Runalong the Short Shelves - Fiyah #34
Publisher - Fiyah Literary Magazine
Price - $3.99 via https://fiyahlitmag.com/shop/issues/2025-issues/fiyah-34/
For this trip into the world of short fiction I really enjoyed the collection of tales in the latest edition of Fiyah Magazine.
Moonrise by Bethany C Morrow - the opening tale is a brilliant tale that keeps us on our toes as to where it may be heading. With mini chapters echoing the phases of the moon we follow not quite friends and no longer lovers Liz and Everlg who reconnect online after a social media post that black women should prepare for mass migration to the moon leads to community outrage But also humour and a huge pushback. The story then focuses around the couple reconnecting but awakening to find time appears to have stopped still. The story mentions the Twilight Zone and this feels like one of the series classics as we get strange scenes of empty roads, stopped clocks and a mystery as to what is going on. Morrow then reveals the purpose of the story and this has a wonderful message about a community finally being allowed time to meet, talk and bond in person. I loved it
Schadenfreude by Liza Wemakor - this ghost story with a difference takes us to the not so aptly named town of Belle in the 1980s. There we meet Thema and Alice two young Black girls about to find how intolerant Belle is of difference. Wemakor then expertly in snapshot scenes walks us through the two women’s lives, who didn’t quite ever really know one another, who never got to leave this town and neither had a fulfilling life. It’s when death comes the fantastical side of the tale starts with a mix of loneliness, bonding and when both finally meet again a shared sense of purpose. This tale is a very intelligence ghost story of revenge but again told over a long time how can a cruel town finally be punished and what may come after? Empowering and very satisfying.
Celeuata’s Pearls by L Nabang - this is a beautiful story of generational experiences, fears and hope. Focused round Enanga and her daughter Akoma. Enanga has been homeschooling her daughter for a long time but increasingly is having to deflect her daughter from going to a school which the culture of tv and the wider world keeps beckoning. We find Enanga has a very good reason to worry about a secret being discovered but it’s also about the pain and shame the mother felt when she too was at school. Nabang makes us feel that horrible disconnect and cruelty of children spotting someone different and attacking her purely on skin colour and so we start to understand her fear. But pleasingly we find Akoma has learnt all the right lessons from her mother and isn’t defenceless either. History doesn’t have to repeat itself if you know you’re not alone and both have a bit more to learn from one another. It’s a really subtle and smart tale.
The Cast of Black by Antoinette Van Sluytman - is almost a fusion of cosmic horror and fantasy with a star in the heavens dying heralding a great mage’s passing. Our narrator is tasked by the order’s leaders to meet the dying Matriarch and create an appropriate death mask for the imminent ceremony. Loved this as we are thrown into the deep end of a society and have to pick up the clues from the story we are being told. It feels big, mysterious and full of hidden history (and possibly dangers) but at the same time the personal as two very different people start to talk and bond. Ultimately this becomes a tale of generations again and taking what we learn from one to create the new and the way that connection is revealed and what comes next I found very aptly wraps the tale up.
Brother, May I by Chandler Harrison also carries a family theme of two estranged brothers and a family that is broken in many ways. The death of the eldest son re-opens old wounds and desires. A traditional ghost story in many ways but I liked how the supernatural helps to explore how these brothers got to the uneasy place they now seek to be in.
How We Survive by Jade T Woodridge takes us to a murky future where life is tough. Two friends have bonded in a clinic that helps the poor but the constant lure of gangs offering a way out of a hard life is there for the younger generation. I really liked how we get to subtly understand this world, its shortages, its lack of care for the people who have to live in it and then the bond between the two main characters. It offers action, tension and an ending that hits hard as choices are finally made.
The magazine finished with three poems. I fell hard for Prayers For The Next World by LP Kindred as it seems to make the point why I think our genre exists beautifully and timely. Then Catalog of Forgotten Species by Oladosu Michael Emerald reminds us that life is often chance and we shouldn’t presume we will always be around. Finally in Finale by Timi Sanni we get a tale of a god who deep down we find is also a person with their own loves and cares. A neat circling back to the theme of generations and families that this issue explores.
