An Incubation

Loosening her poke bonnet, Kathy sat there in red velvet-laced overalls, observing the chaos outside. No respectable young girl in her right mind should stand witness to an open-aired brawl.

A man of colour was being graced by a volley of stamps, blows and kicks by a riotous mob of angry white men.

“He had the audacity to bring flowers to Jonathan’s daughter!” exclaimed Mrs. Faulkner as she looked disdainfully outside the window. She stared towards Kathy and Anne with tears of concerned fury, and gulped her tea with intended impoliteness.

“Put a halt to your thoughts! I will not have any of my girls bring such scandals into our honest home. Do not even think of disgracing your father’s honour, young ladies,” she warned with a scornful index finger in their faces.

Anne excused herself lackadaisically from the breakfast table. Kathy continued eating silently, as the blood rushed to redden her Caucasian cheeks. She cut her omelette with precision, but had suddenly lost her appetite.

James did differ from all the other men in the village. He treated her like a lady and caressed her like she was a queen. His queen. As an artist, his dark inventive hands were accustomed to creating magic on any surface. Sometimes he’d paint her, sometimes for her. Moulding love on a potter’s wheel, his hues brought his muse to life. They would spend hours imagining a future that was freed from the shackles of race; of colour that bound them in separate, unblended water-tight niches of an artist’s abandoned palette.

Floating back from her thoughts she readjusted her bodice and walked towards her room. Tears flowed over her corset as she lifted her dress to touch his inked art on her canvassed skin.

She pulled down the layers on her tea gown, stood up and wiped the traces of heart-ache from her face.

The little black girl inside hadn’t yet found a way to face the world.

'Blessed' by Ray Caesar

* For 3WW
** An attempt at applying a Pre-Victorian style of flair and fluff.

*** Photo Credit: Ray Caesar

Mrs. Black

"That's Mrs. Black," he cupped his mouth and hissed into Niki's ear as they saw her silhouette disappear into that narrow corridor on the 4th floor.

Now, now, that is far from making a racist comment. Apart from the fact that she had ballooning eye bags, an adolescent boy's upper-lip, and numerous spots (without the slightest hint of being indicators of beauty) all over her face; there was perfectly nothing wrong with the shade of her skin.

With overalls and underpants and layers in between, she was always bundled up in fabrics of the same hue. Velvet. Sequinned. Fur. Silk. Lace. Black. Invariably dressed like the moonless night. She lived alone, kept to herself, and always took the stairs without so much as exchanging two words with anyone on her way.

What did she do and where did she go? No one seemed to have a clue. Heads turned, actions paused and words halted mid-sentence every time she shadowed in and out of view. Neighbours would huddle from different floors and hang out in the lobby - spending hours on end conjuring stories on Mrs. Darth Vader from Room #402.

"An undertaker's widow"

"A professional mourner"
"Sinister's vampire sister"
"Voodoo witch woman" 

"The Devil's goth minion"
"A Cat living her 9th life" 

When in fact, she was - A perfectly normal woman, with a perfectly normal name.
She was just waiting to lose the last 10 lbs., to speak with confidence again.

Death Wish

On a short trip to the finish line, his porous bald head burst into a thick mane of bright gold.

Fiery yellow streaks shrouded his stick figure.
But it felt a little warm inside.



The man of color was blonde when he died.