic fiction, you'll have a blast.

You can find a link to the short story here...

A Bewildered Mind

My body tells me which direction to go and I go.

Like a zombie I walk through the streets in the dead of the night, in the wake of the morning.

I'm torn in my mind.

Reason makes no meaning.

“How did I get here?” I ask myself. No answer.

My senses are numb, my body unfeeling.

I can’t remember where I'm coming from or where I'm going.

Life is unknown to me… uncharted waters.

Like a new born baby, I have no knowledge of what the future holds.

My past lay before me like pieces of a tattered rag

“How did I get here?” I ask around again. No answer.

With the madding crowd I move. Like a naked child on a cold winter night I shiver.

I'm living in an illusion. A world unreal.

All around me is darkness; pitch black.

Time and space elude my mind.

The shards of glass from my broken heart prod me and pierce me deeper.

I feel them telling me to move, change, evolve… but I can not

There’s an ache in my heart that won’t go away.

The pain overwhelms me.

This hollow I feel inside must be filled,

Mended, made whole.

It’s the only way…