By Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

The dirty-white kitten wrapped itself around the little girl’s tiny shoulders as she watched passenger boats dock. She was waiting for her father. She had never seen her father, nor did she know what he looked like. Everything she believed he was had arisen from her imagination, where she had demanded that he reveal himself in a tangible form today.

Just as she had expected that he would yesterday.
And the day before.
Whooshing winds, the murmur of the tide.

Today, her father was not among the disembarking homecomers of the morning, or among those who tumbled out of the evening dhow. He did not disembark from either of the two matatus that traversed Pate Island. Ayaana had waited till she heard the night crickets chirp, until there was sudden stillness, as if the world were waiting for her to speak. She whispered to her kitten that she would give her father only one more chance. Tomorrow was his very last chance to find her. The cat faux-scratched the girl’s head and purred.

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor was born in Kenya. She is the author of the novel Dust, which was shortlisted for the Folio Prize. Winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, she has also received an Iowa Writers’ Fellowship. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s and other publications, and she has been a TEDx Nairobi speaker and a Lannan Foundation resident. She lives in Nairobi, Kenya.

Excerpt from “The Dragonfly Sea” copyright © 2021 by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor.