FICTION || Ola W. Halim's Oversized Prison Uniforms
Penned in Rage Journal, Amplifying Marginalized Voices |
Daddie shakes my hand first—firm, bone-on-bone. Then he settles on the squeaking bench in a corner or the room. But the rickety furniture doesn't collapse under his weight.
“I'm so lean now,” he says. “At least I'm losing weight, àbí? Your Mummie used to say it's healthy.” A chuckle. “Good riddance to her sha. You see women?” He shakes his head with a tragic vigour. But the newspaper-brown walls, with the lone window—perfectly square and burglary-proof—do not explode at this. “You want to live long, Kayode? Never trust women.”
[Mummie has moved on, Daddie. I spend my semester breaks with her. The spatula scar on her shoulder has melded into skin. Her new boyfriend doesn't howl china mugs off her hands or chortle hard while she braves the shards barefoot. She called him a fool once, because he indeed acted foolish, but that didn't warrant wielding spatulas and belts and the promise of a kitchen knife half-interred in foamy sink-water.]
“How's school?”
“Fine.”
[Not fine, Daddie. I'm not finding Mechanical Engineering “valuable”—like you promised I would—even after two years, but real men don't offer more than they're asked, so school’s fine.]
“That's my engineer!”
“Thank you, Daddie.”
“What about the ladies?”
[I like men, Daddie, and I'm in love. Chinedu, that's his name. You should see him. He's mastered the art of loving lavishly, breathlessly, shamelessly, ravenously, as though that's his specialty, like he's not an expert in other things.]
“By the way, this your haircut is fine o. With it, you can get fifty women sef.” Daddie laughs at his own joke. No longer a rataplan of thunders; just a long, tired whine, like hinges screeching. “What's this perfume?”
[Even your attempt at small talk is. . .irredeemably robotic.]
“It's TalcRose, Daddie.”
“Your Mummie got it for you?”
“Yes.”
“The name sounds feminine. “Smells feminine too.”
[I like it, Daddie.] “Oh.”
The first sheet of silence settles upon us warmly, like a watered-down omen, but Daddie doesn't yank it off with belly-deep growls and, when growls fall insufficient, fists. His eyes are the furious red of ripe fruits, and I can stare squarely into them, because they no longer cause my teeth to clatter. There are no quiet quivering in my stomach, at my temples.
“How about Ronke? I know she must have missed her daddie.”
[We both know she doesn't, Daddie. That's why she isn't here with me. She's herself now. Her lipstick no longer melts into blood. Her hair is darker, more lustrous, fuller. A model. Bespangled with loud joys. You need to hear the tinkle of her laughter at the dining table. I never thought Ronke capable of expressing so much freedom. But would you understand?]
“What are you thinking about, Kayode? Is it a girl?”
[Why does that vein along your neck twitch, Daddie? What's that incrustation on your left thumbnail? Why do you smell like. . .fermented cassava? Your uniform is oversized. Did you know there's a funny patch around the buttocks?]
“So, how're they treating you here?”
“Me? They can't break me, even if they try. I stand gidigba!”
“Nice.”
“See ehn, as a man, Kayode, you must be strong. Women won't respect you if you're weak. That's why your Mummie loved me. Ah, she loved me bàjé. But she fucked up. Sending me to jail because I corrected her— [With spatulas and belts, yes?]—and the yeye jury called me an irredeemable misogynist! Do you know how many armed-robbers and kidnappers and homosexuals— [Daddie, please stop!]—and yahoo-yahoo boys are roaming around freely? Who jails them? And yet the idiot I married with my own money jailed me! God, God, God—”
“Daddie—”
“Ṣebí she's reached menopause? Between you and I, man to man, tell me, you think any man will look at her again? Those breasts are now slippers and—”
“Daddie!”
“Let me talk, Kayode!”
“She's seeing someone, actually.”
The second sheet of silence hovers, settles. Chillier, it is. More ominous. Feels like we’re standing on the thin lip of something. A cliff-edge. The event horizon of a black hole. Somewhere, a groan. A needle-thin cry. Wailing, loud and ugly. Then, a thwack. Silence.
Daddie sucks in his underlip. “Well, good for her.”
“You'll be out before you know it—”
“Do you spend your semester breaks with them? Ronke ńkọ́?”
“Yes, Daddie.”
“So he has a house big enough to accommodate Ronke’s stupid lifestyle? Of course, I know he'll allow her keep boyfriends and use makeup and wear skimpy skirts—”
“Daddie—”
“What's his name? Is he old? Does he know your Mummie sends men to jail? Is he tall like me? Your Mummie likes tall men—that picky bitch. Does he have hair around his nipples? You know your Mummie loved that about me? Hair around my nipples? She used to say it looked like an old necklace, zigi-zaga necklace. Wait, let me show you, if you don't believe me.” In vain, he wrestles with getting the shirt over his head. “Ha, this shirt, na wa o. Another prison inside another one.”
“I think it's the buttons, Daddie. But don't worry.”
“Toh. I'm dizzy. I want to sleep.”
“Here?”
“Don't I have a cell-room?”
“Oh.”
“You came to greet me, àbí? Ṣé you're done? Ọya, come and be going.”
[I came to tell you I'm gay and I'm a wanton chatterbox now and I'm quitting school and I'm shamelessly sucking vanilla yogurt from stick-thin sachets and I'm taking piano lessons and I can cry as often as I want and I don't feel like a pussy while chopping scotch bonnets for Mummie’s jollof rice—]
“Greet the new man for me. Tell him to enjoy while it lasts, because, hmmm, his eyes will see shege. Oh, and tell Ronke to visit me soon.”
“We both know she won't come, Daddie.”
He grabs the balls of his knees, as though steeling himself against a lurch. “She told you so? Did she tell you so, Kayode?”
“Daddie—”
“Later things, Kayode.”
Outside the latticed door, I wait. I watch Daddie rise. He bends so far forward I can see the knobs of his spine through the uniform. Almost hunchbacked. He stumbles across the room like a fatally wounded beast. Limply furious. Almost to a chronically debilitating degree. He stops at the door, glares at it, as though commanding it to open on its accord. But his faintest willpower no longer rips doors apart. I watch him lean back, cradle his face in cupped hands. And then, a parched howl wrenches itself out of him. Followed by another. And another. A warder approaches; horsewhip coiled at his belt. My feet shift sideways before my mind decides. I clear the doorway. The warder nods, not at me, but at the space I have vacated. He steps in. I hear the cuffs click, not the whip. I turn to leave, and I do not look back, before Daddie is led out into his cell.
About The Writer
Ola W. Halim's work has been shortlisted for the ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award 2026, the Gerald Kraak Prize, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2021 and 2026), and the Kendeka Prize for African Literature. He is also a finalist for the TFCN Teacher's Prize for Literature 2019. Twice nominated for the AKO Caine and the Pushcart prizes, he is a 2022 fellow of the Literary Laddership for Emerging African Authors.
Halim's work has appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, including SmokeLong Quarterly, Lolwe, Iskanchi, adda, Isele, The Forge, and the Gerald Kraak 2022 Anthology. He is a fiction mentor at SprinNG. Halim is interested in telling stories not frequently told.
He can be reached on Twitter @OlaposiH and Instagram via ola_w.halim.
Bridgette James and Ọlá Halim, in conversation
Bridgette - Tell Us Why You Write, Ọlá Halim.
Ọlá - Broadly, I write for a couple of reasons. To remind society that people like me exist. To process complex emotions. To attempt a deeper understanding of my surroundings, its people, their behaviours, its sociocultural dynamics. To interact with the beauty of words, the magnificence of language. To contribute to discourse in whatever field that interests me. And even, sometimes, to kill time. But I think I write primarily because I want to write about the things I care about. I want to tell the story of an albino boy. I want to interrogate with the realities of a queer person living in a hostile environment. I want to write about a mother and her wild love for her child. I want to examine our collective madness via an absurdly humorous lens. It is when I have satisfied this imperative—the need to just write about the stuff that matters to me—that the other broad “couple of reasons” surface.
“I want to tell the story of an albino boy.”
Bridgette - What’s it like being a Nigerian Creative Writer from the margins?
Ọlá - I'm one of those Nigerians who occupies a unique place in society. I'm queer, albino and largely agnostic. Apart from the systemic failures of government, manifest in different intimately troubling ways, I face discrimination on the basis of my identity. You cannot be queer in Nigeria and be free; neither education nor money could truly insulate you. People make casual innuendos about my albinism. Almost everyone I know, from friends to family members, want to make me religious, because they believe very strongly in the punishment of hell for non-believers.
In spite of all that, I've lately begun to see myself as quite privileged. I don't waste my time anymore wallowing in what I'm not, how nature and Nigeria have cheated me. I like to think now that, sometimes, within some contexts, such as mine, marginalisation is a mental construct. Of course, being openly queer in Nigeria, no matter the mental gymnastics, poses real danger, but that's not the same with being albino, and being irreligious (in some cases). I can choose to ignore whatever I am labelled due to my albinism. I have, in fact, been doing so. I can afford the discourtesy of telling someone off when they make an albino phobic joke. I can express love to whoever I deem deserving, irrespective of gender; I can openly love bright colours and gossip and remain a Nigerian man; I can dance, sing in my high-pitched voice, crack silly jokes with Ayo, speak my English in a way considered feminine, and continue to live my life.
Living in Nigeria, especially as a “creative (people would either think you're a yahoo-yahoo fraudster or you're functionally jobless), is cruel. In some areas, there's hardly power to work as you please. The Nigerian government has no plan that includes creatives. Art subjects are left alone for the smart. Nigeria is rich in art and culture, yet its numerous museums, for example, are in varying stages of deterioration. Reading is as good as discouraged; in fact, officials would rather cut ribbons across various states than attend a book festival.
So, if you ask me what it feels like writing from the margins, I'll say I don't see margins in that sense anymore. Of course, I hope things get better. I hope true defenders of the democratic system are voted in. I hope the electorate is fully educated enough to reject temporary incentives during the election periods. I hope people learn basic politeness, and no one is derided or killed for being who they are. But the universe has been good to me. I live in a small town in Edo State. I'm a student and a part-time teacher. I write fiction that points accusing fingers at the failures of the Nigerian state. I can mostly eat what I like. A lot of people find me funny. My family loves me. There's peace and quiet in my home. Every day, when I step out of the house, a beautiful sun greets me, and a cool breeze warms my face. It's a beautiful life here, despite all the hurdles, and I'm living it.
“I'm queer, albino and largely agnostic.”
Bridgette – I love your writing style. What can I learn from you?
Ọlá- Thank you very much for the compliment. I don't think there's anything you can “learn” per se. I think every writer, when they stay consistent with the craft, eventually finds their pulse, the voice they feel most authentic to them, the best ways they feel their story should be told. For me, there's no singular formula. I could spend time planning a story, and when I eventually begin to write it, it turns out totally different from the preliminary. Some stories are “pantsed”: written almost without a plan. Stories come as ideas; stories come in form of a striking sentence; you encounter an emotion and a story comes out of it. A story could take a few hours to write; others, years, maybe decades. What matters, I think, is artistic clarity: why am I telling this story? How best can I tell it? Even this varies from writer to writer.
What I consistently do, though, is revise. Revising is where the true labour lies. No matter how perfect I feel a story is, it must be subjected to two or more revisions. The story that eventually gets published could be so different from its earlier drafts you'd think they weren't written by the same person. Revising helps sharpen your story; it narrows its focus on what is most important to drive plot and deepen characterisation. Revisions can transform characters, and even reveal what you didn't know about them, such as motivations, psychology, worldview, what have you. If there's anything I've learnt that I keep learning every day, then it's this: one must recognise the power of shaping and reshaping a story until it gets close to its truest form.
This Commissioned Piece Was Read by Dr Jive Lubbungu
"The story has rare emotional intelligence and structural daring. It is not only suitable but also necessary. It speaks to intergenerational silence, the cost of survival, and the quiet revolution of choosing yourself.
© 2026 Penned in Rage. All rights reserved.
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