forestsnipes

[forestsnipes]

Crow & Panther- Short Story

The crow glides down onto the silver lid of a trash can. It shifts its onyx feathers and shakes off ash. A cloud of gray smoke congeals forming the vague shape of a person. The smoke clears as quickly as it came, leaving a black clad boy crouching on the balls of his feet. His head swivels, smooth as a quiet caw of a voice whips out, 

“I see something.” 

The panther behind him slinks from shadow to shadow. From the darkness of the alley, to the misty yellow of the streetlamp, then back to darkness. The animal’s muscles ripple and contort and shake until, eventually, a girl pushes herself up from the concrete. 

She cracks her neck and speaks, “Tell me we’re about to make some money.”

“If we can catch it, yeah. Look at this,” The boy tosses a phone to his partner who snags it out of the air without looking. She holds the smooth slice of metal in one hand as the white glow lights her face. She skims.

“Destiny Keating. Seventeen. Height estimated, 5 '6”. Weight is an estimated 120 pounds. Hair, straight dark brown. Caucasian. Presumed unarmed. Extremely dangerous. $100,000 reward for retrieval. $10,000 for tips that prove helpful,” Salem flicks the screen, “They must really want this kid.” She walks the phone back to Crow, a tall white boy with shaggy black hair and an angled face that prompted people to ask when the last time he slept was. 

“Wow. So where we going?”

“That way,” Crow gestures with his head. Salem tilts hers in a questioning response. 

“Buckley City Public Park,” Crow clarifies as he stands, walking to the mouth of the alley and to a van that had definitely seen better days, “I can drive.”

Salem follows behind him. Not in a blind obedience–– the boy had more than earned his stripes. She followed more in a ‘you found and killed my abusive father after hearing what he used to do to me’ way. Salem takes shotgun and fixes her seatbelt. Her laser focus suddenly set on fishing for a pack of chewing gum wedged between the beige fabric seat.

“What’s the plan?” Crow asks.

No response.

The girl finally reaches the mint gum and unwraps a piece for herself. She offers one to Crow who takes one as well. 

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she smiles, “And same plan as always.”

Crow turns the ignition and pulls away from the curb.

“You got it boss.”

“Ohshuttup.”

                                                                  ***

Everything the fugitive points at, with a snap of her mental fingers, catches fire. A manicured hedge bush. The contents of one of many overflowing trash cans. Yesterday’s newspaper. A dilapidated, hopefully empty, 95 Camaro. Her only regret is that all the light makes her head hurt. The young woman slumps over the park bench in an almost meditative exhaustion. Only stirring when she realizes the sirens a couple blocks away may, in fact, be for her. She forces her body to wake up. Forces her eyes to open again. When she does, a man in monochromatic black occupies all of her vision. Her heart drops. 

“Hey,” says the man. 

In the mixture of unhelpful streetlamps and fire, she can see him. Not quite a man, more a boy her age, maybe slightly older. Looks like shit. His skin is tinted a pale yellow and his concerningly deep set eyes made him look like he had just seen something that would haunt him for the rest of his life. And his miserably unstyled hair. It was so dry. She wonders if his scalp itches.

“Hello,” she replies shortly.

“My name is Crow,” he takes a few courtesy steps back, “What’s your name?”

She looks away for a few seconds before answering,“Lana.” 

It never occurs to her to hide her annoyance. Crow is a dumb name. 

The boy smirks, “Nice to meet you, Lana.”

She stays silent. The sirens get louder.

“Are you staying or coming?” He offers his hand and Lana is surprised by hot pink nail polish.

“You like?” he smiles, “My girlfriend did them for me. Come on,” he emphasizes his open palm again when she doesn’t accept, “Let’s. Go.” But now the friendliness is gone. “She doesn’t like to wait.”

Maybe it was his abrupt appearance or the exhaustion of her spirit, but Lana decides to accept his offer. Helps herself up, the pair disappearing into a solemn October night.

                                                                  ***

The first tangible thought Lana has comes to her as they reach a beat-up green Honda. Crow’s girlfriend is like, really pretty. Like, intimidatingly so. Suddenly Lana is once again aware of her un-flat ironed hair and lack of makeup. The girl’s hair is a silky almost black that drapes from her melanated shoulders, over perfectly prominent collarbones, to just underneath her small chest. And her side profile, ugh. Lana smiles at her, which the girl returns with dead eye contact before turning her head back to the windshield. Bitch. The car is already running. Its lights are off. Crow opens the car passenger seat door, sliding in next to her. 

“You can lay down in the back. The door’s unlocked.”

Lana lets herself in, resting her head on a folded blanket. On the blanket is a plastic water bottle and a protein bar, both of which she correctly assumes are for her. The car is on the road now, making soft turns and providing white noise. A backseat bassinet. Someone’s speaking unintelligibly. It’s more of a collapse than sleep.

[forestsnipes]

Halfway Between Languages: What Japan Taught Me About Culture, Assumptions, and Storytelling

Weeks prior to boarding my twenty hour flight to Narita Airport I thought I had equipped myself with a pretty solid handle on what to expect. I imagined a place that was sleek, clean, and above all, disciplined. Essentially a country that had things figured out. (Especially in comparison to the rapidly dilapidating condition of the United States in 2025.) But if there’s one realization I took home from my four weeks abroad it’s that every culture has its contradictions, and just like the United States, nothing, no matter how shiny the surface may be, is without its imperfections.

One of the first things that filled my mind upon landing was a surprising sense of familiarity in cultural virtues. As seemingly different as Japanese culture is from mine as a Black American, I found unexpected common ground with Josai University students in the high expectations placed on young people. In the Black community, we grow up hearing that we have to “work twice as hard to get half as far”—a reflection of how both survival and ingenuity have been intertwined by our shared ancestral past as Black diaspora. In Japan, that same pressure was visible in a different form. Every morning, we watched children walking to school alone before the sun was fully up. Hours later, we could still hear them in their schoolyards, participating in afternoon physical education, their school days stretching far into the evening. Strenuous work wasn’t simply encouraged—likewise to Black Americans— it was systematically embedded into the unconscious realities of daily life for Japanese youth. 

Of course, not everything felt familiar. Some cultural differences caught me completely off guard, like the coughing etiquette. On the trains and sidewalks, I noticed that people often sneezed or coughed openly into the public air, without hesitation. Instead of the coughers facing social obligations (covering their mouths or turning away), the coughed on simply wore face masks to protect themselves from potential germs! I found myself perturbed. And furthermore, curious. Why would a culture so centered on courtesy and order not have a public etiquette for this? Why did personal protection seem to outweigh communal consideration?

Later wondered if history had something to do with it. Unlike the West, Japan didn’t experience mass public health crises like the Black Death or smallpox in the same way. Maybe because coughing wasn’t seen as a warning sign of extreme danger historically, there was never a cultural incentive to develop habits of concealment. Meanwhile, Western societies developed phrases like “bless you” and norms around covering one’s mouth rooted from a long history of catching diseases. It made me realize just how much cultural behavior is shaped by the past even when we don’t consciously think about it.

Language was, of course, one of the biggest barriers I faced. Losing my literacy, and the ability to speak without intense pre-planning was more frustrating than I expected. Google Translate's ability (or lack thereof) to understand the nuances of language shot me in the kneecap regularly. I bought body wash instead of lotion multiple times, simply because I couldn’t understand the labels. I hadn’t realized how much I relied on casual, unconscious understanding just to get through the day. Every interaction became a small test of patience, creativity, or both.

Thankfully, I wasn’t navigating this experience alone. I leaned hard on both Google Translate and my group members to get through. One day trip to Tokyo stands out as a clear example. We were all packed onto a subway train, phones out, trying to cross-reference Google Maps with transit signs, juggling directions and stress. None of us were totally sure where we were going, or how to get there. That’s when Baileigh, one of my Spelman sisters and a confident conversationalist, stepped up. She used her Japanese skills to ask a nearby college student for help. As luck would have it, the student was also heading to Tokyo and offered to show us the way. What followed was a half-hour of mutual code-switching—her using bits of English, us trying out our shaky Japanese, and Google Translate doing its best to fill in the gaps. It was awkward and funny and surprisingly warm. We were strangers trying to meet each other halfway, and— in the end— we did.

That moment taught me a lifetime of flexibility, humility, and perhaps most importantly, showed me the power of communal effort. It reminded me that you don’t have to be fluent to communicate, you just have to care enough to try. That lesson carried over into everything else I experienced during the trip. You don't have to be perfect, you just have to try.

More than anything, my time in Japan challenged my assumptions. Before I arrived, I thought of Japan as a place that had achieved a kind of social harmony I didn’t often see back home. But then I saw signs in public bathrooms warning men not to photograph under women’s skirts or slide recording devices beneath stalls. That moment stopped me. It reminded me that no place is perfect, and that every society, no matter how advanced or admired, is still grappling with its own social issues.

Experiencing a different culture shouldn't emphasize the fetishization of it's existence. The often hard sought after "authenticity" of travel destinations comes from experiencing the complexity of the land. Every country has its own contradictions. Every culture has its strengths and blind spots. As do I, and every other human on this Earth.

This experience made me more aware of how much of my “normal” is just American. I didn’t realize how deeply I expected directness, casual friendliness, or personal space until I was in a country that didn’t operate with those same defaults. It also made me confront the quiet biases I brought with me—the belief that everywhere else must be “doing better” just because of its lack of American societal struggles.

The truth is, no one’s cracked the code. We’re all just people trying to make life work in the systems we were born into. I’ve become more curious about how people live around the world, but also more cautious. Cautious not to flatten cultures into aesthetic or aspirational ideas. I want to understand them in all their contradictions. That, to me, is what intercultural competency really means.

[forestsnipes]

Mixed Media ‘Daughters of the Dusk’ Film Review

The women in Daughters of the Dust are draped in layers of crisp white fabric. They frolic on the bright blue beaches of their home. Dancing, spinning, laughing together in a closed circle. All,  except the family matriarch: Nana. Clothed in a dark purple, her hands are stained from the toxic dye she was forced to labor over. 

Director Julie Dash portraits a family of recently emancipated people with goals of traveling North. Traveling to the Mainland, leaving the island and the land they were recently bonded to. Set in the early 19th century, intricate garments, palm trees, woven throne chairs, and white sands occupy Dash’s frame. The textured image the camera provides leaves the film somewhere between dreamlike and memory. 

This film truly took its time. Lingering, and refusing to be rushed. Multiple non-linear storylines overlap and, save for the finale, almost all plot advancement is done via dialogue as opposed to character action. As an American viewer, the dialect spoken by the family forced me to interpret the meanings of their lines at times. This caused the dialogue to feel almost Shakespearean. 

While Nana attempts to retain pre-colonial religion, the rest of the family attempts to separate themselves from their ascribed identity as “salt water negroes”. But can you ever truly separate yourself from something that's in your blood? 

[forestsnipes]

Award Winning Washington Post Scholarship Essay 2023

"A friend once observed that an essential element of Herbert H. Denton, Jr.'s character was that Herb was "absolutely and utterly his own person." In no more than 250 words, describe a situation that has challenged you to be true to your own beliefs or ideals."

I am black. When I was ten, my mom and I visited Monticello. Our group tour guide performed in costume for an ungrateful audience. Segueing away from the garden’s extensive lore he asked, “Does anyone know how the slaves were treated?” 

No response.

I knew, but the silence made me weigh my options. This monument of white supremacy masqueraded as an attraction. It sold work retreats for a site where hate crimes were committed. It had a gift shop. But I knew the truth. Tumblr had already shown me images of Emmett Till’s body. If I knew the pain in our nation’s history, why should these white adults be kept in blissful ignorance? So, I answered honestly. “They were beaten, raped, and tortured…” 

My answer was honest and emotional. While speaking about the cruelty visited upon slaves, I saw the faces of my family. As I blinked, water pooled and tripped over the lip of my eye. This whole plantation theme park was sickening. How did no one else care? I had spoken my truth, hoping for reinforcements. They never came. I was neither sorry nor surprised. 

It was scary to confront authority alone. It’s difficult to challenge the status quo, to voice an ugly truth, to make a room uncomfortable. But the part of me who knew remaining silent about injustice to be wrong, outweighed my fear. 

I spoke because my words are who I am - who I will always be.

[forestsnipes]

Sugarcane- Short Story

Naiad had a strange dream last night. She dreamt of dogs with long faces and burning sugarcane. Naiad had a reputation in her village for being skittish. She suffered from a chronic habit of interpreting every detail as a prophetic sign. Meaning escaped her in a way that impaled itself on her consciousness. Naiad had dreamt she was a vulture, and as such was able to see all with bloodshot eyes. Her eyes had seen the clear turquoise surface of the cave mouth, lined with rock. It had seen the sunlight filtering softly into the water. Naiad could remember seeing the water’s surface tension snap and ripple. But what she desperately tried to remember was the lady swimming. The vulture-Naiad- her consciousness followed this woman’s brown body moving underwater, obscured by the dream’s partial consciousness. No matter. Naiad had only thought of focusing before the bird’s eyes turned sharp enough to see this woman’s ability. This figure moved unencumbered in the face of the watery terrain’s choppy currents and jagged rocks. Aiming into the cavern’s mouth, this woman’s brown shins cut easily through the liquid, before she faded into the submerged rocky depths.

 Then she noticed that the woman hadn’t resurfaced. had remained underwater for an unrealistic amount of time. Over the time it would take most to choke on water filled lungs and float, spine up, back to the surface. A death without dignity. Her head breached the water and slick black tendrils of hair plastered themselves to the nape of her neck as she swam to shore. The water made its hollow plops of movement as she did so. She climbed back onto wet rock that Naiad most definitely would’ve slipped off of if she in consciousness had tried to imitate. Then the dream, in the often strange way that dreams do, dropped down into another dimension of itself. In this version of the dream she just noticed the creature’s fine fur. It was shag length and floated as if still underneath water. When it moved its steps rippled behind it in drapery. The fineness of the wispy fur is the last thing she noticed before she’s shaken awake by a pair of cold firm hands. 

A timeless winter had taken shape inside of Naiad. Where the cane could no longer withstand the cold and withered away, she had remained for years eating cold cornbread mush out of troughs and being whipped for not harvesting quickly enough. She had always been a person who looked “too deep” into someone or something. That’s because she realized from a young age there’s more than what meets the eye for most things. For example: When Master Postle called her into his study late at night for company and tea he was more interested in her prepubescent body than the sweet drink. And that when Overseer James hit her it was more for his pleasure than her punishment. The morning she woke from her dream she found her empty stomach had dropped into an endless limbo. The hands that woke her belonged to Zara, a beautiful girl who had seen the worst of Master Postle nightly summons. 

“Wake up, love.”

Naiad rubbed the little sleep she had gotten from her eyes and slowly stirred. Zara gave her a moment.

“I was dreaming.” Just now in the quiet pre-dawn cold could she notice how circular Zara’s mouth was. Her nose was flat. Her earth brown skin was dewy and in the back of Naiad’s mind she wondered what it would taste of.

“What’d you dream about?”

“I can’t remember,” she lied.

Zara gave her a look and indulgingly dropped the subject.

“Come on, we need to get tea leaves from the Grand house. We can say we were making the fire for Miss Postle to wake up to.”

                                                                  ***

Zara’s hands moved like clockwork, as if she’d stolen from the kitchen hundreds of times and knew exactly how much you could take before being caught. She scooped the rounded teaspoon of leaves into a low rimmed jar and grabbed the kettle from the fire just before it started to scream, pouring a mentally measured amount into the glass. She pronounced it proudly to Naiad, 

“Drink it,” she said smiling. She reaches but Zara pulls the glass back sharply before she can take it, “Wait” The tea laps over the edge onto her hand where a berry red blotch began to bloom even against her dark complexion. She winces loudly before a wide eyed Naiad clamps a palm over her mouth. They waited a moment in the kitchen that was more for serving than for use. Most of the meals were prepared in a separate shed behind the Grand house, next to the slave quarters they’d come from. This room was for small goods’ storage. Bread, fruit, and tea.

“Now drink it.” She whispered, muffled against the skin of Naiad’s palm. 

Naiad consumed the drink in large gulps without pause before mock slamming it down on the wooden island they stood around. Zara gave her a smile and shove, both soft, before poking her finger inside the glass.

“You’re not supposed to do that!” The shadow on the wall’s neck stuck forward in protest.

“I’m making it clearer!” Before Naiad could disagree she continued, “I see,” pause, “‘New Start’ ‘Caution’ ‘Water’ ‘Oblivion.’ Be cautious of new bodies of water I guess.” 

Suddenly, Naiad felt what she could only guess was a feeling most people would call homesickness. It gripped her with the panicky strength of a poor swimmer and Naiad missed a place she had not yet left. 

Two days later she killed her master. Bashed his skull in. She felt his soul travel through hers to purgatory as she stood above his corpse, the stack of bloody marble coasters in the same palm that had been used to caress Zara’s lips only days previous. His head was sunken in at an revealing angle that would’ve made Naiad throw up if not for the hate in her heart. Grey, pink, and maroon organs smashed together underneath the split white bone. She didn’t feel guilty. In fact, before she stepped over his lifeless body on her way out the back door she helped herself to Miss Postle’s pants, riding boots, and blouse. All of which were higher quality than the slave’s rags she had previously worn. She left without saying goodbye. 

                                                                  ***

Two days passed before Miss Postle returned home and by then a horrid smell had developed in the study. It took two more days of the stench before anyone entered the room, as it was strictly forbidden by all except by request. When the doors finally opened and the grand prize revealed Miss Postle collapsed into shrieking hysterics. As is customary when you see the pink and grey remains of a mystery man on your husband’s study floor. Crushed head resting next to the coffee table’s bloodied corners.The coroner confirmed that though hard to identify through the process of elimination it was, indeed, Sebastian Postle. But by then Naiad was nearly four towns over. On the forth day a count of the slaves for auction and division was held and when Naiad was nowhere to be found, Miss Postle put two and two together. Posters of her likeness were spread and a small fortune is offered for her return. It was the first time she’d seen herself outside of silverware reflections but apparently she was a cool toned person anyways. Dark skin, grey tangled hair, fading eyes, a broad nose and sad lips. The poster  specified she was wanted alive and Naiad instinctively knew it was so she could be made an example of. First they would tie her tight to the flogging pole and whip her until her back looked like raw torn hemming. Then they would rape her. Again. Publicly. Burn her alive and hang the body. Not only had she ran away, but she had murdered a man who would posthumously undergo canonisation.

Against the early morning sky’s dim light blue she ripped down another poster of her likeness and reward. The parchment was nailed to a tree next to a Dragonborn rebel wanted for political assasination. She ripped that one down too for good karma. After a decade-long power struggle and many attempted assassinations of the dictator, the Lyrian Empire had finally been decapitated. Here it slumped, without head, as it’s former allies looted the body. Once the Gurei, nomadic merchants and notorious gossipers, spread the news as was inevitable, cavalry from neighboring lands would come to carve up whatever could be taken while the body was still warm. The same way children devour fist sized chunks of cheese off the wheel with their bare hands. It had been five days since Naiad last ate. Her body punished her with a swollen belly and throbbing mind that made it hard to think of anything other than meat. Hunger was both her bane and motivation as she hobbled into town. The stolen coin purse swung at her side, thumping against the thrusting hip bone as she walked. Through the spindly bushes and erosion made path something tracked. Slinking behind the fugitive as she stomped through brush to the warm glow of a tavern.

The Blue Boar Inn was healthily full. Naiad ordered and inhaled two servings of meat and potatoes as she watched a woman in shimmer green and maroon belly dance for silver pieces. Her smoky eyes and voice reminded Naiad of dusk.

I know this is the most right I will ever be

Tonight as I lay down to sleep and dream,

  of dogs with long faces and grass stains, 

If only you knew what I knew:

With age comes wisdom and wisdom comes with age, 

Palindromes are exhausting 

But you will always be the same.

Naiad turned the woman’s song over in her mind, staring into a clear plate. A strange warmth had begun to wallow on her. The hot fritz of stares stung the nape of her neck. She looked up. A male dwarf and his human companion looked intently on their empty table and continued a hushed conversation. Her eyes cut across the room. First left, then right. It wasn't just them, people had been looking at her. Why? Her jaw clenched. The fucking posters. Everyone in this tavern was two meals from squalidry and in delivering her they would ensure themselves plumpness and warmth. The tables were nicked from wear and the bear pelt rug has been discolored from patrons over the years. The familiar smell of ferment and drunk men filled the air. Fuck. She counted out what she hoped was an accurate nine silver pieces and left them on the glossy wood for the bartender to collect. She didn’t wait for her change to be dealt.