Micro Prose: Animals Of Failed Memory—Ghosts by Henneh Kyereh Kwaku

Animals Of Failed Memory—Ghosts

 

Certain—situations, occurrences, certain people—I’ve tried very many times to forget. & I’ve failed each time. & there are certain things a man cannot forget whether they want to or not. It isn’t a man’s decision to make, maybe God’s. I was promised by one of my *fathers, He said he’d buy me a bicycle & a Walkman (it was a great thing to own then), if I ever topped my class & of course I did top the class several times. But the bicycle never came, Walkman neither. Sometimes I think I keep remembering this, even in his absence (not death, though someday he will die), because the promise was never fulfilled. & that makes me think of promises like ghosts—they hang around your neck until they’ve gotten their vengeance.

 

---

 

*fathers—based on Akan/Bono ancestry & traditions, one’s paternal uncles are one’s fathers.

 

---

Henneh Kyereh Kwaku studies a Bachelor of Public Health, Disease Control program at the University of Health & Allied Sciences, Ghana. He’s from Gonasua in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. He has poems & Micro prose published/forthcoming at New South Journal, Ghana Writes, Lunaris Review, Kalahari Review, Praxis Magazine & elsewhere. Contact him via—Twitter/IG: @kwaku_kyereh & Henneh Kyereh Kwaku on Facebook.

 

Cover Photo by Bernard Spragg