The Library of Afro Curiosities, page 1
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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© 2022 Randolph Walker, Jr.
All rights reserved.
Cover image designed by Calrissian Mauve
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN: 9781020001321 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 9781020001338 (Paperback)
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First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
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45 Alternate Press, LLC
Hampton, Virginia
Praise for Ran Walker
He's just that talented. To paraphrase Ethridge Knight: Making jazz swing in one hundred words AIN’T no square writer’s job.
Rion Amilcar Scott, award-winning author of Insurrections and The World Doesn’t Require You
I’m never quite at ease in a Ran Walker story. And that’s a good thing. He's a master of the 100-word form.
Grant Faulkner, Executive Director of NaNoWriMo and Co-Founder of 100 Word Story
Thank you, Ran, for picking up the guitar of fiction and fretting together characters of such warmth, depth, and humanity.
Tyehimba Jess, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olio and Leadbelly
Walker's clarity of style and smooth, mellifluous language […] place him among the cadre of new Black voices budding with fresh, ripe tales of a past and present yet to unfold.
Daniel Black, author of Perfect Peace and Twelve Gates to the City
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Ran Walker excels at cross-threading various genres into bite-sized, literary wonders.
Scott Semegran, award-winning author of The Benevolent Lords of Sometimes Island and To Squeeze a Prairie Dog
The Library of Afro Curiosities
100-Word Stories
Ran Walker
45 Alternate Press, LLC
Contents
Planet 4C
Cold
A Pool of Thoughts
The Giants of Royal de Luxe
The Woods
Sara Bergman’s Closet
Ignominious
Gibberish
Dark and Deep
Soil
An Alien Concept
One Big Sun
The King-Size Ice Box
The Typewriter
The Bulls
Floating
Memory Gaps
Hero
Wishing
The Candy Tax
Junior’s Quick Stop
The Day My Sister Broke Ranks
Ice Cream
Dreams of an MC
When Niggas Turn Into Gods, Walls Come Tumbling…
Homecoming Dance at the National Guard Armory
Water
Stuck
Uncle Red’s Unorthodox Advice For Approaching Fine Women
Nike’s SNKRS App Won’t Let Me Be Great
Soundtrack
A Hair Story
“Hot Sauce In My Bag” Swag
Portmanteau
The Writer
Talons (Redux)
Open Mic
The Sneaker Grail
Washington Square Park
Pillows
The Daily Public Library
Dreams of Barack’s Jalopy
There Was An Old Lady…
The Love Letter
The Reenactor
Blackfishing
Saxophonic Dreams
True Crime
The Wolfgang Jefferson Volume
The Book Club
Lonely
Searching for Water Where It Never Rains
The Yearbook
Wolfgang V’s Cabinet of Curiosities
The Seasons Know Exactly When to Change
The Man of Her Dreams
Poultry
The Official Lyrics to “Gobbledygook”
All Deliberate Speed
We Been Livin’ Through Your Internet
Diaries of the Deceased
Metal Clouds
Talent
Bearded
The Monster in the Woods
Glitter
The 100-Word Story
The Castle
Wolfgang VII at Ellison-Wright College
Wings
On “Home Alone”
Library Dreams
The Last Novel
Black Water
The Mystery of Death
Famous Writers
Monthly Chips
Rodents
The Legendary Battle of Two Emcees
An Origin Story
Dictionary Examples
A Math Problem
The Miniaturist
Big Mama’s Recipe
Brunswick
Hip Hop Is Dead, Long Live Hip Hop
Adrienne Dorine
Nothing
The Art of the Steal
.Paak
The Price Is Right
The Strange Animal Society
The Worst Graduation Speech Ever
An Advertisement for Pet Toys
Bricks, Pt. 1
Bricks, Pt. 2
Dreams of Home
Change
The Mountain
The Reviews
Acknowledgments
Also by Ran Walker
About the Author
In Memory of Sonia Russell
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
Langston Hughes
Planet 4C
Pick and pat. Pick and pat.
Doneisha’s hands moved about Imani’s seven-year-old head, taking the beautiful chaos of coiled hair and shaping it as the Creator might have once crafted the universe, her brown fingers moving like those of her mother and her mother’s mother, liberating every strand to stand at its full potential.
“Mommy, is it done?”
“Almost.”
“Please make it perfect.”
The sphere gradually emerged, a celestial body born into their tiny sliver of the universe.
“Done.”
Doneisha lifted the mirror to Imani’s face, watching the reflection of her daughter’s eyes, twin spheres filled with constellations of joy.
Cold
He’d never told a girl that he loved her before. The anxiety was far worse than a first kiss, his teeth chattering as if he’d been blasted by cold air. Although the June night was hot, she rubbed his arms, to warm him.
He started a couple of times, the vibration of his teeth getting in the way. Finally, amid a sparse chorus of crickets and the buzz of the street lamp over head, he said the words.
She responded by kissing him and holding him tightly, but that summer she would never say the words he craved to hear.
A Pool of Thoughts
The word around town was that the kid two streets over had jumped off the diving board the wrong way and broke his neck when he hit the water. He died, and the public swimming pool closed down shortly afterwards.
No one talked about the pool—or the boy—and we carried our thoughts (and fears) around with us like an overstuffed backpack for the rest of the summer.
Two summers later the pool reopened. The diving board had been removed, though.
I wish I could say I went back and learned to swim, but I couldn’t bring myself to.
The Giants of Royal de Luxe
Khalilah could hardly believe her eyes as she stared at the giants looming overhead, their arms, legs, and heads connected to giant wires moved by cranes and a team of puppeteers dressed in fine velvet. They took turns leaping onto a rope and jumping to the ground, each jump a step for the giant.
It was both amazing and terrifying.
As a giant turned its head, seemingly looking at her, Khalilah wondered if it might snap loose the strings binding it and walk toward her, crumbling the street in its wake.
If that happened, she decided she would befriend it.
The Woods
They called the small undeveloped lot behind their grandmother’s small house “the woods.” During the daytime it was a place of wonder and adventure, a place where they could run and climb trees. Every once in a while they’d come across a garter snake and run back to the house, before slowly trudging back into the woods to resume whatever game they were playing.
At night, when the stars hung overhead like a star-flecked panorama, they gazed at the wall of darkness the woods had become.
Curiously, they wondered what things resided there that hadn’t been there during the day.
Sara Bergman’s Closet
The part I love most about this book is a tiny section that states Sara owned both real and fake Louis Vuitton bags. I wonder if anyone could tell.
In the movie Dope, one character noted most of the customers for his counterfeit bags were white women who could afford the real thing, but because of who they were, people assumed the bags to be real.
My cousin Marcus has a collection of rare sneakers he’s never worn. If he ever put them on, I wonder whether people would look at his dark skin and believe they’re real or not.
Ignomini
Jayson had learned the word in school. One of the week’s ten vocabulary words. Mr. Wallace had told him if he used it three times, it would forever be his.
He started out by using it to describe his aunt’s behavior, since she’d gotten drunk at his cousin’s wedding reception and passed out.
Then he used it to describe the former mayor’s arrest in an FBI prostitution ring sting.
By the time he had begun to enumerate the transgressions of his pastor at Mount Olive Church, everyone began to fear what Jayson’s growing vocabulary would mean for them, as well.
Gibberish
Jordan returned from the woods speaking gibberish, but Malia wasn’t alarmed. After all, she’d pretended to make up languages as a kid, too.
The next day she overheard him playing with his friends down the street.
They all spoke gibberish.
That evening Malia spoke with her wife about Jordan’s behavior.
“I’ll talk to him,” she said, much to Malia’s relief.
Minutes later, she reappeared, speaking gibberish.
“Lena, stop! You’re scaring me!” is what Malia meant to say, but she could no longer recognize her own words, though somewhere in her mind, she was well aware of what she was saying.
Dark and Deep
The massive pool had been dyed pitch black, and as dusk arrived, the pool appeared even darker.
Anthony knew it was the same pool he swam in everyday, but it looked deeper somehow. He marveled at how color affected perception. He’d even heard that Alfred Hitchcock would dye a fine steak and potatoes dinner blue, just to see the reaction of his guests. This, however, felt different.
He leapt into the water, feeling as thought he was now hovering over an abyss.
Just then, something massive and smooth brushed beneath his feet.
He prayed that it was only the floor.
Soil
Those who had wings flew away. Those without wings remained, the purple soil gaining weight beneath their feet. Even the hastily constructed weapons shaped from the Fucofina trees felt like empty gestures, futile attempts to combat a technologically-advanced race that would stop at nothing to eradicate them.
In the distance they could hear the humming of drones, the snapping of branches far overhead, even the imagined whispers of an enemy they could actually see, possibly crawling through fallen leaves on scaled bellies.
But the drones would destroy them long before the enemy arrived, their remains trampled deep into the soil.
An Alien Concept
Sandra felt fairly comfortable about the existence of extraterrestrials.
The sun was a star, and that star had eight planets (plus dwarf planets) around it. Only one of those eight could sustain carbon-based life using an atmospheric composition suitable for Earth life.
She could see the plethora of stars in the sky. Excluding those that were dead, their light still traveling through the universe, each of those stars contained planets with their own moons. Surely one of those many planets supported life of some sort.
We couldn’t be the only life forms out there, she thought. It’s simple logic, right?
One Big Sun
For Amee
Once the school year ended, Athena would travel to the various regions of the world she’d taught about during the fall and spring semesters of her literature classes at Ellison-Wright College. This was one of the annual indulgences she allowed herself.
One thing she noticed, however, after the citywide tours and the various museums, was that while there were tons of differences (languages, food, religions, and cultural behaviors), there was oftentimes a place where people would gather to watch the sun set against the western horizon.
These sunsets reminded her that all countries are a part of the same world.
The King-Size Ice Box
He drifted in and out of sleep, dazed, trying desperately to wrap his mind around the fact that she was no longer there. The sheets were cold, the pillow on the other side completely untouched.
Had he been too harsh?
He could still see the text messages on her phone, her pleas to a man he didn’t know, her desires raging, but someone else was the kindling.
He tried to make it work, to give her another chance, but his trust had spoiled sour like month-old milk.
Still, nothing could ever prepare him for how cold his bed would become.
The Typewriter
He bought a typewriter because he loved the sound of the keys clicking and the bell dinging at the end of each line. He’d always romanticized using one. When he finally bought one, though, he quickly learned that his typing skills were subpar and that he’d have to use a special eraser or Wite-Out to fix his errors. Plus, the weight of it was more than he’d bargained for, as it took two hands to carry it around—and he had to keep paper close at hand.
Content to just have it as a collectible, he returned to his laptop.
The Bulls
Shortly before everything went to shit, Tommy traveled to Pamplona, Spain, to run with the bulls. It had been an item on his bucket list for quite some time, and he’d convinced himself it was time to stop putting it off.
He’d never ridden an adrenaline wave so strong, trying to outrun the heavy slapping of hooves against cobblestone, as people yelled in admiration and fear.
When the days of the pandemic wore on, he would remember the moment he ran so fast he couldn’t feel his legs beneath him and know that he’d survived before and would survive again.
Floating
They floated together in the corner of the deep end of the pool, bobbing like apples, their taut bodies rubbing against each other, her stomach touching his, the smoothness of their legs intertwining beneath the water as they casually kicked.
