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Irene Coker

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2025

Stories (4)

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4 Stories

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The Distance Between Two Rings

Irene Coker

The first time Kaya met Eren, he was holding a plastic bag of mangoes as if it were evidence.Not dramatic evidence, no blood, no fingerprints—just mangoes, bruised and leaking sweetness onto his palm, like the fruit had decided it was tired of keeping secrets.“You dropped this,” he said.Kaya blinked at him. She stood at the edge of the market where everything smelled like charcoal smoke and fried dough and sun-warmed dust. Somewhere behind her, a boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) revved like it wanted to join the negotiation.“I didn’t drop it,” Ka...

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The Soup That Wouldn’t Let Go

Irene Coker

The first sign something was wrong was the smell.Not “oops, I left something on the stove” wrong. Not “burnt toast at six in the morning” wrong.This was… spiritually delicious wrong.A smell like toasted spice, warm rain, and a secret you weren’t allowed to remember.It floated through the apartment like it owned the place.Kataike stood in her kitchen holding a wooden spoon like a microphone, staring at a pot of soup that had absolutely no right smelling that good. She had followed the recipe loosely,because recipes, in her experience, were mo...

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What Hungers Do

Irene Coker

Hunger does not always arrive with noise.Sometimes it comes dressed as discipline.Sometimes as patience.Sometimes as a tightness in the chest that refuses to loosen nomatter how much water you drink.She learned this slowly.At first, hunger meant the obvious things.The hollow sound her stomach made in the early hours beforethe sun reached the kitchen window.The way her hands shook when she stood toolong without eating.These were simple hungers.They announced themselves.They could be answered.Later, hunger became quieter.It settled into her da...

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Those Who Come, Those Who Stay

Irene Coker

Submitted to Contest #334

I have carried many names, though most people only know the one written on maps. Before maps, I was simply here. Before borders learned to argue with each other, before they cut the land into pieces and pretended the water would agree, I was already holding what humans could not. I remember when hands first reached into me without ceremony. They did not call themselves fishermen then. They were only hungry. Hunger and gratitude were the same thing in those days. People come to me now for different reasons. Beauty, they say. Peace. Escape. Th...

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