A Short Story: Dust and Ashes by Safa Alhassan

DUST AND ASHES 

SAFA ALHASSAN

Author’s Note

Dust and Ashes is a story about belonging, lost and never found. It speaks for the nameless, taunted and forgotten. May its voice linger, even after the last line.

For every child who was told they did not belong. May you know that the lie was never yours to keep.

"What is remembered is never lost.” 

—Toni Morrison.

Dust and Ashes

You were always going to walk back home to your ordinary, pitiful life, the one that stretched before you like a punishment. As you drag your feet along the dusty road, it suddenly hits you again you still haven’t filled the WAEC form that was being passed around in school. That same form that everyone else seems to have sorted without blinking. Speaking of WAEC, your mind wastes no time bringing up that memory. Mr. Akanmu, your class teacher, standing tall and smug asking you what you planned to study at the university. You had said Medicine, and he had laughed, not cruelly, but in that casual, dismissive way that still stung far worse than outright mockery. “You cannot do it,” he said, as though your dream were too big for your tiny frame to carry.

Your brain, as always, takes that moment and runs wild with it, painting the worst possible scenarios in full colour, serving them back to you like a hot bitter meal. It never lets you forget. Your brain as usual, holds onto every insult, dismissal and every crack in your confidence by replaying them over and over until you're forced to believe them. So as you make your way home under the weight of the sun, you don’t really think; you only remember. And not just remember, but relive every single hurtful moment. Your mind plays back all the careless word said that day, every eye that passed over you like you didn’t matter and every silence that roared louder than speech.

Your hair; those tangled cornrows, now old and fuzzy with their lines no longer distinct has somehow become a strange kind of comfort. Maybe it’s the one part of you that mirrors how you feel inside: neglected, dishevelled, invisible. Or perhaps it’s become your silent way of screaming and your vessel of humiliation, the hair on your head echoing your worthlessness. You pull at it whenever the anxiety creeps in like a nervous habit you didn’t mean to form. But today as you walk under the blistering sun, you pull at it harder than usual, like you’re trying to anchor yourself to something, anything.

The heat grazes your bare feet, and your worn-out sandals, now thinned beyond use, offer little protection. The scorching earth presses into your soles like it's trying to leave a permanent mark. Still, you don’t stop. You keep dragging your feet, slow and heavy, uncaring of the sharp pangs or the swelling that has begun to creep into your ankles. Pain is nothing new. You’ve lived with it in so many forms, you barely recognise it as discomfort anymore. And your feet; those feet you’ve always hated seem like just another part of you that you carry with silent shame.

Now you remember everything that happened that Monday morning. You try not to, but your brain won’t let you rest. Who the hell are you to think you can walk the staircase of the secondary school that only admitted you out of the sympathy of church members? A church you only ever attended because you saw your parents attending it. The same church people contributed money to send you on scholarship to the prestigious school in your community.

Now you think you can rub shoulders with children like Chief Madueke’s and Mr. Paulinus Olisa’s, the man who runs the pure water company your mother buys from to resell at her small stall in the market.

Yes, Miss Esther called you a stupid black goat.  You had forgotten to hand in your assignment, and she rolled her eyes in frustration before lashing out at you in front of the class. Ezekiel Nosa, the class clown, started bleating like a goat and pointing at you. The whole class was laughing. An otherwise boring English class was now lit, thanks to you, the stupid black goat.

At the close of school that day, you’re standing in the school bus clueless, looking at the seat you just gave up to Nancy Finest, the girl you secretly wish you could be. The one and only Nancy Silas Gambari, aka Nancy Finest, daughter of Chief and Mrs. Silas Emmanuel Gambari, the proprietor of your school and owner of Gambari Group of Companies, the first and only wood factory in your community. Her parents are literally the lifeline of your community. Her hair is always in a neat bun. Her shoes always sleek, always matching her school bag.

The first time she spoke to you was in JSS1, the year you got into Trinity College Ikorodu, the school of your dreams. She asked to borrow your sharpener from your new math set, the only new thing your parents could afford on their own, not thanks to the samaritans at church. You gave it to her. She never returned it.

So now, as Nancy Finest glares at you from the seat you dropped your bag to keep, the seat that rightfully belongs to you. You stand there, bag on the floor, dirty now from everyone’s shoes. You had only gone back to class to fetch your food flask, the same flask the boys were kicking around like a football. The last person to kick it, Tunji, gave it one hot shot, and your mother’s rice and beans spilled behind the class. He laughed and called out your name. “Meeehhh, I spilled your food.” They all laughed. You couldn’t even process the rest of what he said. Maybe he was sorry. Maybe he regrets it. Who knows.

You walked to the back of the class, gently scooped what was left of the food back into the flask, cleaned it, and dropped it under your table. Drama always seems to follow you. Nobody talks to you or sees you, but somehow everybody notices you. They notice you because you’re the one contaminating the air they breathe. That’s why right now, with your dented flask in hand, you hold your breath as you stare at the wonder that is Nancy Finest, sitting pretty in your seat, your bag useless on the floor.

You got off the bus as all the seats were now taken. Nobody noticed as you dragged yourself, shuffling towards the door, bag heavy in your hand and shame heavier on your chest. As the bus jerked forward, you stood there sweating, chest tight, eyes stinging, telling yourself you deserved every bit of this humiliation. After all, you were nothing more than the stupid black goat they all said you were.

The engine roared, the laughter inside the bus fading into the distance until all you could hear was your own breathing and the steady thud of your heart. Dust rose in little clouds where the tyres had been, settling back down as though nothing had happened at all. And just like that, you were alone again. 

You adjusted your bag, wiped your damp palms against your skirt, and turned toward the long, blistering road ahead. The same road you had taken that morning now stretched before you like a sentence carved into the earth. And so you walked into the sun, the silence and  nothingness your life had always been, returning at last to that small, pitiful life waiting for you at the other end.

The year is 2023. Today, you turn fourty. You are still that girl walking home in the heat, bag heavy in your hand and shame heavier on your chest. The years have stretched your bones and worn your skin, but they have not given you a place. Your life; dust and ashes, has only grown smaller and emptier.

You open the door to your apartment in Ikoyi, the silence rushing out to greet you like an old friend. The rooms are wide, the ceilings high, but the air is hollow. You drop your bag by the couch and sink into it, waiting for the evening news to fill the void.

Your mind begins its cruel work of unspooling the day. You are no stranger to weighing every word, glance and silence. 

“The whole city is still mocking me,” you say with a crackled laugh.

Today it is not the classroom that returns. It is his face. The one you loved for nearly a decade, the one you thought would stay through it all.

You can still hear him, the venom in his voice as he spat the words: "Good-for-nothing old fool. You want to tie me down. You will die alone. You think you can control my life. You’re barren, stop being delusional." 

Each insult had pierced deeper than the last, cutting into places you didn’t know could bleed.

He was the one who cheated, not you. He was the one who broke his vows. Yet when the bottle left your hand and struck him in the kitchen, it was you who whispered apologies through your sobs. And still, he walked away. He left you, and the world seemed to leave with him. He moved in with his young, pregnant girlfriend and started a new life without even looking back.

You remember the photographs. He was laughing with his arms wrapped around her.

The silence of your apartment thickens, pressing in from the walls, pooling in the corners and pressing against your chest until it smothers even the sound of your breath.

You! The girl mocked. The girl who never found a place. 

About the Writer

Safa Alhassan is a Nigerian writer whose work centres on themes of identity, resilience, love and the silences that shape women’s lives. She is the author of I Will Kill Femi, Of Wives, Lovers and Fools, Sofia, and Love, Dance and Sujud. She continues to write short fiction that blends lyrical storytelling with emotional depth. When not writing, she hosts her book club and curates her book blog, where she shares reflections on literature from around the world.

Copyright ©️ Safa Al-Hassan, 2025