The Dark Issue 104 by Frances Ogamba

Author:Frances Ogamba
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dark fantasy, fantasy, horror, magazine
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2023-12-31T01:08:59+00:00

Born and raised in Klang, Malaysia, Joshua Lim denies rumors that he is actually a crow masquerading as a medical student/writer of speculative fiction. His work can be found in Fantasy Magazine and in anthologies by Inklings Press, Fixi Novo, Teaspoon Publishing, and Maya Press. Find him at joshualimwriter.wordpress.com or on Instagram @joshualimwriter.

Garlands for Your Bridal Chamber

by Fatima Taqvi

Everything has a purpose, Ayaan’s mother would say, and a man usually finds his through marriage. Which is what brought them to the matchmaker whose diary had been lined with names and mobile numbers in ballpoint ink. That detail had struck Ayaan. In this day and age he’d just assumed everything was in an app. But the woman had enjoyed flipping through her book, lingering on certain names, elaborating on the flaws of this one, the market value of another. She never used those words, but he understood what she meant just fine. One thing she said without hesitation, without much pleasure either was that this girl, Sarah, was perfect. And now that they were at her house, it was hard to disagree.

His mother was speaking now. Lording it over the women of Sarah’s family. She had a gleam in her eye, she hadn’t looked so energetic or happy in years. The other women around her were silent and looked on brightly, listening to her fast, excited river of words. Even the men sat with docile smiles on dining chairs lining the wall, listening to her talk. Yes, Sarah was perfect, but so was her family, and that’s what really counted in an arranged marriage. They were all treating Ayaan’s family like minor royalty.

He got up to use the bathroom.

Odd, he thought. The room with the ensuite bathroom they’d told him to use seemed to have already been decorated as if ready for a married couple. Nostalgia gripped him and he looked at the two long ribbons of crepe paper crossing over themselves at the entrance. Back when he was a kid, he’d participated in these same rituals. Before someone in the family got married, it was customary for the household to decorate the bridegroom’s room with colourful ribbons, pink roses and spangles from the shops. Transforming a wretched adolescent bachelor pad to a bridal chamber. He went closer. Yes, he could see there in the dark. Crepe paper folded over in corded stripes tied to all possible surfaces. And those canopies of roses strung in loops above the bed.

He inhaled to take it in . . .

And stepped back, hands slamming his nose, trying to erase that smell of the butcher’s shop. Now that he looked again, the ribbons throbbed, shades of blue and black rippling.

He stumbled as he backed away further, and two hands shoved him from behind.

“Me first,” his father announced tersely before reaching out to flick the room’s light switch on, and then fleeing into the bathroom.

Ayaan blinked in the glare of the white electric light.

Nothing. No decorations. No smell, either. The small dressing table mirror showed his face back to himself in one of his best shirts and jeans.

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