short fiction Archives | midnight & indigo

Summer Sister

F.A. Battle — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 05:00:34 +0000

“Here I come, slowpoke!” Even though she was behind me, I could tell Tonya was smiling. Grinning in that nice-nasty way she did when she was getting the best of me, pretty as a picture and laced with venom. The words buzzed around my right ear like a mosquito, making my jaw twitch. I swatted to shoo the irritating tickle, only to find an even more disturbing sound beneath it. The pap, pap, pap of Tonya’s sneakers hitting the pavement and getting louder as she closed in on me. The noise threw me into a panic like a monster was

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God is in the tree

Briana Thomas — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 14:11:43 +0000

My grandmother’s mango tree is so big it’s like the size of an oak tree. It takes up so much space in her backyard that the next tree is more than six feet away. I’ve only known it to be big and powerful, sometimes daunting when the hurricane winds pass through its branches. How long has it been there? Nobody knows, but it creaks and sways as if it is ancient. I wonder how many seasons it’s seen. It’s much too big for me to climb so I always just say hello, play, eat, and read at its roots so

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A Manifesto of the Tethered

Amarachi Okeke — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 13:02:58 +0000

The hut reeked of stale breath. The sour air pressed against Anaka’s nostrils like a second skin. Smoke curled from a rusted iron bowl in the corner, thick with the smell of burnt leaves, dried piss, and something sweet going to rot. Anaka’s knees were pressed into the gravel, and he felt the sharp bite of stones through the skin of his knees. The torches hissed softly on the walls. No wind moved. He was sweating. The villagers stood around him in a ring, quiet and watchful. Their faces were streaked with charcoal and ochre, unmoving in the flickering firelight.

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The Wait

Unity Powell — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 17:27:29 +0000

There are days when you feel like you woke up in the middle of something. This was one of those days. The shrill sound and deep vibrations of my phone alarm dragged me out of my sleep, like a fight I didn’t sign up for. I reached around blindly until I found it under my pillow. I overslept. Again. Another rushed, careless morning. I washed up quickly, rummaging for leggings, a black camisole, and something, anything, like a colorful cardigan or jacket. The cute jacket was my attempt at expressing style, a small gesture to show I cared about my

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Bleu Rivers

Love makeda — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 04:00:35 +0000

Sometimes I close my eyes and all I can see is me in Bleu—me in his arms, me in his whispers, me in his dreams. I try not to close my eyes. Try not to forget that I vowed to escape the smallness of this island. It suffocates me. Mama, the most. She blames me for Papi’s death. It happened three years ago when I was only fourteen. And I couldn’t have stopped Papi’s dinghy from getting lost at sea anymore than Mama could. Still, if she was the hammer, I was her nail. She never failed to hit me

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To Decay

Leandra Marshall — Mon, 26 May 2025 21:05:19 +0000

Clutching three rotten apples in a single hand, she stood at the screen door and waited for the shifting dark clouds to veil the relentless sun. There was a summer storm sliding over the valley, promises of flash floods providing bittersweet reprieve from the heat. Sweat dried sticky on the back of her neck even in the shade of the narrow entryway and something prickled there, all the peach fuzz rising at once. She licked her chapped lips, tasting his spit and waxy remnants of saccharine strawberry lip balm. With one bare foot wedged in the gap under the screen

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Iya Agba’s Kenkele

Temitope Famakinwa — Mon, 19 May 2025 22:56:36 +0000

It was a terribly hot September. Though it drizzled now and then, the thick stagnant air of summer refused to give way to the tranquility of autumn. Stubborn tourists trotted the streets in shorts and sleeveless tops, undeterred while the Locals wandered about, glancing at the lifeless grey skies with frustration and concern. That afternoon, nothing deserved pleasantry. The outdoor tent of Sobiro restaurant was packed with a cluster of sweaty impatient customers. Habibat took their orders with practiced grace, resisting the urge to blow herself with her order pad. She considered dashing to the toilet to take off her

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Strange Water

Nwenna Kai — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 05:00:53 +0000

The VCR The day has come. Mama and Papa brung the box in the house. Me and Yannie are upstairs listening to Thriller for like the 10th time and we splitting our bodies in half dancing and foot locking and bopping. Our room becomes this dance studio. Our walls plastered with life sized posters of our favorite dance movies: Fame, Footloose, and Flashdance. We also got our beatbox radio like the one from the Beat Street movie. Yannie gets fancy with the fake glitzy glove we bought last year when she wanted to be Michael Jackson for Halloween, but Papa

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Of Ashes and Peppermint

Kyra Ann Dawkins — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 18:44:14 +0000

“You were ashes.” As I stood in the doorway of my sister Everette’s bedroom just past midnight, tears were warm and sticky on my face like honey on toast. I’d said what I needed to say. I knew those three words were the truest I’d ever said in my six-year life. I knew more truth then. It was one of those moments I wished someone would have painted and put in a picture book so I could’ve seen the story of it from outside my small body. The silky fabric of my rose pink nightgown pooling around my feet. The

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The Price of Suffering

N.M. Baltimore — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 05:00:41 +0000

At first, there was only the Sun. Shining brightly, he illuminated powerfully in space. Sun knew he was a burning ball of gas…too hot to ever be touched. He constantly moved in a circle. Steady, slow, and consistent, Sun would go on his circular journey only to find himself right at the beginning where he started. Sun had one big flaw: by the time he reached his original starting point, he had forgotten all that happened on his prior trip. His journey was too far, too long, too tiring… and so he would forget. And yet he yielded the power

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