The Thing Around Your Neck

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

that Nnamabia had been killed by trigger-happy policemen and that this man’s job

Instead I imagined him raising his voice, calling the policeman a stupid idiot, a spineless coward, a sadist, a bastard, and I imagined the shock of the policemen, the shock of the chief staring openmouthed, the other cell mates stunned at the audacity of the handsome boy from the university.

When he asked if she would marry him, she thought how unnecessary it was, his asking, since she would have been happy simply to be told.

Obiora continues to stare at her and she knows that he has never heard her speak up, never heard her take a stand.

riots do not happen in a vacuum, that religion and ethnicity are often politicized because the ruler is safe if the hungry ruled are killing one another.

had come to understand that American parenting was a juggling of anxieties, and that it came with having too much food: a sated belly gave Americans time to worry that their child might have a rare disease that they had just read about, made them think they had the right to protect their child from disappointment and want and failure. A sated belly gave Americans the luxury of praising themselves for being good parents, as if caring for one’s child were the exception rather than the rule.

But she did not ask what Edward meant and the Kenyan did not ask and the Ugandan did not ask and all the Zimbabwean did was shove her dreadlocks away from her face, cowries clinking.

her mother thought novels a waste of time and felt that all Chioma needed were her textbooks.

They asked where you learned to speak English and if you had real houses back in Africa and if you’d seen a car before you came to America.

You looked at them and felt grateful that they did not examine you like an exotic trophy, an ivory tusk.

Yet, in the end, she agreed with him, as she always agreed with him about almost anything, and said that she had indeed imagined it all.