The Dark Issue 1: The Dark, #1

By Jack Fisher and Sean Wallace

The Dark is a quarterly magazine co-edited by Jack Fisher and Sean Wallace, with the first issue featuring all-original short fiction by the following award-winning authors: Lisa L. Hannett, Nnedi Okorafor, Angela Slatter, and Rachel Swirsky.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prime Books
• Release date: Sep 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781497780101

Book preview

THE DARK

Issue #1, October 2013

The Carpet by Nnedi Okorafor

What Lies at the Edge of a Petal Is Love by Rachel Swirsky

By My Voice I Shall Be Known by Angela Slatter

Another Mouth by Lisa L. Hannett

Cover Art: Serpent’s Eye by Dariusz Zawadzki

Edited by Jack Fisher & Sean Wallace.

Cover design by Garry Nurrish.

Ebook design by Neil Clarke.

Copyright © 2013 by TDM Press.

www.thedarkmagazine.com

The Carpet

Nnedi Okorafor

My sister and I didn’t go to the market with the intention of buying a carpet for the new house. All we really wanted were some souvenirs to bring back to Chicago. We did buy a few ebony masks, some bead necklaces, a bronze statuette of the mermaid goddess Mami Wata, stuff like that. But those were insignificant in the grand scheme of things. How differently things would have gone at the new house had we not bought that . . . thing.

We were in Nigeria to visit our relatives. Our dad was sick so our mom stayed behind to care for him. I was fifteen and Zuma was sixteen. It was our first time visiting Nigeria without our parents. So, though we’d been there many times, it felt new, different, darker. No, those are the wrong words . . . more mysterious.

We spent the first few days of our trip with relatives in Abuja, which is a city in the central, drier, Muslim-dominated part of the country. On the third day, after we’d recovered from our jetlag, we went with our cousin Chinyere to the market. By the time we got back to the house, someone had picked my pocket of the few naira I carried, a group of Muslim men had shouted obscenities at my sister for wearing shorts, and two men threatened to smash my video camera because I had the nerve to record people at the market. This was a normal day.

On the fifth day, we were getting ready to travel to my father’s village. It would be an eight-hour drive south. My parents had a house built in my father’s village and my sister and I were to spend three days there before moving on to my mother’s village. We went with our cousin Chinyere to the market one last time in search of a few more souvenirs.

"Just ignore this man," Chinyere said as we walked through the market and approached a really extravagant-looking booth. The man sitting at it was short and old, his potbelly pushing his long white caftan forward.

Why? I asked. My hands were shoved in my pockets to protect my money.

The Junk Man lost his mind a long time ago, she said. Everyone knows it.

If he’s crazy then why is his booth packed with people checking his stuff out? I wondered. But I kept my mouth shut; I knew it would annoy Chinyere.

My sister, Zuma, was a few steps ahead. She hadn’t heard Chinyere. Within moments, she had spotted something interesting and she too was drawn to the Junk Man’s stuff. Chinyere groaned and rolled her eyes.

One man’s junk is another man’s treasure! the Junk Man announced, looking Chinyere right in the eye, as if challenging her. He turned to my sister Zuma. Have a look-see, but none of it’s free.

Look at all his . . . things, I whispered to Zuma.

I know, man, Zuma said, grinning.

Just junk, Chinyere snapped, thoroughly annoyed.

The Junk Man’s booth was the same size as everyone else’s, about twenty feet across, separated from the utensil shop to his right and the basket shop to his left by wooden dividers. But all that was exposed of his twenty feet was a narrow path that led in a semi-circle through his junk.

Everything was arranged. Some items were on tables, most on the ground, or hanging from nails on the wooden dividers. Knives, ebony statues, bronze statues, rings, necklaces and anklets of various metals, piles of colorful stones and crystals, ancient looking coins, brown, white, and black cowry shells of all sizes, some the size of my pinky fingernail, others larger than my head, scary and smiling ceremonial masks, an eight foot tall ebony statue of a large breasted stern looking goddess, a jar of gold powder, a pile of bejeweled and rusted daggers, baskets and bags of colored feathers.

What you look for, ladies? Junk Man asked us in his gruff voice, after helping a customer. The stool he sat on creaked as he shifted. He motioned to all his wares like a proud dragon. Junk or jewels, I sell it to you at a good price.

Do you mind if I look at . . .  Zuma pointed to the rolled-up carpet on one of his tables. It had golden tassels on its sides. That must have been what caught her eye. Zuma always loved anything that looked like something Scheherazade would own.

Go ahead. Don’t be shy, Junk Man said. "That’s what all this is here for. But don’t touch the things you don’t think you should. And especially, don’t touch