PART II Chapter 14 Madam Raby’s Pizza Hotel Tata in Labé is a cosy inn settled in a green, flower-filled enclave. We’re greeted by Madame Raby herself, the gardens quiet, fragrant steam from the kitchen carrying a blend of Guinean stews and, improbably, some of the best pizza I’ll find west of Naples. Our bungalow…
Tag: Romance
The Holographer’s Atlas
Three new portraits go live this weekend, one each morning at 11am. The Holographer’s Atlas is part of The Memory Cartographer — a series written in the author’s own voice, not Elena’s. No fiction here. Only memory. Real people, real places, real prices paid. Each piece is named after the person it maps. Friday —…
The COMC Files – Alkebulan
PART II Chapter13 Mountains dont Bow The plane lurches down onto the airstrip with a bounce that rattles my teeth, wheels clattering across tarmac patched more with willpower than concrete. When the cabin door opens, the smell of earth and woodsmoke sweeps in. Outside, Labé greets us in a riot of colour and dust. Motorbikes…
The COMC Files – Alkebulan
PART II Chapter 12 The Rattletrap The clerk — a young man, visibly nervous and more than a little dazzled — tries to collect himself. “Madame… monsieur… you are travelling to Labé? Domestic flight… yes… but, eh—” His gaze drops to my belly. “Madame, you are… how far along, please?” “Far enough to notice, young…
The COMC Files – Alkebulan
PART II Chapter 11 The Stallion and the Faucet The golden flow has stilled again. How strange, how ridiculous: once it arrived only when Asdar or Tarmo leaned near. Now, summoned from afar, I leak on command — like a wandering faucet connected to the pipelines of heaven. Trust the cosmos to make motherhood both…
The COMC Files – Alkebulan
Part II Chapter 10 The Golden Thread The morning air in San is soft and brittle, full of the promise of roads not yet taken. Karim and I pack up early, the sky outside still silver as he checks the route to Timbuktu one last time. I sit by the window, satellite phone in hand,…
The COMC files – Alkebulan
Part II Chapter 9 Ségou The road spreads out like a slow breath. The ancient capital clings to the right bank of the Niger, languid as a lizard in the sun’s trance — red-earth houses under kapok and mango trees, black marble boatmen slicing the surface, just as in Biton Coulibaly’s era, just as today….
The Holographer’s Atlas – Andrea
Two eyes, just above the water. That was all. The rest of him was under, still. I noticed them because they were staring at me. Returning the gaze, I remember thinking: what a pretty girl. The eyes, the dark curls floating around them, the suggestion of a face just below the line. Then he stood…
The COMC files – Alkebulan
Part II Chapter 8 Bamako — The Griot’s Garden By dawn the familiar heaviness has faded. Karim greets me with a small breakfast. “Adama will meet us soon,” he says quietly. Centre Djoliba’s compound smells of earth and hibiscus. Light filters through mango leaves, dappling low tables where men and children laugh, where an old…
The Holgrapher’s Atlas – Allanu
The evening the two managers finally cornered me to say so, they were interrupted. I was being called to the office of the gerente.I climbed the stairs. The big man himself was holding a landline telephone against his chest, the way you hold something you’ve briefly set aside. He looked at me — one quick…
The C.O.M.C. Files 