New Story at Sentinel Literary Quarterly

People called him the bull of Mototi, one of the few strong men still remaining in the village after most went to war. Mukoma said he had been lucky because when village men his age joined the war, he was in South Africa. Now no one could force him to join the struggle since he said he knew how to argue. He once told me that one did not have to join the comrades to be part of the struggle. He was already fighting a great war by raising me, he told people. He also kept healthy goats and chickens, which the comrades demanded for food each time they camped in our village. Since Mukoma was not away at war, Mai, his mother, whom I also called mother because my real mother had died a few months after giving birth to me, always told me the village bored him, so he entertained himself with fights. Read the rest of the story on Sentinel.