The Dark Issue 92: The Dark, #92

By Shari Paul, Nelson Stanley, Leah Ning and Ai Jiang

Each month The Dark brings you the best in dark fantasy and horror! Selected by Clara Madrigano and Sean Wallace and published by Prime Books, this issue includes four all-new stories:

 

"Sweat, Rice" by Shari Paul
"Lap Record" by Nelson Stanley
"Love Sharp Enough to Rend" by Leah Ning
"We All Fall Down" by Ai Jiang

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prime Books
• Release date: Dec 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215867433

Book preview

THE DARK

Issue 92 • January 2023

Sweat, Rice by Shari Paul

Lap Record by Nelson Stanley

Love Sharp Enough to Rend by Leah Ning

We All Fall Down by Ai Jiang

Cover Art: Witch by Mona Finden

ISSN 2332-4392.

Edited by Clara Madrigano and Sean Wallace.

Cover design by Garry Nurrish.

Copyright © 2023 by Prime Books.

www.thedarkmagazine.com

Sweat, Rice

by Shari Paul

On Monday, there are leftovers from Sunday dinner. Baked chicken, red beans, macaroni pie, fresh vegetable salad, potato salad, and of course, Spanish rice. But he could get that at any of the other houses, so she saves that for herself and makes baked fish with cassava, yam, green bananas, and eddoes. Solid blue food for a man who works as hard as he. The heat from stove brings out beads of sweat on her forehead, which sometimes drop into the pot when she’s not looking or before she can wipe them away. But by the sweat of her brow, her man shall eat.

On Tuesday, the Monday leftovers are gone. She makes white rice, lentil peas and stewed chicken, with boiled plantain and cole slaw on the side. He licks the plate clean while she puts his dirty work clothes in the wash, then they sit together to watch a movie.

On Wednesday she makes pelau, which is fine because he does not come. She spends the time giving herself a facial, manicure and pedicure. He promised her a full spa day for her birthday, but that is months away and she cannot neglect herself in the interim.

On Thursday, she makes fish again, with carrot rice and green peas. He tells her not to cook the next day because they’re going out. It’s payday too, so he gives her just enough to last until the next week and not for the first time she thinks about getting another job. But he doesn’t want her to work, and anyway he takes good care of her, what else does she need?

On Friday, they go to the cinema and watch a movie, then finish the evening drinking beers at a bar on the side of the road. A fight breaks out around two in the morning and he takes her home. She keeps talking so that he won’t fall asleep in the frosty AC, the smell of beer on his breath filling the car as he responds. And when they get back to the house, he lies down on her bed fully clothed and falls asleep. But he snores too loud for her to have a good rest.

On Saturday she wakes early to make a soup, which he declares that he hates when the smell lures him out of the bedroom. They go out for doubles, so late in the morning most of the customers have left, no longer trusting the curry in the cooler no matter how good it smells. Then he takes her to the shopping mall and the grocery so she can replenish stocks and he plays a mark, no longer insisting that this time he might win something. But he drops her back home after that and leaves. He has other plans for the evening, with other people, and anyway she needs the time to get the washing done.

On Sunday, she’s on her way to church, a mere fifteen-minute walk from her home when she overhears a neighbour say, Watch she nah, no shame. I don’t understand how these young girls nowadays does think. And all of them sharing this one man as if it don’t have no other.

Another replies, Well is better they share that one than go after somebody else own.

After church she makes oven-baked barbecue chicken, macaroni salad, corn pie, callaloo and fried rice. The smell fills her one-bedroom apartment and drifts out the window until the woman next door pokes her head out and say, Aye girl, what you making? I bringing a plate.

They have lunch together with the door open, so that she can look out into the street in case his car pulls up. It never does, and on the fifth glance, her neighbour says, "You know