Matt Kendrick
Writer | Editor | Teacher
WELKIN MINI 2025 - HIGHLY COMMENDED
Rotten Rats
by NmaHassan Muhammad
At the NEPA maintenance office, Mrs. Ndagana complained her prepaid meter was consuming too much energy, but the electrician insisted it wasn’t the meter’s fault, asking if she had rats in her ceiling—of course she did, everyone did, rats scurried everywhere—“But wetin carry rats enter my complain?” she snapped, and he explained, smugly, gold chain glinting, that rats chewing wires caused discharges; she pointed out, “kilowatts don disappear for token tickets,” to which he muttered, “No buy online,” his words evasive, as if the system itself were crawling with rats, gnawing away at trust until only bones remained.
NmaHassan Muhammad, a versatile Nigerian writer, poet, mentor, and literary promoter, is a 2024 Oxbelly Fellow, an Ebedi Fellow and a national chess silver medalist. He’s the author of two children’s books, Biribiri Saves Us and The Empty Cage, shortlisted for the ANA/Lantern Prize. His work has been shortlisted or longlisted for prizes including The Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, Sevhage Prize, African Writers Award, Wakini Kuria Prize, ANA/Funtime Prize, The Welkin Prize, and won the Carer for an Adult Dependent prize. His work is/forthcoming in Kalahari Review, ANA Review, The Writers and Readers' Magazine, Poetry Journal, Mukana Press Anthology, Brittle Paper Festive Anthology, and elsewhere. He lives in Minna with his family and mother.
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Judge's comment:
World-building is so hard in a one-hundred-word micro, but this piece makes it look easy, completely transporting me in the way it creates both place and character. It is a one-sentence marvel, full of specific detail and tonal shifts.