A Collection of Short Stories

Sibbyl Whyte
Cracks
baby-snake and hears the raised voices in the living room. These days they do not bother
to retreat to their bedroom, anywhere is a battlefield. Home does not make her happy as
it used to. The twins feel the same way. She knows. It is them with headphones plugged
in and music turned on high to drown the voices at war. It is the look in their eyes when
both parents are home: sad, watchful, following the voices and footsteps as if waiting for
something to happen.
Sometimes, nothing happens. Most times it does.
An argument, raised voices, flared tempers.
Hands rise, blows fall, and bodies bruise.
Curses, tears, slammed doors...silence.
Listening hearts break, nightmares, resolutions never to become like their parents.
Days go, nights come, and the cracks deepen, unseen, waiting for an earthquake.
Sibbyl Whyte is a Nigerian writer who is subject to the whims
of her headstrong chi. Bits of her imagination have appeared on
Gypsiana - her laptop, Facebook, Naijastories, The Clip Magazine
and in anthologies of fiction and poetry such as A Basket of
Tales, and the SEVHAGE Flood anthologies, The Rainbow Lied
and The Promise This Time Was Not a Flood. She is currently
at work on the untold stories in her head.
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