Defenestrationism.net

by Chantelle Tibbs

the 3rd of August, 2025

Dear Dad, 

I don’t know if I’ll dream of you as often, now. 

Chris and mom spread your ashes in the Menantico Creek. I heard tell you thrived and jived there, once upon a time.  

At least I look like you, Dad.  Maybe gay. Maybe Black.  My hair is in style, the freckles you passed down are endearing. I’m ambiguous in these uncertain times. It’s hot, right now. I have at least half of you to thank for that.

Most of the dreams I have of you are uncomfortable. I tell people about the dreams I would order up of us eating pasta together. Then of course you wanted that pizza we ate on those beautiful green patio chairs of a porch I can’t seem to access anymore. They started off that way but eventually devolved into— us. Now I close my eyes to men circling like sharks as you scream your whisper in my ear, “I’m so sorry.” I don’t know why I’m willing to tell people the truth of how it was to be your daughter in life and can’t seem to get around to fixing the truth about how even the astral experience of being your first born haunts me.

You’re free now, I suppose, I only have hunches and fleeting guesses. There were good times I know. I get it. I should hold onto those but what I really want to tell you right now is, the messy way in which you loved me made it dangerous for me to be alive. 

You imprinted your trauma upon me. Holding romantic relationships is near impossible. Those I am drawn to are trouble. Trouble just recycling those ol’ familiar patterns. The dysfunction of being pulled in by toxicity, the complete madness, the loneliness. The danger. Being a single mom, dangerous. For myself and for your grandson. Less protection. That tidy little family structure the world flaunts, inaccessible. Like the tiny home I dared to dream up just within my reach, held hostage, alongside my patience and any chance of staying dry on some rainy day. I have to make sure I don’t get pregnant by the wrong guy. One income, one child. Dangerous. One income, two children? Poverty is death and I’d get to watch my kids sink into the Earth along with me. 

Our country is gone. She may as well just hurry up and die already but it’s natural for good people to have hope. It’s part of the package. Her demise has made things even more perilous. This isn’t the time to make mistakes or come upon misfortune. Not with one income. One misstep could ruin us. I’m enduring the aftermath of doing pretty much everything right and still falling on hard times. Dangerous. Every time I fall in love, impact, wreckage. A burden as heavy as your ashes. 

As a child, I made the perfect target for statutory rape you’d blame me for while I sought a present father figure. As an adult— Emotionally unavailable women and men, women and men who are reliable only if I sign over control. Fascinating. How these lovers are in touch with every micro ounce of a sabotaging stench I just can’t wash away. The cult. Most dangerous. The “therapist.” Another wet patch of pavement meant for the unsuspecting wheels that turn all of this. Loving you cost me so much. Being your daughter is a price I am still paying. 

Maybe without having to carry your ashes around in the trunk of my rental cars I’ll be able to put down a little more of these other weighted burdens. 

I love you. Always will and all that. Just here sitting in what can be salvaged of our legacy.

Chantelle

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Including an image of our authors’ favorite chair– a Defenestrationism tradition.

Fan Voting is still open.

Irene W. Collins is a Pushcart-nominated writer whose work has appeared in IHRAM Publishes and is forthcoming in Cast of Wonders, If There’s Anyone Left Magazine, and Heartlines Spec. She writes about memory, myth, and the afterimage of belonging.

Ibrahim Abdulhakeem is a Nigerian writer whose work explores community, faith, memory, and the quiet intimacies of everyday life. His fiction has appeared in multiple literary magazines, and he lives in Nigeria, where he writes and studies law.

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Go straight to the contest, here.
Vote now, here.

You can access Fan Voting from
our retro navigation panel,
somewhere around
<- – – – – — – – – – – here

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by Arif Rehman Khan

Fan Voting Begins tomorrow, January 6th.

[this is the third in a three part series.
read The Sky Between Us from the beginning.]

3. The Sky Between Us

I returned to the town after twenty years abroad. The old square had changed—coffee kiosks, neon signs, tourists taking selfies where our childhood ghosts once played. But the sky… the sky was the same.

The night I arrived, a storm was coming. Lightning branched like veins across the horizon. I found the excavation site where they’d unearthed the remnants of the chair. It sat now in a glass case, its arms broken, its seat engraved with names I did not remember.

As I stood there, the wind picked up—carrying dust, prayer, and laughter. And then I saw them: silhouettes gathering around the case. Old faces, familiar smiles, and those I thought I’d lost.

Someone whispered, “Spin it.”

Without thinking, I touched the glass. It trembled, then cracked—not violently, but like ice thawing in sunlight. The chair within began to turn, impossibly whole again. The storm paused; raindrops hung in the air like suspended pearls.

And for a moment, I felt everything—the grief of the craftsman who built it, the wonder of the children who found it, the hope of a town that refused to forget.

When it stopped, the glass was intact once more. But the sky had changed. The stars formed a circle, glowing faintly like a heartbeat.

Now, when I close my eyes, I see them spinning still—a constellation shaped like a chair, like an embrace. The sky between us no longer divides. It connects.

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by Arif Rehman Khan

[this is the second in a three part series.
read The Sky Between Us from the beginning.]

2. When We Spun Together

My grandmother said the chair used to sing when the stars were kind. By the time I was born, it had gone quiet, standing crooked in the square like a tired sentinel.

We were children then—my friends and I, full of small rebellions. One summer night, during a power outage, we dared each other to sit on it. The air smelled of wet stone and mango peels. I was the first to climb up.

It was heavier than it looked, its arms worn smooth by years of hands. When I turned it gently, the sky above rippled—as if someone had thrown a pebble into the firmament. My friends gasped. A pulse of light bloomed and faded.

From that night onward, the chair became ours. We spun it every evening, whispering our wishes into the dark: to pass our exams, to heal a sick parent, to find courage. And sometimes, the sky answered.

But everything changed the night we spun it too long. A wind rose—not from the sky, but from beneath the ground. The church bell rang though no one pulled its rope. I remember my friend Laila crying out, “Stop! It’s listening!”

We ran, and when we returned the next day, the chair was gone. Only the circular groove remained, pressed deep into the cobblestones.

Years later, when the town rebuilt the square, they found fragments of it buried under layers of dust. My grandmother said it had folded itself into time, waiting for us to grow up.

She was right. Because some nights, when the wind changes, I hear a faint spinning sound—like a lullaby sung by the stars.

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by Arif Rehman Khan

1. The Chair in the Square
posting January 3rd
2. When We Spun Together
posting January 4th
3. The Sky Between Us
posting January 5th

---

1. The Chair in the Square

The first time I saw the chair spin, it was at dawn, when the fog still clung to the cobblestones like breath. I had carved it in mourning—an oak monument for the child my wife and I had lost to winter. The townsfolk thought it a foolish thing, placing a chair in the middle of the square, facing no door, no altar, no home.

But I needed something to hold the silence. So I built it wide enough for the wind to rest upon, sturdy enough for sorrow. I left it there, beneath the great clock tower, and went home to sleep.

The next morning, people said the stars had moved—drawn closer, like a curtain folding. At midnight, the constable swore he’d seen the chair spin once, slowly, as though someone unseen had sat in it and turned toward the heavens.

Soon, everyone came to touch it. Mothers with their infants, soldiers leaving for the frontier, beggars seeking luck. And each time the chair spun, something shifted above—the moon trembled, clouds broke apart.

The mayor ordered me to explain it. I told him it was only wood and grief. But in truth, I no longer knew what I had built. All I knew was that every time it turned, the air grew lighter, as if the town itself were learning to breathe again.

Years later, when my wife died, they buried her facing the chair. On the night of her burial, it spun so fast the clock tower’s hands shook loose. The next morning, the townsfolk found me sitting there, whispering her name into the wind.

They say the stars rearranged themselves into her likeness. I do not remember. Only that, when the chair stopped, I finally felt the weight of silence lift.

---

2. When We Spun Together

My grandmother said the chair used to sing when the stars were kind. By the time I was born, it had gone quiet, standing crooked in the square like a tired sentinel.

We were children then—my friends and I, full of small rebellions. One summer night, during a power outage, we dared each other to sit on it. The air smelled of wet stone and mango peels. I was the first to climb up.

It was heavier than it looked, its arms worn smooth by years of hands. When I turned it gently, the sky above rippled—as if someone had thrown a pebble into the firmament. My friends gasped. A pulse of light bloomed and faded.

From that night onward, the chair became ours. We spun it every evening, whispering our wishes into the dark: to pass our exams, to heal a sick parent, to find courage. And sometimes, the sky answered.

But everything changed the night we spun it too long. A wind rose—not from the sky, but from beneath the ground. The church bell rang though no one pulled its rope. I remember my friend Laila crying out, “Stop! It’s listening!”

We ran, and when we returned the next day, the chair was gone. Only the circular groove remained, pressed deep into the cobblestones.

Years later, when the town rebuilt the square, they found fragments of it buried under layers of dust. My grandmother said it had folded itself into time, waiting for us to grow up.

She was right. Because some nights, when the wind changes, I hear a faint spinning sound—like a lullaby sung by the stars.

---

3. The Sky Between Us

I returned to the town after twenty years abroad. The old square had changed—coffee kiosks, neon signs, tourists taking selfies where our childhood ghosts once played. But the sky… the sky was the same.

The night I arrived, a storm was coming. Lightning branched like veins across the horizon. I found the excavation site where they’d unearthed the remnants of the chair. It sat now in a glass case, its arms broken, its seat engraved with names I did not remember.

As I stood there, the wind picked up—carrying dust, prayer, and laughter. And then I saw them: silhouettes gathering around the case. Old faces, familiar smiles, and those I thought I’d lost.

Someone whispered, “Spin it.”

Without thinking, I touched the glass. It trembled, then cracked—not violently, but like ice thawing in sunlight. The chair within began to turn, impossibly whole again. The storm paused; raindrops hung in the air like suspended pearls.

And for a moment, I felt everything—the grief of the craftsman who built it, the wonder of the children who found it, the hope of a town that refused to forget.

When it stopped, the glass was intact once more. But the sky had changed. The stars formed a circle, glowing faintly like a heartbeat.

Now, when I close my eyes, I see them spinning still—a constellation shaped like a chair, like an embrace. The sky between us no longer divides. It connects.

---

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by Ibrahim Abdulhakeem

[this is the fourth in a four part series.
read We Build the Sunlight from the beginning.]

IV. When We Danced the Street Awake

The blackout had lasted six days. We’d forgotten what music sounded like through speakers. So we made our own.

First came Jide with his talking drum, then the twins with broken pots, then Halima with a whistle carved from bamboo. The rhythm rose, messy and alive. People poured from their houses, waving candles and phone lights. Even the pastor joined with his tambourine, and the imam clapped time beside him. Children leapt through the smoke of mosquito coils.

Someone shouted, “We are the light!”

And for a moment, it was true.

The street glowed—not from bulbs, but from us. Faces gleamed, sweat and faith mixed. When the power finally blinked back on, the bulbs looked pale compared to our fire.

We didn’t stop.

We danced until dawn, until the city’s silence bowed to our heartbeat.

When the drums ended, and the whistle died, we stood panting and smiling at one another.

Community, we learned, is not built. It’s remembered.

And that night, we remembered.

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by Ibrahim Abdulhakeem

[this is the third in a four part series.
read We Build the Sunlight from the beginning.]

III. The Night School

We gathered in an unfinished mosque, roofless but holy enough. Lantern light painted faces gold. Aunty Sade taught us English letters, tracing each one in the sand. Some of us were old enough to be her fathers, but she called us “my children” and we obeyed.

“C is for community,” she said one night.

“What’s that?” someone asked.

She smiled. “The reason you’re all here together instead of sleeping.”

We practiced writing community until the sand became smooth with repetition. Outside, motorbikes coughed and died; the stars leaned in to watch. When the rain came suddenly, we covered our books with our bodies. Ink bled through the pages, but we didn’t run. Rain on skin felt like an exam we could all pass together.

Afterward, she looked at our drenched notebooks and said, “You’ve already learned it—the word is not on paper, it’s here.”

She tapped her chest. We nodded, shivering, illuminated by thunder.

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by Ibrahim Abdulhakeem

[this is the second in a four part series.
read We Build the Sunlight from the beginning.]

II. The Market Choir

On Fridays, the market sang.

Not like a choir with robes and rhythm, but with hundreds of untrained voices—price calls, gossip, goats complaining.

Mama Bisi always started it. She’d shout, “Tomato sweet pass last week o!” and someone else would respond with, “Na lie! Last week one dey red like sin!” The rest of us joined the chorus.

A stranger came one day—earphones, sunglasses, silence. He flinched at every shout, every laughter-crack. I sold him oranges, and he whispered “Too loud here.” I said, “That’s how we speak joy.”

He left before noon.

But that evening, he came back with a small recorder. “Can I—listen again?”

He spent three days with us, gathering sound. Two weeks later, a radio played our market’s voice across the state. We heard ourselves laughing, bargaining, living. It was ugly and glorious.

When the program ended, we stood still, letting our own echoes fade. The stranger had captured something fragile and returned it to us—our noise, our proof of being.

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by Ibrahim Abdulhakeem

I. The Fence Builders
posting December 30th
II. The Market Choir
posting December 31st
III. The Night School
posting January 1st
IV. When We Danced the Street Awake
posting January 2nd

I. The Fence Builders

They came at dawn with buckets and nails. The fence was to divide the town neatly—east from west, us from them. It was meant to stop the noise, the gossip, the drifting smells of burnt oil and roasted corn. But the builders were our sons and daughters, so we brought them water and bread.

I remember Tunde hammering the first post, saying, “We just follow plans.” Someone answered, “Whose plans?” Nobody replied. By noon the sun cooked the tin sheets. By evening, the fence shimmered like a blade in the sky.

Children slipped through holes to trade marbles. Mothers passed bowls of soup under the panels. The fence didn’t stop much—just reminded us to pretend.

When the wind tore the panels loose that first harmattan, we didn’t rebuild. We stood together watching the pieces dance off into the dust, free as if the land itself had rejected our separation. Tunde laughed, “Guess the fence knew better.” We laughed too, a choir of tired throats, the sound of walls collapsing gently.

—

II. The Market Choir

On Fridays, the market sang.

Not like a choir with robes and rhythm, but with hundreds of untrained voices—price calls, gossip, goats complaining.

Mama Bisi always started it. She’d shout, “Tomato sweet pass last week o!” and someone else would respond with, “Na lie! Last week one dey red like sin!” The rest of us joined the chorus.

A stranger came one day—earphones, sunglasses, silence. He flinched at every shout, every laughter-crack. I sold him oranges, and he whispered “Too loud here.” I said, “That’s how we speak joy.”

He left before noon.

But that evening, he came back with a small recorder. “Can I—listen again?”

He spent three days with us, gathering sound. Two weeks later, a radio played our market’s voice across the state. We heard ourselves laughing, bargaining, living. It was ugly and glorious.

When the program ended, we stood still, letting our own echoes fade. The stranger had captured something fragile and returned it to us—our noise, our proof of being.

—

III. The Night School

We gathered in an unfinished mosque, roofless but holy enough. Lantern light painted faces gold. Aunty Sade taught us English letters, tracing each one in the sand. Some of us were old enough to be her fathers, but she called us “my children” and we obeyed.

“C is for community,” she said one night.

“What’s that?” someone asked.

She smiled. “The reason you’re all here together instead of sleeping.”

We practiced writing community until the sand became smooth with repetition. Outside, motorbikes coughed and died; the stars leaned in to watch. When the rain came suddenly, we covered our books with our bodies. Ink bled through the pages, but we didn’t run. Rain on skin felt like an exam we could all pass together.

Afterward, she looked at our drenched notebooks and said, “You’ve already learned it—the word is not on paper, it’s here.”

She tapped her chest. We nodded, shivering, illuminated by thunder.

—

IV. When We Danced the Street Awake

The blackout had lasted six days. We’d forgotten what music sounded like through speakers. So we made our own.

First came Jide with his talking drum, then the twins with broken pots, then Halima with a whistle carved from bamboo. The rhythm rose, messy and alive. People poured from their houses, waving candles and phone lights. Even the pastor joined with his tambourine, and the imam clapped time beside him. Children leapt through the smoke of mosquito coils.

Someone shouted, “We are the light!”

And for a moment, it was true.

The street glowed—not from bulbs, but from us. Faces gleamed, sweat and faith mixed. When the power finally blinked back on, the bulbs looked pale compared to our fire.

We didn’t stop.

We danced until dawn, until the city’s silence bowed to our heartbeat.

When the drums ended, and the whistle died, we stood panting and smiling at one another.

Community, we learned, is not built. It’s remembered.

And that night, we remembered.

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