101 Words

Though I walk barefoot on the sidewalk, my eyes remain fixed on the clouds. I’m the only shoeless person on Broadway.

Pedestrians stroll past, clutching briefcases and grocery bags. Chicago people know exactly where they’re going.

Using my intuition, I avoid the glass shards. Someone points at my feet and shouts, “You forgot your shoes!”

Laughing, I shake my head. Poor fool. He doesn’t understand how to use his intuition. City life has turned him into a robot. He shies away and heads towards the supermarket.

I look up and notice my shoes dangling from an electrical wire.

Free at last.

Every summer Saturday, weather permitting, Bert Monroe drives from the cloistered loneliness of his city apartment to a widow’s rural roadside stand. She has two bubbly girls, eight-year-old twins. Bert praises the fresh carrots, potatoes, shucked corn, and butternut squash. He overorders, then lets the girls clasp his fingers and urge him toward the front yard of the red brick farmhouse.

While the widow packs his vegetables, he pushes the girls on a swing…high and higher.

Skipping and giggly, they escort him on each side back to the stand.

He feels their gentle hands wrapped around his fingers all day.

The scaly couple had lived together a long time, even for dragons.

“How was your day, dear?” asked Grizelda.

Brand snorted. A wisp of sulfurous smoke wafted toward the stalactites. “During my constitutional, I encountered a most disagreeable knight.”

Grizelda shifted on their hoard. Gold coins cascaded, tinkling like rain. “Well, were you plundering a castle again?”

“I’m a dragon!” roared Brand. “That’s part of the job description.” BELCH.

Grizelda shook her snout. “How rude. Were you raised in a barn?”

Brand pointed at his rumbling belly with a claw the length of a sword. “Rude? He’s still disagreeing with me.”

Before Aunty May could stop it, the vase wobbled then crashed onto the floor. She’d need to order a replacement now and she was certain she knew who had knocked it to the ground.

Aunty Betty was getting increasingly rowdy.

“Betty, did you do this?”

Betty confirmed it by straightening the tablecloth. “Fine, I’ll swap out the vase for the one you like. This is the last time I’ll be listening to you. Stop breaking things, alright?”

May couldn’t wait to finish planning Betty’s funeral as she imagined her sister’s reaction to seeing the coffin the family had purchased for her.

On Galveston Island, Mother held baby Lily’s hand, watching the red coyote standing in the last brushy field before the ocean. The coyote stared, bottle-brush tail up, her ginger pup raising its long ears. How did coyotes settle on the island? Lily learned to walk in that field last month, playing follow-the-leader with Mother, weaving through shrub-land before sand and sea.

At night, armed with fierce love and teeth, coyotes loped into their backyard, chewing fallen pomegranates, splashing in the plastic kiddie pool. Through a curtain, Mother spied the coyotes grilling rabbits on the patio and feeding chunks to their pups.

As he lay dying, my father’s request that I wear my service uniform to his funeral was as close as he’d ever come to saying he was proud of me.

Regardless of my accomplishments, his withering criticism during my teen years weighed on my adult mind. Did he still think I was the “dumbest man God ever put breath into”? My veterans’ readjustment therapist says it’s more about his lack of self-esteem than my adolescent failures.

As the nurse increases the morphine drip and his lucidity fades, my last chance to hear him say he loves me slips away as well.

Dear Dr. Desmond,

Three mentors steered me toward this moment: Dr. Okoro, my headmaster in Lagos, who said, “America.” Dr. Chance, my lit professor, who tempered my scientific thinking with humanity. Finally, you, a biochemist and, like me, a woman of color, who suggested medicine.

Today, after a moment to honor our cadavers, I unzipped a bag to begin my first dissection. The head was covered, but I recognized the half-moon scar on your left forearm. Next quarter, when I unwrap your head, I expect to see a smile. I am grateful to be the last student you teach.

Ayodele Ibazebo