In partnership with Commonwealth Foundation, Granta presents the regional winners of the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Chanel Sutherland’s story is the winning entry from Canada and Europe.
Down below, deep in the belly of the ship, we could hear its every moan: wood straining under the weight of bodies, rusted chains grinding against the walls. Even our captors’ feet shuffling back and forth, back and forth, above us. We knew death had come.
We couldn’t help but search the surrounding darkness for it, as if death might leap from the damp planks. Where we were taken from, death had many faces; it was a panther stalking in the shadows, a fever that rose with the rains. But down here all we saw were the dim outlines of our bodies, packed tight, shoulder to shoulder, back-to-back.
The bite of chains kept us awake, our wrists and ankles rubbed raw from weeks of the same. When exhaustion gave way to sleep, it was fitful, haunted by wicked dreams of home – dreams that twisted the familiar into something cruel. We tried to stay still to save each other from the pain, but then infection set in. With skin cracked and swollen, there was little to do but scratch and scrape, scratch and scrape, and when that brought no relief, we tore at whatever flesh we could to dull the burn, to feel anything but the rot creeping through our bones.
Drops of saltwater dripped from above and stung our wounds, stiffened our hair, matted it to our scalps.
We tried not to lose ourselves in misery. Our moaning had subsided long ago. In the early days, a woman screamed with terror and her cries summoned one of the white men down with his weapon. He took her up the stairs that led to the sky and we never saw her again. We heard her though, her wails echoing in the night. The memory of her screams silenced us all, like the cry of a hyena warning of death lurking near.
Many of us stopped praying. But there were some who held hope – hope that the big white water, in its mercy, might swallow the ship whole before it delivered us to whatever world waited.
Nothing could save us from the stink of pus and piss, spilling across the floor, the air thick with it and clinging to our skin, our breath, until it became part of us – until we could no longer tell where the stench ended and we began. In this way, we became one – a part of each other, through misery, shit and blood.
To pass the time, and perhaps more to forget it altogether, we clung to whatever fragments of our lives we could bear remembering. Down here, a thought was a precious thing. It carried our entire lives. One man pictured a wife asleep in their hut, an infant nestled at her chest – their faces soft and serene. Perhaps they shared the same dream, a dream he tried to reach right into. When his hand brushed against nothing, in that moment, he lost everything he had once possessed all over again.
The image stripped him bare and left him weeping into the dark, speaking in a tongue most of us could not understand. The sound of his grief was sharp and startling, filling what little space we had between us. For weeks, we had grown used to a low, miserable groaning, occasionally an outcry. Now, we had to adjust to this new desolate sorrow.
‘What do you remember?’ someone called out to the weeping man.
He choked back his sobs, his voice low but rigid as if daring the silence to swallow it. ‘Everything,’ he said. ‘My whole world. The land that carried me, the sun that warmed my back, the voices of my kin.’
For many of us, his words were a tangle of sounds, but soon another called out from the shadows, recognizing the familiar cadence.
‘Where do you come from?’
‘Anomabo. And you, friend?’
‘Assin Manso, near the great forest.’
There was a sudden, desperate joy in the way their voices met, like souls grasping for each other in the dark. As if stirred by this union, the ship began to shift beneath us. The shuffling above grew frantic, the murmur of the white men turning to shouts, sharp and urgent. Fear descended heavily, like a fog.
‘Tell us what makes you weep so? Tell us your memory,’ someone else called out.
The man hesitated, drawing a shaky breath. ‘I remember her,’ he said, his voice cracking under the weight of the words. His silence stretched, heavy and expectant, pressing down on all of us. When he spoke again, it was barely above a whisper. ‘I remember the woman I could never forget, even when the world tries to tear her from my mind.’
We all held our breath, listening. His words wrapped around us, pulling us closer, binding us to his grief. Slowly, we adjusted to their presence, letting ourselves sink into them as if they could carry us somewhere far from this dark, damp hold.
That was how the tellings began, each story birthing another. They warmed us, strengthened our aching limbs, eased our sores and flowed through our veins like healing currents. They cracked open the ship’s planks, letting in glimpses of the sky and the world we’d left behind.
So, we told them, and with each telling, the person seemed to gleam, like a star in the ship’s darkness.
We wanted to tell them to you, to share the light that still flickered, even here on the blackest of night.
the edge of the field
She was waiting for me every morning at the edge of the field, with a basket on her hip and a smile that could stop time. She was the daughter of old Nuru, the village healer, and she had her mother’s wisdom in her eyes.
I knew she had dreams – dreams that reached further than the fields we tended, beyond the life our people built together. Most would have been content with a husband, children, a home to care for, but not her. She wanted more. She wanted to heal the land, to find a way to bring the rains back, to make the earth fertile again. The dryness that crept into our village, cracking the soil and withering our crops, troubled her deeply.
She’d talk about it in the quiet moments when the day’s work was done, and the sky was an endless blue above us. She’d speak of roots that ran deep beneath the surface, of the power hidden in the earth, waiting to be unlocked. She believed there was a cure, something beyond the herbs her mother taught her to use, beyond the prayers whispered to the gods. She saw things others couldn’t – or maybe just wouldn’t.
But her ideas set her apart. The other women in the village didn’t understand why she cared so much about the land when there were babies to raise, meals to prepare, a husband to tend to. They thought her strange, always with her head tilted, listening for something no one else could hear. Some called her foolish; others, stubborn. But to me, she was a vision, a force that moved with quiet grace, and I loved her.
Her mother and father saw her dreams, her way of seeing the world, as something strange, something that would keep her apart from the rest. Old Nuru was respected, yes, but even she could not shield her daughter from the whispers, or the way people would look at her sideways, wondering what kind of woman cared more for plants and rain than for marriage and children.
I remember the day I asked. Her father, a quiet man with rough hands and a hard stare, sat across from me in their hut, sizing me up. I could see the doubt in his eyes, the way he hesitated before he spoke. ‘You know she is not like other girls,’ he said, as a warning. ‘She won’t change. If you marry her, you’ll have to live with all that comes with her – those strange ideas, the way she thinks.’
I did not hesitate. ‘I know,’ I told him. ‘That is why I want her.’
Her parents looked at each other, her mother’s brow furrowed, her lips pressed tight. I knew they loved her, but they didn’t know what to do with her, this daughter who was both a blessing and a mystery. In the end, they said yes, not because they believed I was the one who could make her happy, but because they feared she’d be alone otherwise. They thought I was the best chance she had.
And maybe I was. I didn’t care that others thought her strange, didn’t care if she didn’t fit the mould they had for a wife. To me, she was everything I never knew I needed. A wild, brilliant spark in a world that was sometimes too dark.
We built our life from the earth, the same way my father and his father did before me. I could see our sons growing tall, like the Kapok trees that shaded our village. She started planting things no one else bothered with – deep-rooted plants that didn’t wilt easily, herbs and flowers that seemed out of place among the rows of cassava and maize. She said they were medicine for the land. ‘The soil needs to breathe,’ she’d tell me, her eyes bright, full of conviction. ‘It needs to be healed, just like a body.’
I’d watch her, my heart swelling with a mix of pride and fear. I wanted to believe in her vision, but I also knew how the village talked. They saw her bending over those tiny green shoots, whispering to them, and they shook their heads.
‘What good are these plants?’ they’d say. ‘You can’t eat them.’
But she didn’t care. She tended her plants like they were children, watering them when everyone else said it was a waste, singing to them in the evenings, her voice low and soothing. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, the earth began to respond. There was a softness to it that hadn’t been there before, a hint of green where there had only been brown.
It wasn’t a miracle, and it was no work of god. But it was there – a promise, a beginning. Even though most people still didn’t understand, I knew she was onto something. I’d see her out there, standing in the field at dusk, the wind catching her braids, and I’d think she looked like she belonged to the land, like she was a part of it in a way none of us could ever be.
It happened quietly, like most things with her. One morning, she told me she was carrying our child. She said it with a calm certainty, her hand resting on her belly, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. A son, she said, and I believed her because she had that way of knowing things.
He was born under a moon that shone brighter than I’d ever seen, full and low, casting its silver light across the fields. She named him Amani, a name that meant peace.
I was remembering the last time I saw them together, sleeping. That morning, when I left, she woke and held onto me a moment longer. Her eyes searched mine as if she knew. I told her I’d be back by the next moon. I promised. And then I walked away, thinking I’d see her waiting there again, like always, at the edge of the field.
I wonder if she’s still there, waiting.
–
His words hung in the air. For a moment, all we could hear was each other’s breathing – a fragile, shared rhythm. The story had drawn out each of our griefs and gave it a shape in the dark, like smoke. But it didn’t last.
The ship groaned a deep sound that cut through the stillness. A tremor rippled through us, limbs shifting and chains scraping. The trance dissolved. We braced ourselves, for what was creeping closer. From a dark corner of the hold, another voice rose, trembling but resolute.
‘My people also struggled with the land,’ she said. ‘But unlike your woman, we didn’t try to heal it. We looked to the gods.’
Her voice was old and weathered, like wind whispering through ancient reeds.
the flood of prayers
We had prayed for the rains. For months, the land had cracked beneath our feet, the ground thirsty and splitting open like old clay. The river shrank to nothing more than a trickle, and the goats grew thin, their ribs pressing sharp against their hides. Every morning, we gathered at the center of the village, offering up our pleas to the sky, begging for mercy.
The elders led the prayers, their voices rising in unison, arms lifted to the heavens. We followed them, our own voices growing hoarse from the asking. We brought offerings of food, small though they were, and placed them in the center of the village, hoping the gods would see our need and answer us. Days passed. Then weeks. Still, the sky remained clear, unforgiving.
And then, the rains came.
At first, it was just light drops tapping against the ground, as though the gods were testing their gift. We rejoiced. Women danced with their arms stretched wide, faces lifted to feel the cool drops on their skin. Their ululations rose into the air, a joyful sound that echoed across the village, blending with the rhythm of the rain. The children ran barefoot through the village, laughing and splashing in the first muddy puddles. I stood there, watching the earth drink deeply. We thought it was salvation.
But by the next day, the sky had opened fully. The rain no longer fell softly but pounded the village relentlessly, as if all the water that had been withheld for months was now pouring down at once. The river swelled, rising faster than we could have imagined. Fields that had been barren were now drowning, the crops we had fought to save washed away.
At first, no one spoke of it. We thought the rains would pass and we tried to keep our spirits high, thanking the gods for answering our prayers. But in the quiet, when no one else was around, we whispered that maybe we had prayed too much.
I stood at the riverbank one evening, the rain still falling hard. The river, once a thin and struggling stream, had become a roaring, rushing beast. It tore at the banks, eating away at the land. I watched as one of our sacred trees lost its grip and fell into the water, swept away as if it had never stood there at all.
Was this the gods’ gift, we wondered, or their wrath?
We huddled together in our homes, listening to the rain batter the walls. No one said it aloud, but we all felt it – we had asked for mercy, and perhaps, in return, we had been given too much.
–
‘There’s water!’
It had been so soft during the old woman’s telling, like a memory unfolding, that we hadn’t noticed it at first. Not until it was up to our ankles.
‘It’s coming in,’ another voice shouted. ‘Look at the walls!’
Saltwater seeped through the cracks, snaking down the wood. We jolted – chains scraping, breaths quickening, fear spreading like ripples on water.
Somewhere in the shadows, a girl giggled softly. ‘Look at the froth! It’s like flowers,’ she said. Her voice was happy, confused, like the touch of a fever.
Another voice followed hers, cutting through the growing panic. ‘Yes, little one. They are like flowers.’
‘I knew flowers,’ the girl whispered, her voice floating above the murmurs, carrying an unsettling joy. ‘I picked them by the gate.’
‘Those flowers beyond the gate,’ the voice coaxed, ‘they hold memories, don’t they?’
‘Yes,’ the girl mused. ‘Maybe when the waters go, we’ll find new flowers waiting for us.’
The shouts above were drifting down – sharp bursts in the white man’s language – but we no longer heard them. The fear that had begun to rise among us softened, folding back into the darkness like the receding tide.
‘Tell us,’ the voice urged from the shadows. ‘Tell us about the flowers beyond the gate.’
And so, another story began, rising among us like a fragile bloom in the blackness, the words holding the sea back – for a little longer.
the flowers beyond the gate
I hadn’t planned on going far from the gate that day. The sun was stretching the shadows long and thin over the village. I could feel them watching me. They weren’t supposed to be that long yet. My basket pressed tight against my side, and I told myself to hurry – Kemi’s child would arrive soon, and I had to gather wild roots and leaves to ease her pain. They always trusted me for that.
I knew which roots to boil and which herbs to crush. The knowledge was planted deep, running through my blood, passed from my mother’s hands to mine, and hers before her. If I could just find the right roots, everything would be fine.
The guards stood at the gate, their spears glinting like teeth. Their eyes scanned the horizon. As long as I could see them, I was safe. I crouched low, fingers digging into the earth, pulling up the roots I needed. The Kankana roots, thick and gnarled, resisted at first. I pulled harder; Kemi would need them. The Kinkeliba leaves would make a bitter tea, one that could hold her through the hours of labour. These plants couldn’t grow inside the village – they choked the tame crops.
Then I saw it – Chinyika. Its bright petals – pink, red, and white – flaring like fire stars against the green. It wasn’t supposed to be here, not now, not with the air so dry. Things didn’t grow when the world was cracking open. And yet, there it was – waiting. I knew its roots could heal wounds, loosen the fever’s grip. But I also knew the guards smeared it on their spears. Just a scratch could turn blood against itself.
I glanced toward the guards again, telling myself it would only take a moment. The flowers weren’t far, just past the trees, only a little beyond where the earth breathes wild. If I was quick, no one would notice.
I stood and stepped off the path, slipping between the trees. The petals brushed my fingers, soft as silk. Their fragrance was sweet and strange, curling inside my chest like a song I couldn’t quite remember. I plucked a few, tucking them into my basket. But it wasn’t enough. I needed more.
The more I gathered, the more I wanted. The roots curled like sleeping snakes, delicate and dangerous, and I marvelled at their power – how something so beautiful could poison or save, depending on who held it.
It wasn’t until I looked up that I realized how far I’d gone. The guards were gone. The village, too. The air felt wrong – too still, too empty. My heart twisted inside my chest. I clutched the basket tight and ran, tripping over roots, rushing back toward the gate.
When I returned, the women gathered close, their hands reaching for the flowers and roots in my basket. I told them about the Chinyika – how it had bloomed bright and fierce. Too fierce for this season, but there it was just beyond the gate. Their eyes gleamed with understanding.
‘We should go tonight,’ one whispered urgently. ‘While the blooms are still fresh.’
But the guards stepped forward, blocking our way. ‘Not at night,’ they warned, their voices low. ‘It’s too dangerous. White devils stalk the land, snatching those who wander too far from the village.’
We laughed at them. ‘What’s this? Have our fearless warriors grown frightened of children’s tales?’ But their faces stayed grim, their hands tight on their spears. So we waited, promising ourselves that we’d go at dawn before the sun could steal the cool of the night.
When the first light touched the land, we rose early and hurried toward the grove. But when we reached the place where the flowers had burned so bright, they were gone. Not a petal, not a trace. Only the bare earth, empty and cracked, as if nothing had ever grown there.
As we turned back toward the gate, no one spoke. The only sound was the crunch of our feet on the dry earth, each step pressing the loss deeper into our bones. I told myself they were just flowers, but the thought didn’t feel true. Something else had been lost, something I couldn’t name.
–
For a moment, the girl’s strange laughing voice hung there, like a damp shroud. We had all heard it in her story – a hollow, distant quality, like the final hum of a broken instrument. It was the sound of something slipping away.
We had no way of knowing what she had lived through before now.
We realized, then, that the story she told wasn’t just a tale – it was perhaps her last memory. Or maybe it was the only memory she had left now that her mind had fractured. We understood, too, that she clung to it as if it were a lifeline – something solid in a world that had broken beneath her feet.
‘I knew flowers,’ the girl whispered again. ‘I picked them by the gate.’
Around us, the sea pressed harder against the wood, charging in from all sides like a great herd crashing through the planks. The saltwater swirled at our legs, cold and rising, but no one moved. No one complained. We sat still, waiting for the next voice to rise. Waiting for another story to tether us to our lost world a little longer.
And then, softly, it came: a voice from the dark, hesitant at first. ‘There was a boy,’ he began.
The ship groaned a low hollow sound that seemed to say I’m listening.
the hunter’s hands
The voice was faint at first, barely cutting through the rush of water and creaking wood. Then it grew stronger.
‘There was a boy,’ it began again, ‘just six years old. Small and scrawny, but he had a fire in him, a fierceness he couldn’t yet hold in his little bones. He wanted to be a warrior, like his brothers. Wanted to run through the tall grass with a spear in his hand, to be strong and fearless. But they laughed, called him a reed that would snap in the wind. Still, he followed them, always trailing behind, eyes wide with wonder and stubbornness.’
A pause, and the voice trembled as if holding something too heavy to carry.
‘One evening, when the sun dipped low, and shadows stretched long across the earth, the brothers came back from hunting. But the boy was not with them. They searched, called his name, but there was no answer. He had snuck out, like he always did, thinking he could follow them, prove he was strong. Their mother . . . she was frantic, screaming his name, tearing at her hair. She knew there were wild things out there, creatures with teeth sharp as knives, eyes that glowed in the dark.’
The ship creaked as if responding. The water rose higher.
‘But it wasn’t just beasts with claws they feared. There were other things – white demons, we called them. Men who walked like shadows, who could take a child in the blink of an eye, and he’d be gone. Stolen away, as if he had never existed. They searched through the night, through the tangled brush, over rocks and streams, but they found nothing. Not even a single footprint. It was as if the earth had swallowed him whole.’
The voice softened, drifting like a breeze, and then grew stronger, carrying a new ache – hope.
‘They did not stop searching,’ the voice continued. ‘Far into the next day, they combed through the forest, called his name, listened for any sign, any whisper. And then, just as the sun began to set, they found him. He was sitting with his back against a tree, a porcupine in his lap, its spines bristling like a thousand tiny spears. His hands were a mess of cuts, raw and bleeding, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away. His fingers moved carefully, plucking out the spines one by one, determined to skin the creature.
‘What are you doing?’ his brothers asked, relieved and frightened. And the boy, small and scrawny, looked up with eyes that held a quiet fire. ‘A hunter feeds his people,’ he said. ‘I wanted to bring something back, like you do. I can do it. I can help.’
They watched him, this boy with bloody hands, the porcupine slipping between his fingers, and they realized he had never been lost. He had been searching too, not for a way home, but for a way to prove he belonged. And in that moment, they saw not a child, but a warrior – one who might be small, but had a heart that was fierce, and hands that would not stop, even when they were trembling, even when they bled.
They carried him home, the porcupine tucked under his arm, and the whole village gathered to see. No one laughed. No one called him a reed. They saw his hands and understood what courage looked like. From that day, he was never left behind. For a hunter was not just the one who brought the biggest prey, but the one who would not give up, even when the task was painful, even when his hands bled.’
The voice softened to a whisper. ‘Sometimes, we are lost, not because we have wandered, but because we are searching. And sometimes, what we find is not what we thought we would, but it is enough. It is always enough.’
The water continued to rise, reaching our chests and necks, but the man speaking did not flinch. Slowly, he shifted, revealing a glint of metal in his hand, small and sharp, stained dark with old blood. ‘The boy was not the only one who learned to keep going,’ he said. ‘I carried this for weeks, hidden in the wound of my sole, waiting for a moment to set myself free. And tonight, I have.’
The metal shard slipped from his fingers, tapping the wooden floor with a muffled clink. It had done its job, prying at the links of his chains until they gave way. ‘A hunter feeds his people,’ he murmured, his eyes gleaming with a quiet, steady light. ‘And a warrior, no matter how small, finds a way.’
A murmur passed through us – a spark, faint but real. Deep in the belly of the ship, we started to hope again.
Our world did not end, you see. It bent, it broke, but it did not end. The sea could claim our bodies, but it could not drown the stories that held us, nor the spirit that kept us breathing.
We are still here, still breathing, still alive in our stories. They could not take that.
Image © Jonathan Cooper