Choke by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
My rating: 4/5 cats
WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEVENTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your annual reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.
GR has deleted the pages for several of the stories i’ve read in previous years without warning, leaving me with a bunch of missing reviews and broken links, which makes me feel shitty. i have tried to restore the ones i could, but my to-do list is already a ball of nightmares, so that’s still a work-in-progress. however, because i don’t have a lot of time to waste, and because my brain has felt scraped clean ever since my bout with covid, i’m not going to bother writing much in the way of reviews for these, in case GR decides to scrap ’em again.
i am doing my best.
merry merry.
DECEMBER 6
i do love a story that creeps up on you, that slowly transforms from ordinary to extraordinary horrors; here an awkward, undesired social gathering peppered with white-people-bullshit that escalates into a not-quite-people threat, the details of which were a little hazy, but still effective and evocative. sometimes you don’t need to see all the teeth to know you’re in danger.
“I think you’re the only person here whose name I don’t know,” he says.
Choke.
You swallow. “My name is Kédiké.”
Reality flickers like a failing neon tube. Something nestles within that millisecond—a sound like flowing water, though you can’t be sure. Too suddenly, you’re back at the table, everyone still trying to wrap their tongue around your name. Alessia, intermittently contributing to the conversation from the side table where she’s tossing salads, says: “Do you go by a nickname?” She digs at the bowl with wooden spoons and flips with practiced ease. “Like Kay, or something?”
“Maybe what you need is an honorary American name,” says Charlotte, enthusiastic. “Name exchanges are great for cultural appreciation—you know the Indians used to do it with missionaries and soldiers? Anyway, my honorary Japanese name is Eiko. Means prosperous or something like that. I gave my friends American names, too: Kayleigh, Brooklyn, Chad. They love it.” She angles her head. “Maybe later you can give us African names?”
Another flicker, this time a half second, the crack wide enough to fit several images: white sheets; the sickly gray of a spider’s web; bloodred; fingernails scraping wood.
2022:
DECEMBER 1: PORGEE’S BOAR – JONATHAN CARROLL
DECEMBER 2: SKELETON SONG – SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 3: JUDGE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING MANUSCRIPT – LAVIE TIDHAR
DECEMBER 4: QUANDARY AMINU VS THE BUTTERFLY MAN – RICH LARSON
DECEMBER 5: IN MERCY, RAIN – SEANAN MCGUIRE
FROM THE BEFORETIMES:
2016 short story advent calendar
2017 short story advent calendar
2018 short story advent calendar
2019 short story advent calendar
2020 short story advent calendar
2021 short story advent calendar
read my book reviews on goodreads
