IR Short Stories

  I am walking through a tableau of humans. Everything is still, except for me. A moment ago, I was about to walk through a revolving door of a hundred-storey building to accept an offer for the job of my dreams, and then I was not. As if rapture happened, ripped souls out of people's bodies, leaving shells frozen in odd positions and in all the wrong places, the world has stopped, everything and everyone but me. The sky is turning dark, the way it would if the clouds were swollen with black rain. I frantically look for an open door. The revolving door is frozen shut. I run around the building, trying everything that looks like a door, but all the entrances are locked. Along the road, I try car doors, but none of them open. I am far from home. I stand in the middle of the road, amidst this deadness. I've never been lonelier. "Hello!" Desperate tears run down my cheeks. One minute my world is perfect, and the next everything changes, and there is nothing I can d...

Amu’s days were marked by deep sighs and long stares at the bathroom mirror, at the faded black of her work t-shirt, mocking her for the months that had turned into years she’d sworn she wouldn’t still be here. She used to think a degree meant a future. She used to think peace in South Africa was enough. Then she learned what it cost. South Africa had traded transformation for quiet. People called it freedom, but Amu wasn’t fooled anymore. She worked at a five-star restaurant in the east of Pretoria, smiling through twelve-hour shifts for people who pretended not to see her. They always spoke louder when she approached, excusing themselves from responding to her greeting. At first, she’d taken it personally. Now, she said “Good morning” like a ritual, words stripped of meaning with no expected response. Within weeks she had learned that racism looked polished, polite, and rich here. The few Black customers who came weren’t any kinder. They measured worth in rands and treated waiters ...

  The air feels different here. To me at least. I feel giddy and hopeful but scared too. I’m in a car, face out the window, driving by the sea. We don’t have this at home. The road bends to the right, leaving the sea behind, but the vista remains something out of a landscape magazine, the kind of beauty that makes one think about God and how sovereign He must be. It’s dreamy, until my driver makes a sharp right turn and enters the forest through a bumpy dirt road. I sit back and look ahead. The green slowly disappears, and all that is left ahead is a parched forest. It reminds me why I am here. The sinking hole deep within me begins to open up again and suck my joy away. I need to calm my mind. I need to ground myself before I have another panic attack. The road remains bendy and full of potholes for over an hour. I can see through the trees, and from either side I do not see anything I expect to see. It didn't look like this in the pictures. I feel anxious. I did not travel 24...