Welcome to this week’s installment of many micro stories, ranging in length from 100 words to 500 words.
With each story we hope to deliver a little whimsy into the lives of our readers.
THE WHISPERING TREE OF KITALE
In the quiet hills outside Kitale, nestled between maize fields and forgotten colonial bungalows, there stood a strange fig tree that the locals only called Muti wa Kivuli — the Tree of Shadow.
No birds perched on it. No leaves ever fell. The wind passed it by as though afraid. Even animals gave it a wide berth. The elders said it was planted during the Mau Mau uprising, where a man was hanged for betraying the freedom fighters. They claimed he cursed the tree with his dying breath.
Nobody believed that anymore except for the people who had heard it whispered.
Nyambura was a university student visiting her grandmother during the semester break. She was curious, headstrong, and just a little bored. When she overheard her shosho telling a neighbor that the tree had started talking again, she laughed.
“It’s just a tree,” Nyambura said.
Her shosho’s (grandmother’s) face went cold. “You hear it once, and you’ll never laugh again.”
That night, sleep came slow. Crickets chirped, and a cold wind slipped through the windows. Around midnight, Nyambura woke to a strange sound—like someone whispering through dry grass.
She sat up, heart pounding. The whisper came again, clearer now. “Nyambura… kuja hapa…” Come here.
She pressed her hands over her ears, but the voice was inside her head.
Drawn like a moth to a flame, she slipped out of bed and crept barefoot into the night. The sky was heavy with clouds, and yet, the tree stood in full light—as if a spotlight from hell shone just for it.
Her feet led her there.
When she reached the tree, she saw the bark pulsing, as though it breathed. Eyes—dozens of them—blinked open across the trunk, all weeping thick, black sap.
The whispers grew louder. “Give us your pain… your fear… your blood…”
Nyambura turned to run, but the roots had shifted—twisting like snakes across the ground. She tripped. Fell. And the tree reached for her.
Just before the roots touched her skin, a sharp cry cut through the air. A rooster.
Dawn.
The tree let out a shriek so terrible it cracked nearby windows. The roots pulled back. The eyes slammed shut. The light vanished.
Nyambura crawled back home, shaking, clothes soaked with dew and black sap. Her shosho was waiting, the kettle already on the stove. She said nothing. Just handed her a mug of strong tea and whispered, “You’re not the first.”
Later that day, Nyambura returned to Nairobi. She never spoke of the night again.
But sometimes, when it rains, she dreams of the tree. Of voices calling her back.
And in Kitale, the elders say Muti wa Kivuli is awake again.
Waiting.
Samuel Mutuota is a Kenyan storyteller and sales leader with a background in logistics and hospitality. Though best known for driving multimillion-shilling growth at firms like Tuma Mizigo Logistics and Wisali, Samuel has always carried a passion for narrative especially tales rooted in African folklore and eerie mysteries. A graduate of Emobilis Institute of Information Technology, he blends analytical thinking with vivid imagination, crafting stories that feel both grounded and hauntingly surreal. The Whispering Tree of Kitale is his fiction debut, drawing inspiration from his rural upbringing and deep curiosity about the unseen world. When he’s not closing deals or writing late at night, Samuel enjoys exploring Kenya’s landscapes, listening to traditional oral stories, and mentoring young entrepreneurs. He believes the best horror doesn’t scream, it whispers.
If you enjoyed this story you can find it and more in the Hawthorn & Ash 2023 anthology.
Iron Faerie Publishing 