September 2018

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The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

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VOLUME: 3 - ISSUE: 4 - September - 2018 Columns:

Letter from London: John Looker 09

The Wanderer - Andrew Fleck 13

Shane’s Stack ‘ n Stock - Shane Joseph 18 Review :Welcome to Saint Angel

William Luvaas/ Robin Throne 48 Review :Love Death Hell/ Tetiana Aleksina/Tony Single

Marta Pombo Sallés 64 Poetry:

Dilantha Gunawardana 21 Rehanul Hoque 23 Denis Waswa Barasa 26 Neetu Malik 50 Pitambar Naik 53 Ryan Quinn Flanagan 58

Poetry-Translation- Turky/English

Özer Genç/ Serkan Engin 95 Fiction: Keith Perkins 28 Ockert Greeff 40 Novella: Sahana L 69 Cartoon Images: Allen Forrest 37

THE WAGON MAGAZINE 4/4, FIRST FLOOR, R.R.FLATS, FIRST STREET, VEDHACHALA NAGAR, KODAMBAKKAM, CHENNAI - 600 024

Phone: +91-9382708030 e-mail: thewagonmagazine@gmail.com www.thewagonmagazine.com The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

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courtesy:Cartoonstock.com

PRASAD'S POST

"Don't ever call me mad, Mycroft. I'm not mad. I'm just ... well, differently moraled, that's all.”

- Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

I found this on the Face book timeline of my friend Ravi Shanker N – “When I was 10 - rubber meant eraser, ass meant donkey, gay meant happy, straight meant linear, making out meant 'logical detection', cock meant rooster, pussy meant cat, stag meant a male deer, prick meant a jab, poke meant a nudge, chick meant a baby hen, screw meant a carpenter's implement and a tit was always for tat!! Damn! English has changed so much!!!!!"

Let me take a word from that list – Gay. When I was in school, the word meant festive, colourful or bright.

And then it baffled me to learn that the word ‘gay’ had a totally The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

4 different meaning in the 19th century when I went into the research mode. To quote: Gay (common, loose, dissipated; a "gay woman" or "gay girl," a prostitute. "All gay," vide All gay.

1889, Albert Barrère, Charles Godfrey Leland, A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant: Embracing English, American, and Anglo-Indian Slang, Pidgin English, Tinker's Jargon and Other Irregular Phraseology, Volume 1, p. 399 (E.g.,) She imprudently forms the acquaintance of a "gay girl" living in the same street.

1898, John Mackinnon Robertson, G. Aston Singer, "The Social Evil Problem" in The University magazine and free review: a monthly magazine, Volume 9, p. 308 (E.g.,)"As nothing could be more gay, i.e., debauched, than Zeno's court, so the ladies of gay disposition had great sway in it; particularly one, whose name was Fausta, who, though not extremely handsome, was by her wit and sprightliness very agreeable to the emperor.

1899, Henry Fielding, Edmund Gosse, The works of Henry Fielding with an introduction, Volume 11, p. 290 Look up: http://www.yourdictionary.com/gay Shall we say the word ‘Gay’ has travelled a full circle? (Am I politically correct here?)

The earlier uses of festive, colorful and bright are still found, especially in literary contexts; however, this usage, for example, ‘in a gay mood’ or ‘gay sunny meadows’ has fallen out of fashion and is now likely to be misunderstood by those who are unaware of the original meaning of the word which dates back to 13th-century Middle English.

There are more baffling things happening here. Someone asked me, in between a discussion, after using the word ‘oriental’, whether I was offended by the word “Oriental” and he proceeded to apologize voluntarily. For what? Why should I be offended? I am an oriental. Then I was told that it was not politically correct; he should have said ‘Asian’ and that would be politically correct. That is more ridiculous. Asia also includes India, Persia, the Persian Gulf states, The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

5 and half of Russia. When I replied that if I am an ‘oriental’ then he is an ‘occidental’, he became agitated and left in anger, calling me a ‘politically incorrect person’. I just sited a fact. Why truth should offend him? As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote in Half of a Yellow Sun, “The truth has become an insult.”

“The problem is that it has become politically awkward to draw attention to absolutes of bad and good. In place of manners, we now have doctrines of political correctness, against which one offends at one's peril: by means of a considerable circular logic, such offences mark you as reactionary and therefore a bad person. Therefore if you say people are bad, you are bad.” -Lynne Truss, Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door If I comment that we live in a conditional world, is that a politically correct statement? Okay, I said it; and then I go on to say that that is becoming more conditional - political correctness is a major part of this conditionality today. If you want to be involved in politics or public life, there is a conception that you should not say certain things. Political correctness shoots out of that notion. But, it is unfortunate that in our technically hyper linked cyber world, we have submitted ourselves to make our lives public. In the internet sphere, in the universal village, every one of us gossip and comment on every other’s lives. There is no private face anymore. You can see only the public face all the time. On the other side, people who have views that are not politically correct feel rejected and/or persecuted.

It is no wonder that, in their limited space, they can be honest. That is why they become angry; they react and take retaliatory steps.

Let us look it from another perspective. Yesterday, I was riding with a friend of mine, Selvam, a film director. (Being a voracious reader and having some sort of experience in films, I am usually invited for film story discussions and Selvam has already directed a Tamil movie by name ‘Rameswaram’. You can look up.) In fact, I met his long time associate the previous day and during the drive, I started to share the proceedings of the meet. Then, to my surprise, he said that the other person did not share anything about his film with The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

6 him since he prefers only people who would accept whatever he says.

True. It is common that the majority today seek out others with similar views to their own. They seek out people who will accept them, rather than discipline them. One of the key problems with using political correctness to create change within society is that the change political correctness creates is not real and therefore, not flexible. We are not genuinely changing. When we are enforced to be politically correct, we pretend and, moreover, we grow increasingly angry for not being allowed to be who we are.

In fact, this “Political Correctness” movement is getting out of hand.

Freedom of speech? What's that?

Political Correctness can go to the extremes. It's pretty ridiculous at times. Let us get back to the word ‘Gay’. Sometime back there was a news item which went viral. The kid on the news was banned from ‘Xbox live’ for simply filling out his user profile. He declared in the form that he lived in ‘FORT GAY’, West Virginia. But Microsoft said that the word “gay” was offensive, under any circumstance. So, he was thrown out. What's wrong with the word ‘gay’, now? What to do with people with their surnames ‘GAY’ From Amendine Gay (1984) to David Gay (died-2010)? (Here is a list of people with their surname as Gay - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay (surname)) Do they have to change their names?

In 2003, French fries and French toast were renamed "Freedom fries" and "Freedom toast" in three U.S. ‘House of Representatives’ cafeterias in response to France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq; this was described as "polluting the already confused concept of political correctness”.

-www.nytimes.com/2003/03/12/us/threats-responses-washingtontalk-order-fries-please-but-hold-french.html

Here are some of the ridiculous Politically correct anecdotes.

The BBC has dropped the use of the terms ‘Before Christ’ (BC) and ‘Anno Domini’ (AD) on one of their programs and decided that the terms 'Before Common Era' / 'Common Era' are more appropriate.

Throughout several US councils and organisations, any terms The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

7 using the word 'man' as a prefix or suffix have been ruled as not being politically correct. 'Manhole' is now referred to as a 'utility' or 'maintenance' hole.

Spotted Dick - a classic English dessert has been renamed to avoid embarrassment. The traditional ‘pud’ Spotted Dick has been given the title ‘Spotted Richard’, after UK council bosses feared the original name might cause offence.

A UK council has banned the term 'brainstorming' – and replaced it with 'thought showers', as local lawmakers thought the term may offend epileptics.

There are more. Please look up. (Am I politically correct?)

If these come can writers be far behind?

James Finn Garner came and wrote –‘Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: Modern Tales for Our Life and Times’. It is a 1994 book written by this American writer in which Garner satirizes the trend toward political correctness and censorship of children's literature, with an emphasis on humour and parody. The bulk of the book consists of fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Little Pigs and Snow White, rewritten so that they supposedly represent what a "politically correct" adult would consider a good and moral tale for children. For instance, take the story of Cinderella.

It is a parody of the Cinderella fairy tale, with a distinctly feminist and anti-lookist twist. The ending is completely different from the original fairy tale.

“Cinderella's "Fairy God person" (who is male) reluctantly agrees to dress her up for the ball. However, she is so attractive in her impractical shoes, clothing and makeup, that every male in the ballThe Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

8 room goes mad for her and a brawl begins that eventually results in the death of every last one of them. The women, envious of Cinderella's ability to make men go mad for her beauty, at first turn on her; however, the clock strikes midnight, and she is transformed back to her peasant garb—and is so happy to be in comfortable clothes again, that the other women decide they're now envious of her comfort. Instead of killing her, however, they remove their own corsets and dresses and impractical shoes and dance around in their "shifts and bare feet". Covering up the real reason behind the men's deaths, they take over the kingdom and open a clothing company that produces only comfortable and practical clothing for women.”

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politically_Correct_Bedtime_Stories

O. K. Now let us move on to a visual support.

What happened to the “Agree to disagree” rule of the old?

PC is not real Liberalism. It’s Pansy Liberalism.

We see too many examples of people using political correctness not as a way to promote inclusiveness, but as a weapon, either attempting to shut down the viewpoints they disagree with in the name of ‘sensitivity’, or claiming ‘victim’ status, as though such status makes them immune from criticism.

The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

9 Am I politically correct? Don’t know…

If silence is golden then gold has no use

you can spend all you want and not stop the abuse.

The structure is crumbling, the framework is bent and society is in downward descentbefore you say something please pause and reflect is what you are thinking politically correct?

Here is an epitaph as silent as death chiseled in tombstone where you're laid to rest.

Please pause for a moment and pay your respects here lies a man who is politically correct.

- John Wilowski Krishna Prasad

a. k. a

Chithan

The painting used on this month’s wrapper is by Kogahara Izumi. She is one of the popular and promising figurative painters in Japan.She is born in Utsunomiya city in Tochigi perfecture. Her art has been on exhibition in all first class galleries in Tokyo as well in other major cities of Japan. Mostly she works on the concept ‘Woman’.

In her words: “When I draw a woman in my pieces, the concept is not the beauty of the feminine form, but their inner minds.

I believe that the inner mind is consisted of these following three elements.

This is who I am. (The effort to accept the current) This Is how I want to step forward from the current situation. (The motivation of stepping forward) This is who I want to be (The ambition) These three elements are related to each other and they are portrayed in ‘The Woman’ in my paintings.”

(The title of the painting is: The sky passing by / 45cm by 30cm/ oil on canvas) She is represented by Art Obsession.co.jp. www.kogaharaizumi.com / izumi.kogahara@facebook.com The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

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Letter from London - 20 from John Looker

The Poetry Hotel

There are times when Life seems to be in a good mood and hands out one small present after another when least expected. My wife and I had that experience recently in Portugal.

We were on holiday near Lisbon. Having left booking too late, we didn’t have much choice over hotels and were relieved to find somewhere that looked very comfortable. The neighbourhood however was not a holiday resort but a workaday town in the commuter belt for the city.

Then on arrival we discovered that this was a hotel with a theme: poetry.

The heart of the Hotel Palacio dos Archos was a former 'palacio' The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

11 – if not a palace as we would understand the term, it was a beautiful house built in the fifteenth century with balconies overlooking the sea where, it is said, King Manuel had watched caravels leaving for India. In its heyday, poets and other literary figures had been entertained here. There are statues of poets in the garden and a Poets Park in the little town that grew up around the house.

Throughout the hotel, the walls were decorated with quotations from poetry. Mostly these were Portuguese as you would expect, but we also found poems in French and Spanish.

And the bedrooms were named after poets – the Portuguese surrealist Mário Cesariny for us. If you could afford the best rooms you might have Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe or Jóse Saramago but we also saw Byron, Eluard, Rimbaud and Rilke.

This might sound pretty superficial: no more than decoration for a commercial organisation. But there was more, as we were to discover on our first night.

Many hotels with a few stars like to place a chocolate on your pillow each evening. Here they also left a small card with a verse from a Portuguese poem on one side and one in English The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

12 on the other. We had Emily Dickinson a few times, Matthew Arnold, Jack Gilbert and several others including Neruda in translation. It became something to look forward to. Who would we have tonight?!

And every Friday was Poetry Night in one of the old rooms around the bar. The staff encouraged me to go: I would be welcome, some of the poems might be in English, there would be music as well as poetry. So on our last evening I went. I thought I might sit at the back, soak up the atmosphere and then slip away early. I soon found this plan wasn’t going to work.

Six or seven people were sitting in a circle, the leader reading poetry from a laptop which was also playing music. I could not have been more conspicuous nor felt more like an intruder but they made me very welcome. Did I speak Portuguese? Não – sorry, desculpe! A bit of chat in English. Then back to poetry in Portuguese.

After a while some late arrivals trickled in. One elegant woman went around the circle kissing everyone on both cheeks, including me, greeting us all with "boa noite”.

Two of others recited their own poems, to warm applause. One was clearly very moving; the other evidently witty.

Then I made my apologies and began to leave – but was instantly detained.

Would I recite something in English? I demurred ... didn’t I know anything? ... yes but surely ... well go on then! So I told them a poem that I had written a couple of years ago for my wife: just seven lines – first published here in the Wagon.

To my consternation I realised that one of The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

13 the group was clicking away at me with a formidable camera. I can’t imagine what they propose to do with the photos.

There is one other experience to mention. This holiday was in celebration of our golden wedding anniversary and I had written a new poem for my wife. I wanted to give this to her on the day but had been unable to print it before we left home and I had to ask the reception staff for help.

They were a joy. The young women at the desk enthusiastically lent a hand, not just printing the poem as it came but suggesting the font, the spacing, the margins and trying different sheets of paper for best effect.

So when I say that it was a pleasant surprise to discover that the hotel made poetry its theme, I am thinking of more than the decorations and the naming of rooms or even the nightly poems on the pillow. I am remembering some of Life's small kindnesses.

John Looker lives in England with his wife. He is currently completing a second collection of poetry, entitled Shimmering Horizons. His first collection, The Human Hive (Bennison Books, 2015) was selected by the Poetry Library for the UK’s national collection. His work has been published by Magma (UK), Artemis (USA), The Wagon Magazine (India) and other journals, in online journals including Poetry Breakfast, and Ink Sweat & Tears and has appeared in two anthologies: Indra’s Net (UK) and the Austin International Poetry Festival’s 25th anniversary anthology.His blog, Poetry from John Looker, is at https://johnstevensjs.wordpress.com The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

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The Wanderer Andrew Fleck Suffering and Woe

I was recently asked to do a reading at a wedding– the ‘reading’ being a relatively new, but already fairly well established concept in English weddings. In England’s old Christian marriages, the ‘readings’, if there were any, were from the Bible, and reinforced the wedding liturgy, which focused on the sacred importance of marriage, thefinality of its vows and the rather intimidating idea that two people were now irrevocably one flesh. The official text of the wedding, like the ceremony itself, had centuries’ of usage behind it, and the weddings presided over by men who had practised them all their working lives.We moderns The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

15 with our readings, by contrast, are basically making it up as we go along. The results are bound to be mixed.

I have seen many forgettable readings at weddings over the years, and a few that were memorable for the wrong reasons. Perhaps the best was a reading of the poem ‘She Walks in Beauty’ By Lord Byron: She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

That is about three parts enchantment and one part flattery – a nice mood to strike on a wedding day, and a clever move to make to start off a marriage. It was read by the mother of the groom – and presumably on behalf of the groom– and was the right poem for that occasion.Not for mine, however: the wedding in question was my younger sister’s.

Not wanting to befuddle the wedding guests, I thought it best to read something in a reasonably modern idiom. And yet I couldn’t help noticing that a lot of the poems about weddings from the 20th century evoke disenchantment. The most famous wedding poem of the last century sees Philip Larkin, on a train through the English Midlands in thelate 1950s noticing party after party of wedding guests, brides and grooms among them, on the streets of the towns he passes through, and there is little about them that ‘walks in beauty’. mothers loud and fat; An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms, The nylon gloves and jewellery-substitutes, The lemons, mauves, and olive-ochres that Marked off the girls unreally from the rest In Larkin’s profane post-war England, any sense of the enchantment of matrimony has departed, and the ‘parodies of fashion’ that the girls use to brighten up the day do little to recapture it. Nissim Ezekiel strikes a somewhat less scornful note in his ‘A Jewish Wedding in The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

16 Bombay’– as well he should, as he is describing his own wedding.

There are scenes of joy there – notably the bride’s brothers stealing his shoe for a laugh. But again, we see little in the way of transcendental beauty – the religious element of the wedding is described as prosaically as the theft of a shoe: I remember a chanting procession or two, some rituals, lots of skull-caps, felt hats, decorated shawls and grape juice from a common glass for bride and bridegroom.

The Jews of Bombay seem to be as pragmatic in their way as the nominally Christian Englishmen of the East Midlands. The title of Larkin’s poem, ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ refers to the English name of the feast of the Pentecost, for it is this Sunday, seven Sundays after Easter, that the weddings take place, and in doing so he is drawing a contrast between the fading religious traditions of England’s past and the profane, secular atmosphere of the present: the only explicit reference to religion in the poem is in this rather strange line describing the brides heading to the south coast for their honeymoons: While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared At a religious wounding ‘Religious wounding’ is Larkin’s way of describing the consummation of the marriage – in those days most girls would have at least pretended to be virgins before their wedding night. The action is religious because it is religion that has made the girls wait for it, or because they expect something transcendental.It is wounding because, well, it might hurt. Ezekiel’s wife describes the most likely aftermath, however: ‘Is that all / there is to it? She had wondered.’

For 20th century glumness about marriage nobody quite beats Robert Lowell’s To Speak of Woe that is in Marriage’ which describes a point in a marriage at which: My hopped up husband drops his home disputes, and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes Though later the narrating wife says she spends each night ‘gored by the climacteric of his want.’ Gored by the climacteric of his want? It’s not as bad as all that, is it? There’s much more going on in The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

17 that poem than I have cared to, um, delve into, but plainly 20th century poetry, though written in an accessible idiom, is not the place to find a nice reading for one’s sister’s wedding.

Still, Lowell, with his heady climacteric,got me on the right track. The title of the poem is from The Wife of Bath’s Prologue in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, probably the most famous commentary on marriage in English Literature: Experience, thogh noon auctoritie Were in this world, is right inogh for me To speke of wo that is in marriage.

For lordinges, sithI twelve yeer was of age, Thonked be God that is eterne on live, Housbondes at chirche-dore I have had five A very literal ‘translation’ into modern English goes: ‘Even if there were no authority [on the topic of marriage] in the world, my experience is quite enough for me to speak of the woe that is in marriage, for Gentlemen, since I was twelve years of age, thanks be to God who lives eternally, I have had five husbands at the church door.’

This run of bad luck (for her husbands, not her) then, has allowed the wife to amass a wealth of cynical wisdom that quite scandalizes her audience. Again, not quite the best material for the wedding of one’s sister (whom I hope does not marry five husbands), but a nod in the right direction – that is, to ditch the attempt to enchant altogether and give some brotherly– and brother-in-lawerly– advice.

The very right advice was to be found again in Chaucer, this time in a modern translation and – because I didn’t have all the time in the world to prepare for it – in anthology of poems fit for weddings.

The section is from the Franklin’s Tale – a franklin is a landowner, somewhere in the lower-middle ranges of England’s Mediaeval class system – and his advice, as practical as can be, betrays awareness of all the difficulties of marriage that Larkin, Ezekiel and Lowell allude to, and gives a solution – indeed, the only possible solution: Looke who that is moostpacient in love, He is at advantage al above.

Pacience is an heighvertu, certain, The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

18 For it venquisseth, as thiseclerkesseyn, Things that rigoursholdenevereatteine, For every word men may nat chide or pleine; Lerneth to suffer, or else, so moot I gon, Ye shul lerne it wherso ye wole or non.

Which I would render: ‘See how he most patient in love is at an advantage above all others. Patience is a high virtue, to be sure, for it vanquishes, as the experts say, things rigour never will. Men cannot every time chide or complain. So learn to suffer, or as I live, ye will learn it whether you want to or not.’ Or, as in the anthology’s translation, in a line I quite enjoyed reading at the wedding: So, learn to suffer, or I swear you’ve got To learn the hard way, if you like it or not.

Credits

‘She Walks in Beauty’ by Lord Byron is in the public domain.

So are the works of Chaucer, though the versions used are from the Penguin Version, Ed. Jill Mann, London, 2005 and the last couplet from the Franklin’s Tale was from Penguin’s Poems for Weddings, Ed. Laura Barber, Penguin, London, 2014 (translator uncredited) Excerpts from ‘The Whitsun Weddings’, in Collected Poems, Philip Larkin, Faber and Faber, London 1988 ‘A Jewish Wedding in Bombay’ can be found in Collected Poems, Nissim Ezekiel, OUP India, 2005 ‘To Speak of Woe that is in Marriage’ in Selected Poems by Robert Lowell, Farrar, Straus & Giroux,1976

Andrew Fleck, who has been a secondary school teacher, proofreader and EFL teacher, among other things, writes on poetry and history at https://thepeeltower.wordpress.com The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

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Shane’s Stack ‘n’ Stock - episode 2

Homegoing - by Yaa Gyasi Reviewed by Shane Joseph

“Losing home and finding it,” is a theme that has pre-occupied me all my life, given that I was a colonial remnant in the country of my birth, Sri Lanka, and then travelled through other countries before ending up beside a lake in Canada, wondering whether home could be anything other than a state of mind. This book drew me as the author took the meteoric plunge to discover her roots on both sides of the Atlantic, leading back to the time of the great schism in her family brought about by colonialism and the slave trade. - Shane Joseph A powerful novel that traces the evolution of the African in his homeland as well as in the New World over the last two centuries.

Two half-sisters in eighteenth century Ghana—unaware of each other’s existence due to a runaway mother, Maame, who sets fire to her village and escapes—begin divergent life paths: one to marry a British colonizer and walk the ordered pathways and hallways of the Cape Coast Castle in Fanteland, and the other to be captured by The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

20 slavers and buried under a horde of women mired in their excrement inside a dungeon of the same castle while waiting to be walked out the Door of No Return on a voyage to America.

Chapters alternate with the story of one member of each of the sisters family line, down through the generations, from the late eighteenth century to the turn of the twenty-first. And therein lies the book’s weakness, for a collection of linked short stories, dramatic though each story is, does not a satisfying novel make. I had to often refer back and pick up the trail from a previous chapter. The multitude of characters, barring a few, do not have enough space and time to develop fully. Although the vital family trees are presented at the beginning of the book, it would have been helpful to have the year in which the respective stories were taking place in order to connect them with real historical events. But if the author’s intention was to present the Ghanaian and the African-American archetypes as her two principle characters, and to show us their evolution over the last two centuries in as short a possible narrative, with these short stories acting merely as inflection points along their respective journeys, then she has succeeded.

What emerges is a bloody picture. “There is evil in our lineage,” says grandmother Akua, the Crazy Woman, who, like her ancestor Mamme, set fire to her household, killing her daughters and scarring her son. And the evil is on both sides, among whites and blacks alike. The Fante and Asante tribes (both who are represented in the Ghanaian side of this story due to a strategic marriage somewhere along the line) are hostile to each other, raiding and procuring slaves for sale to the white man; the Asante fight wars against their colonial masters, the British; American slave owners treat their “human resources” horribly; the post-civil war period in the USA ends only with segregation and the Jim Crow laws that makes one wonder whether the days of slavery were better; the Civil Rights Act provides temporary relief only to be replaced by the War on Drugs that puts blacks at a further disadvantage. Ghana, post-independence, seems to gain a measure of self-confidence, and with the discovery of cocoa, members of the family tree on that side start to find their feet, even The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

21 managing to immigrate to the USA as academics, leapfrogging their ancestors’ slave legacy.

It is left to the final descendents of the original half-sisters, Marjorie (Ghanaian) and Marcus (African-American), to close the circle by meeting accidentally and falling in love. They will never know of their connected past, for family history has been obliterated through slavery, migration and the lack of written records. They both carry the phobias of ancestry: Marjorie is scared of fire (Akua is her grandmother) and Marcus is scared of water (slaves were reputedly afraid of the ocean that took them away from their homeland).

Both know that they are different even though they share a common African heritage; this becomes obvious when they visit each other’s countries and realize that they are black but not black enough to belong; they speak, think, and view the world differently. They carry the mixed child’s legacy: knowing that their white parent can choose a life, but they, the children, cannot.

Marjorie (who I suspect is a proxy for the author) and Marcus—both gifted with the education their ancestors never had—are tasked to overcome, to face their phobias and bury this awful legacy, and be reborn as free men and women in a supposedly enlightened world that seeks to forget its dark history.

I was left wondering which branch of the family was left more spiritually advanced after two centuries of tortuous evolution.

I wasn’t sure. Both branches are still marginalized. Perhaps the big leap will come with Marjorie and Marcus’s children—we can only hope.

(Yaa Gyasi (born 1989) is a Ghanaian-American novelist. Her debut novel, Homegoing, published in 2016, won her, at the age of 26, the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for best first book, the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first book of fiction, the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35” honors for 2016 and the American Book Award. -https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Yaa_Gyasi ) (Shane Joseph is a novelist, blogger, reviewer, short story writer, and publisher living in Canada. For details, visit his website at www.shanejoseph.com) The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

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POETRY

Dilantha Gunawardene

Indian-American Back Home in India You are a boy in Jackson Heights Who has an early growth spurt, When your fuzzy beard arrives Years before, your first girlfriend And you try cricket on Independence Day (July 4th) to show to the world That there is a surrogate to baseball And that, we Indians, are better than the mighty Cubans. Still, Your realize, that you’re like A fly in Tamil Nadu, a little person in the grand scheme of things.

A curry powered engine, Who will not derail, till a PhD is in the bags.

And that too to an Aishwarya Rai The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

23 Compatible upgrade, to your many past American girlfriends.

You love how your arranged-married-wife, Puts an all innocent face on wedding day, Like the pristine beauty of a forgotten Kerala that has been preserved like a UNESCO heritage sight.

And yet she turns to Chennai by nightfall, to a bed of delirious activity.

How an Indian-American man, Back in India, his once home, learns that culture Shock, can drive a man nuts. How a man Who can never seem to decide, What condom brand to take home, Let his parents decide on a bride, who will be equally perplexed, at what pill, to buy.

How capitalism becomes a choice too many for some How convenient is it to forget, That all over, beautiful India, It’s the Pharmacists who ride on top of a colorful parrot, like a home-grown Cupid, bow and arrow, firmly in hand.

Dr. Dilantha Gunawardana is a molecular biologist, who graduated from the University of Melbourne. He moonlights as a poet. His poems have been accepted/published in Forage, Kitaab, Eastlit, American Journal of Poetry and Ravens Perch, among others.

He blogs at – https://meandererworld. wordpress.com/ The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

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POETRY

REHANUL HOQUE

Amanisha, Name of the Beloved Born in the black apple of the black eye of a black hole Born out of failed intercourse of degenerated neutron carrying forth as by-product a black shroud, around a chasm ranging to infiniteThis is black attraction alluring to break barriers of rule, dream and

fancy with darkness full of rays- untamed and unchecked, unknown and

unrecognized; A work of art that you may compare to Mashhad, the place where I

came from To your civilizationThe Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

25 My arrival is that of clouds born unidentified, moving to and fro Eventually, clouds disappear into nothingness like tail of the nebula There is no art, no melody and attraction in me Nor anything of excellence in way through In your kingdom, I get lost, dubbed the frenetic fellow.

All the rays wear seven colors and fill corners around Instead of continuous lamp burning, my world is colorlessNeither heat nor light nor scope for retrospection No one waits opening the door for me I am the freak of nature, uncivilized, unwanted I have only a dream and Amanisha- my beloved.

Pompeii Unruly clouds wading through the vast though rendered thrill To a distant heart, were enough to cut an insane darkness into

Falling sharp over a city, followed by Very aggressive flame spurted out on a sudden As if this is, a tongue made to devour, in consequence, Pompeii rasped off the Pompeii- lurking around Your freaky eyes, to me, the evergreen Vesuvius

The eyes poured forth an unsteady sunshineGrape vine and olive groves bathed in a period The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

pieces

26 For lunch; brisk seaport, concrete roads, harmless pet, Sick chap and wooing couple Everyone left dumb-founded

Is this winning the battle of life over another life Or something else?

Candid admissionThis is the votary, lost to your freaky eyes.

Rehanul Hoque, born in the village of Majkhuria in Bangladesh, studied M.A in English literature and pursued an MSc in International Development from a UK University. He is a bilingual poet and started writing poems at an early age. Though he has interest in different forms of literature, his first and foremost love is poetry.

The subject of his poems crosses over country, space, time and goes in various directions.

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27

POETRY

The Treasure In style I usher this jungle treasure fulfillment of leisure beyond the measure.

Wow! great pleasure.

But‌ Rusty nasty ivory master suppressing these creatures under ‌ Under the raid of poachers the reign of bird catchers tusks tag in the jumbo the elephant is in danger Let the bush meat hunter forcefully and lowly be put under the ivory business agenda.

Quickly be put under.

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28 Big five!

A pleasure to usher Economy booster Jobs they provide, in the parks they pack visitors in leisure enjoying a snack Styled up in nature, thy beauty they nurture with great pleasure pay a ledger.

Our treasure Our pleasure Our pride.

In My Guilt Sometimes after a heavy downpour the rills and frills of my thrills tempt and tease me I always think I were dead Sometimes after a gulp I brave for the brazen pulp that my head would be when I meet my beloved.

Sometimes in my guilt I yelp at the top of my voice at a mere lady-like tilt and say it was just two And she says ‘‘always two, with who, were you two?’’ ‘‘No.’’ I reply.

In my guilt I say I won’t repeat.

Denis Waswa Barasa, a graduate from the University of Nairobi in Kenya

in 2006, has been teaching English and Literature in Kenyan secondary schools since then. He did his Master of Arts degree in Literature from the University of Nairobi in 2015. He enjoys writing poetry and drama The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

29

FICTION

“Maman...he has no legs,” the little girl declares with an urgency bordering on panic. Her sea blue eyes peer beseechingly upward, pleading for an answer to this bedeviling mystery.

“No, he doesn’t...let’s move along now, ma chère, or we’ll be late for mass.”

“But maman...what happened?” she implores.

“That’s enough, ma petite, let’s go.”

They briskly pass the old man sitting stoically in his wheelchair along the bakery wall and continue down the sidewalk towards L’eglise Saint Nicolas. A September sun bathes the village of Rethel with a sparkling, attenuated fervor that only a late summer afternoon can draw up.

Before entering the church and with her brow registering that vintage blend of maternal empathy and pity, she rests her hand reassuringly on her daughter’s shoulder.

“Ma chère, we must pray for that poor man,” she says in a hushed tone.

She makes a sign of the cross and opens the door, then crosses the threshold with her daughter into the cavernous, dimly lit hall.

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30 Other village faithful dutifully follow and a steady stream of smartly dressed parishioners flow languidly, peacefully into the church like a bucolic mountain stream.

The midday church bells begin a slow clanging and no corner of the village is spared their resonant, plaintive sounds.

The old man hears the somber chords from his wheelchair sheltered in the narrow slice of shade offered by the bakery wall. A tangled web of lines crisscross his clean-shaven face.

A few wisps of grey hair cling stubbornly to his head, which seems to sprout directly from broad shoulders that bear vestiges of an earlier brute strength. He is attired in a clean, button down shirt and shorts, revealing stumps that end abruptly just below each knee. His countenance bespeaks more a dignified calm than any deep-rooted anxiety.

The church bells fall silent and George watches the last few faithful hurry past. A customer exits the bakery. In his wake, he bequeaths a sumptuous legacy of fresh baguette and pastry odors that linger and tease the old man’s willing palette. It reminds him of a nondescript patisserie in the 18th arrondissement of Paris.

As he recalls, it was a warm August afternoon in 1944.

George’s platoon, after absorbing months of bombardments, heavy casualties and enduring fear-soaked days and nights, joined ecstatic citizens in the city’s streets. That patisserie, where his weary men briefly assembled before sweeping eastward, offered free baguettes and pastries to Allied troops, including George Blakely, the short, powerfully built farmer and father of twin boys from Arcola, Illinois.

At 26, this married Midwesterner was not unaware, as jubilation reigned around him, that he was fortunate to survive yet another day.

The midday sun steals what remains of George’s shade along the bakery wall. Another customer exits. A slender, bespectacled man in his 30s with short, neatly cropped black hair walks alongside his young son.

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31 “Papa...his legs!” the young boy exclaims bewilderingly, looking up at his father in disbelief.

“It’s ok...let’s go monfils,” he says hurriedly.

He shakes his head forlornly and looks down at his son.

“Life can be so sad,” he says softly.

Some days after departing a euphoric, liberated Paris, spits of rain surrendered to a steady downpour as George’s men entered the outer fringes of Rethel. There was an uneasy quiet behind the M4 Sherman tank where George and six other soldiers trudged through thick mud. The only sounds interrupting the fragile calm were the squishing and sloshing of his men’s high military boots and the rattling of the tank’s wheels. Suddenly, the column stopped.

“Snip...!” shrieked one of the soldiers.

A rapid series of cracks drowned out the rest of the word.

George dropped to the thick mud that barely passed for a village road.

“Man down!” screamed Billy, a fresh-faced, 21-year-old Private First Class. He hailed from Tuscola, Illinois, not far from George’s hometown.

The steel barrel of the tank rose and moved left. It then unleashed a thunderous clatter. George rose tepidly to one knee, peered left and saw Billy, supine and motionless. He noticed a blink. A second one. After the fourth, he fled the cover of the tank and dragged Billy to the side of a building amidst the relentless wartime fury.

George released Billy’s collar. A thin line of blood trickled down his cheek and pooled near the base of his neck, mixing with mud to form a stew of reddish brown. George felt his pulse, looked at Billy’s young, mud-caked face one final time, and then ripped off his dog tags with one decisive yank. He turned and locked on the darkened images of Billings and Crowley crouched low behind the tank. Steps into his wild dash to rejoin them, a massive, blinding explosion rocked the The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

32 street, upending the tank and obliterating everything within a narrow perimeter.

George awoke five days later at a hospital in Paris, his head encased in thick, white bandages. A cast ran from his left shoulder to the base of his fingers. A doctor and a military officer stood bedside.

“You sustained significant injuries in Rethel,” the doctor said. “We had no choice but to amputate both your legs below the knee...I’m sorry.”

George stared blankly at the doctor and then turned slightly to meet the eyes of his Sergeant Major, a tall, stern, imposing figure donning a full, immaculate uniform. He held his hat deferentially in his right hand.

“We lost six men in that Rethel explosion,” he added somberly. “A few more feet and you…” His voice trailed off and his eyes fell to the floor.

George continued his vacant stare.

“You’re going home.”

The bakery door swings open, unleashing the now familiar blend of pastry and baguette odors. The sun continues to cut a warm, gentle swath through the village.

“Mon dieu!” exclaims an elderly woman. She carries a handbag over her shoulder and a warm baguette in her hand.

“Poor man,” she adds quietly, as she walks down the sidewalk.

“What a life,” she whispers as she disappears around the corner.

George hears only the buzz of a passing scooter.

He smiles. It bears no markings of those cursory gestures offered in cashier lines or to those politely holding open doors.

It has an uninhibited genuineness and exudes all the warmth of a lovingly and meticulously knitted quilt. To those passing George, however, it is something quite different--disquieting, incongruous with this poor man sitting serenely by the bakery The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

33 wall. How is it that such a pitiful, luckless old man could be the mysterious owner and beneficiary of such apparent mirth?

George’s return to Arcola after the war was met with a reservoir of love and support from his wife and boys that one year of separation only heightened. His 11 acres of wheat, soy and corn still maintained their rich fecundity. Little had changed in his quiet, Midwestern hamlet.

Most jarring for George in this new reality was the oppressive calm. No explosions. No panicked orders to take cover.

No moans or desperate cries from the dead or dying. Rethel’s white-knuckle mayhem gave way to the pleasant cackles of his twin boys and the gentle rustling of the trees that serenaded him nightly through his open bedroom window.

During the unyielding calm of that first, dark night, there was only Billy to contemplate. His dog tags remained within arm’s reach on the nightstand. The next morning, George wheeled up to Billy’s home. His hands cradled those same tags.

Louise opened the door before he could knock.

“Hello George...please come in,” she said softly.

A few minutes later, joined by her husband Billy Sr., George sipped a cup of hot coffee in the family’s den.

“Did...he...suffer?” Louise asked haltingly. Her eyes moistened.

“No, it happened instantly,” he lied, suddenly re-living Billy’s haunting--and seemingly endless--series of winks. His eyes darted to the hot coffee cup perched on the wooden table--its curly trails of white smoke drifting up.

He reached into his pocket and retrieved the dog tags.

“I’m so sorry Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan.”

“Thank you,” They said, lowering their heads towards the carpet.

Louise wrapped her mildly trembling hands around the tags and placed them against her chest. A solitary tear inched down her cheek.

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34 George looked at the fresh vacancy below his knees, returned to Louise’s ashen, disconsolate face and made a silent vow at that moment to one-day return to Rethel. He owed it to Billy.

The bakery doors swing open, allowing the now familiar trail of delectable odors to escape and meander down the sidewalk.

“Poor Man,” an elderly woman declares stealthily. She casts a pitying glance at George before turning and briskly departing, her baguette secured under her arm.

In his 34 years teaching history at Arcola High School, George never spoke about Billy, or his experiences in France.

That is, until two months before his retirement, when a student raised his hand during a discussion of jobs and career options.

“Mr. Blakely, why did you become a teacher?”

He paused, leaned slightly on his cane, and took a slow, deliberate step on his prosthetic legs. For the first time since his brief chat with Billy’s parents decades ago, George shared his Rethel story.

“I became a teacher because of a young man named Billy,” he said, his soft and soothing voice easily reaching all corners of the classroom, where his students sat in utter silence.

“He showed me my true calling.”

He then explained who Billy was and how in his effort to save the 19-year old fellow Illinois kid, his life was inadvertently preserved.

“Sometimes good deeds have unintended consequences,” he said with a candor that his students hungrily consumed.

George surveyed their surprised, wide-eyed expressions.

“I’ve been blessed with an amazing family... a loving wife, two sons, six grandchildren, and a satisfying career.”

He paused.

“And thousands of glorious sunsets.”

A student raised her hand.

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35 “Hasn’t life been hard, I mean, without your legs?” she asked sheepishly.

“Hard? No, not hard...rewarding...richly rewarding,” he said slowly, leaning on his cane to further bridge the short gap to the front row of students.

“Billy gifted to me something that each of you has been given...what you do with it is up to you.”

More hands shot up as this raw--and rare--wave of intimacy with their teacher swelled.

“When you awoke in the hospital, how did you feel?”

“Sad...disbelieving...unworthy...”

“Did Billy have a family?”

“Well, he was about your age so just a girlfriend...and his mom and dad.”

“Mr. Blakely...what’s next...I mean, when you retire?

“Well, the usual I guess...more time with my wife and grandkids...perhaps even an afternoon nap,” George chuckled.

“Oh, and one more trip to Rethel.”

The church bell tolls, signaling the end of midday mass.

A middle-aged couple exits the bakery.

“What a pity,” she whispers discreetly as they walk away with their fresh-baked bounty.

“I can’t imagine a life...” she says, her words dissolving in the midday brilliance as she disappears around the corner.

A line of parishioners file out of the church and head in George’s direction. Many avert their eyes. One pauses, reaches into her pocket and hands him a 10 franc note.

“Mon ami, here’s a little something,” she says, leaning towards him.

“No, merci, please...keep it,” George says. He softly motions with his hands towards the woman.

She steps away with a look of mild surprise, places the note in her handbag, and rejoins the faithful on the sidewalk.

“Mr. Blakely!”

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36 The voice is robust and its owner is a tall, slender man in his 20s, walking towards the bakery with a cane. He reaches George and offers his hand.

“You might not remember me, but I...”

“Steven!” George interrupts, “my goodness...what are you doing here and...?”

George shakes his hand and takes a deep, measured breath. He looks with alarm at Steven’s cane and left leg, which is affixed with a prosthetic limb at the knee. Otherwise, his red hair, hazel eyes, fair skin and tall, solid frame suggest a man at the peak of his vitality.

“It was a farming accident...I got my leg caught in the tractor gears,” he says.

“Oh, I’m so sorry Steven...what a surprise to see you here in Rethel.”

“I was sitting outside in my backyard a few years back after the accident...self loathing, even contemplating, well, you know…”

“Yea, been there.”

“Well, I witnessed the most amazing sunset.”

“Oh yea, that little pre-retirement rant in class,” George says, smirking.

“Well, I found out that you were heading to Rethel...so here I am to personally thank you.”

“That’s very gracious of you. I really appreciate it.”

“You were right...it’s a gift and I plan on making the most of it.”

They shake hands as a car slows to a stop at the curb. It’s George’s wife and two sons.

“Well, I fly home this evening...”

“One more thing, Mr. Blakely…any special reason you’re not wearing your prosthetic legs?”

“I just thought I’d come as is to offer my own thanks,” he smiled.

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37 He shakes Steven’s hand and wheels to the curb. As they drive away, George looks back at his former student, who stands tall, one arm raised towards George, the other leaning on his cane.

He sees an older couple exit the bakery. They walk past Steven down the sidewalk. She leans towards her gray-haired companion, whispering a few words.

George turns his head and fixes his gaze on the road.

Nothing is said on the return to Paris. There is one minor issue back in Rethel, however, that remains unresolved. He simply can’t stop wondering what that old lady said. ***

Keith Perkins is a high school English teacher in New Jersey. His work has appeared in The Irish Post, Amsterdam Quarterly, hackwriters. com, travelmag.co.uk, and myveronanj.com. A father of twin toddlers, Keith enjoys travelling, writing, reading, hiking, skiing, and naps.

The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

38

Cartoon Images

Allen Forrest Crisis Actors

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39

Future of Education

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40

Over their heads

Allen Forrest is a writer and graphic artist for covers and illustrator for Magazines and books.He is the winner of the Leslie Jacoby Honor for Art at San JoseState University’s Reed Magazine for 2015. He lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

41

FICTION

Synopsis (with apology to those not wanting one): A minimalist story of a loser noise rock band with unlike members, wherein the tragic comic singer loses direction. Objects and people mimic animals in a city landscape devoid of animals.

The maroon Dodge Caravan with the big U-Haul trailer comes to a jerky halt in front of Good Catch General Store on Queen Street.

It's late afternoon. A few cars glide past slowly as if they are passing the time. A red tram makes way for itself with one arm on the cable spanning the street lights.

The side door of the maroon Dodge slides open. A pair of long legs with cowboy boots comes out slowly and hangs suspended in the air above the sidewalk – as if they are sniffing the air for danger. Then the boots drop down to the sidewalk. The boots wiggle from side to side. The man comes out in one smooth motion. He is tall with messy hair that almost touches his shoulders. He has an angular face, with a pair of glasses clinging desperately to the bridge of his nose. They are dangling awkwardly – a pair of mountain climbers with little to The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

42

hold on to.

The rest of the contents of the Dodge pours out. A driver on the streetside. A laughing man with a Dinosaur Jr. T-shirt on the curbside. The group is standing on the sidewalk, undecided about their next move. The Dinosaur Jr. man stretches out his arms, low behind his back. "Yeah, but," he says to the driver, "a metronome does not always make you a better time keeper."

"I guess it depends on how bad you are!" replies the driver.

"But sure, yes. Metronomic time does not make you groove, it's the upbeat, the subdivisions."

"Jeeeesus, guys!" says the man with the cowboy boots. The driver keeps talking. "A metronome can make you sound like a machine. There's this old record with Tony Williams and Miles... some of those tunes finish a good twenty bpm faster than they start. But you will not notice it. Doesn’t bother me one bit when listening to it.

You literally have to move the pickup to hear it. Machine time works for metal and pop, not the stuff we’re doing."

"So, it's more human?" asks the Dinosaur Jr. man.

"More like more animal," replies the driver.

"Fuck, yeah!" The Dinosaur Jr. man laughs. "Less machine, more animal!"

The tall man with the cowboy boots says, "Well, let's go stick up this joint!" and the group moves away from Good Catch General Store, and into Mitzi's Sister Live Music Bar. "Hey, man," says the man with the cowboy boots to the girl with the smooth black hair behind the bar counter. She answers with a big smile, her teeth glistening and perfectly even behind her lips, which are colored bright red. "Yes!" "We're here for the show tonight." He waits for her reply, but she just keeps looking at him. "Uh, anyways. Uhm. I was wondering if you can tell me how to get to this address here. My phone, uh... the data..." He gives her a small, crumpled piece of paper.

She frowns and answers, "Yeah, sure!" She hooks her hair behind her ears with both hands and then points towards the door, "The metro is not too far. Take Queen Street down all the way to – " The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

43

"Uh-uh... can you write that down for me?"

She giggles. Bends down and grabs a small notebook from beneath the bar. She starts writing. Stops. Rolls her eyes to the left so that the whites of her eyes grow big. Then the back of the pen starts moving fast, jerking back and forth as she writes.

"There you go?!" she says when handing him her directions.

Her voice bends upwards as if she is asking a question.

"Right on." He smiles, and the glasses reset their grip on his nose.

The Dinosaur Jr. man exits Mitzi's Sister. His thin arms swing back and forth as he looks left and right. He turns around and waits for the others. The driver comes out next with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. The man with the cowboy boots appears last. "This way," says the Dinosaur Jr. man as he turns left and walks down the pavement. The driver walks behind him with his hands still in his pockets, as though he just happens to be going in the same direction and is not really following the Dinosaur Jr. man. The man with the cowboy boots walks a few steps behind them, his head hanging down. He is staring at the piece of paper in his hand. The three are walking like people who do not know each other. Behind them, on the sidewalk, the signs move past and fill the space between them: Speed Queen Coin Laundry Boutique Lionel’s Barber Shop Cattlemen’s Meat Market Tibet’s Kitchen Footsteps A Plus Bernard’s Pilipino Specialties 24 Movies and more Tsampa Café Himalayan Kitchen Beauty Lounge Hardware Contemporary Variety & Dollar Store The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

44 At Rice and Noodle they shuffle inside.

They are now sitting at a long table, each with a plastic tray and bowl in front of them, from which steam rises. Nobody is talking.

Plastic forks are jabbing at mouths and lips are parting in the nick of time.

The eating noises become louder. A percussive blend of lips and tongues and throat sounds, and underneath it all one can imagine a low hum produced by the molars. For a moment it sounds like there is a rhythm, but then the eating sounds break apart and it becomes a cacophony of sounds – like instruments that are being tested in a marching band before the drum major calls them to order.

The tall man with the cowboy boots wrenches his cellphone out of the pocket of his tight jeans. He bends over his cellphone as if he is protecting it, pressing with his thumbs. Then his right hand slips in under his hair with the phone. He waits. The eating sounds of the group grow louder.

“Uh… Hi, uh… Kim? “Yeah, so… This is going to be a long message. I wanted to get Jenny’s box to you. But I don’t have time now. They changed the line-up. We’re going on in an hour. Maybe you’re up for coming to the show tonight. But, uh… So, uh…

“Anyway, I have directions for you. It’s at Mitzi’s Sister.” He stares at the little piece of paper in his hand. “So the subway’s not far.

There is a bus stop just down the street... You take the forty-seven to the Lansdowne subway stop. Oh. Actually… No, wait! You’re coming from the other side...” He shuffles the piece of paper up between his thumb and index finger until it folds over. His eyes move to the bottom. His thumb nail is white as he presses down on it. “No. You walk down to Bishop. Turn left on… Sorry, I mean right.” The eating sounds become softer and the other two look at him. He gets up hurriedly and bumps the table with its long legs.

"Whoa there, buddy!" shouts the Dinosaur Jr. man.

The man with the cowboy boots turns his head toward the street door. A group of people are entering. He turns around, away The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

45 from the table. Looks at the wall behind the table.

“Uh… Just try to get to the subway. Finch. The Finch Station.

Maybe you can just Google it. Mitzi’s Sister. Or if you don’t have data.

Like… me, I...” His tongue darts over his bottom lip.

“Then just take the subway from Finch and get off at –” His eyes turn away from the piece of paper toward the ground. His lips close and open a few times. With his mouth remaining half open, he brings the phone down, and out from under his hair. He stares at it.

The other two exchange a quick glance. He looks up at the wall in front of him, turns around and sits down.

"Voice mail?" asks the driver. He nods. "No way she is..." begins the driver. The “s” sound of his last word hangs in the air, evaporates and reforms as a soft whistling sound, a “z” sound. He resumes: "With those directions she is going to have to hunt you down like an animal, man."

There is a short silence before the Dinosaur Jr. man says, "The noodles are awesome!" His tongue makes clapping sounds as he eats with an open mouth. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and begins to sing softly in the back of his throat while he’s eating.

The driver nods twice and starts singing along softly, "Then she runs away from me, faster than I crawl." The man with the cowboy boots kicks his chair back, gets up, grabs his tray and walks to a cabinet with a stack of dirty trays near the door.

"Idiot," says the Dinosaur Jr. man.

"Aren’t we all," replies the driver. "At least he has an interesting voice."

"Yeah... I guess. And that's a good thing, because his guitar playing isn’t all that great."

"Aggh…” says the driver and shakes his head. "Agh!" teases the Dinosaur Jr. man. "You're not exactly fresh off the boat and you still sound like an African! Time to upgrade! Time to lose that accent!

Time to evolve! " *** Queen Street is busy now. There is a doorman on a high bar chair behind a small round table at the entrance to Mitzi's. "Three The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

46 bands," he explains to three hipsters. Their thin legs are poured into tight denims and each of them has a pair of big, black-rimmed glasses. "Five bucks." They don’t answer him. They shuffle to the right, to get in front of the large shop window and bend their necks forward to stare inside. The big, black frames on their noses are pulling their heads forward, toward the glass window. The inside of the bar runs in gleaming rectangles over the lenses in the black frames, like a film strip.

The bar counter is on the left side of the long, rectangular room. At the far end is a small stage. The tall man with the cowboy boots hooks his guitar strap to the back of his guitar. On his left the Dinosaur Jr. man is waiting with his bass guitar hanging low across his hips. Behind them the driver is sitting behind a small drum set.

He is sitting slightly stooped – so it looks as if he might be crouching behind the drum kit. His head turns slightly left and right as his eyes wander over the people in the long room – the bar counter is full. In front of the stage are a few small round tables with people laughing and talking.

The man with the cowboy boots stares at the fat, black letters on the wrinkled piece of paper on the stage floor.

Who Do You love?

Sliding Back On the Prowl Take a Leap Slither Climb to the Top The Grunt I’m a Loser The guitar slips out of the guitar band and he grabs the neck of the guitar as it swings downwards. He hooks the guitar into the slip in the strap again, and flattens a small piece of grey tape, which is sticking out on the side of the strap, over the slip. His left hand is curled crookedly like a claw around the neck of the white electric The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

47 guitar. His right hand clings desperately to the plectrum. He is aiming forward with his right shoulder and then the plectrum begins to move – up and down over all six strings. The Telecaster emits a thin, melancholic sound – reverberating in the small room as if it is too small for the guitar's voice. His fingers remain in one place on the neck of the guitar. The single chord fills the room and moves like an old car on a dirt road from left to right, swinging on its old suspension, as if it is not sure of the way.

One can hardly see it, but the man with the cowboy boots moves his head slightly to the left. As if he wants to look over his shoulder, but then stops himself from doing so. The Dinosaur Jr. man turns halfway around and looks at the driver with a little smile – his fingers hanging over the thick bass strings. The driver straightens up from his crouched position and lifts his chin slightly, freezes for a moment and then brings his head down in unison with the stick in his right hand that makes the snare drum crack loudly. The snare is ringing out like gunshots, and the Dinosaur Jr. man's fingers pluck frantically at the thick strings – like a frightened flock of geese trying to get into the air. Seven cracks of the snare drum, evenly spaced.

It pulls the swerving Telecaster straight – and-two-and-three-andfour-and! And with the first stroke of the next bar, the Telecaster and the snare drum come together as if one instrument. The man with the cowboy boots' Adam’s apple jumps, as if there is a sound coming from his throat. He is too far from the microphone. It's inaudible.

But it could have been a hard uuuh! A cough of sorts, but with a deep voice underneath the burst of air. Something beastly. Like the sound one might make when you are fighting for your life and words are pointless.

A few people in the audience stop talking and start watching the band on stage. Some feet start moving up and down, along with the music. There is a foot with a Converse sneaker, feverishly seeking the down beat of the music. No sock. Also a bare foot, with a painted big toe nail, curved upwards as if wanting to separate itself from the other toes. A foot with a shiny high-heeled shoe hanging loosely from it forms a gently swinging pendulum. For a few bars of music, The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

48 it's only the instruments: the fierce Telecaster that swings from left to right between the walls of a barely-formed dirt road – two tracks carved out by the snare drum and bass drum and the grassy middle of the bass guitar, which rubs against the underside of the Telecaster like a conscience.

A few more heads turn toward the band. The long legs of the man with the cowboy boots hang from behind the guitar to the ground. His upper body is screwed to the guitar. His head hinging slightly forward, ahead of his body. His legs drag his feet closer to the microphone stand. When his lips touch the microphone, his feet move slightly farther apart, while his right hand moves quickly downward and upward over all six strings. Then his right hand shoots higher, and hesitates for a moment before it plunges down over all six strings and then farther downward until it hangs loosely in front of the guitar.

Half in tune, he starts singing in a falsetto voice. A skinny praying mantis fighting against his long limbs. The veins in his neck are thick and blue against his white skin as he spits out the words.

"I walked forty-seven miles of barbed wire!"

His eyes are half-closed and glazed over, as if there is a membrane under the eyelid

Ockert Greeff was born in Namibia, but grew up in a small town in the Kalahari Desert of South Africa.

After school, he settled in Johannesburg where he was the co-founder and drummer of the Afrikaans cult band Die Brixton Moord en Roof Orkes. He recorded two albums with the band and wrote a number of the lyrics.

In 2007 he moved to Montreal, Canada, where he still plays drums and records with several underground bands. He is currently playing in the proto-punk band Death Drive. He loves antiheroes, unrefined music and outsiders.

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49

Review of Welcome to Saint Angel

By William Luvaas

Reviewed by Robin Throne Landscape at the edge of destruction What drives us to the edges of self-destruction? Ruin? What facilitates the need to protect a landscape that becomes us? Restores us? To protect a space where we at last find ourselves rooted- it is in this use of absurdity and humor amid a dreadful conflict that illustrates Luvaas’ masterful technique of shifting points of view and uses of shifting dialogues, interior to character-to-character, and gives voice to the landscape that underscores the quick pace of this read.

The landscape as a secondary, often upstaging as chief omniscient, protagonist adds an authentic dimension that parallels the unobtrusive voice of the land cultures amid a spiritual and interior The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

50 space exhibited as much as the symbolicdevouring slough or thirsty yard. Greed is greed. Never enough. This is a story where the land with all its figurative depiction of “baked sage brush” and “grit-inthe-teeth hot” must be a character, where heat and stake are felt by the reader, and one where the hero’s own agency is restored from it, perhaps only due to it: “When Grandfather Earth gets angry, everything goes to hell,” Sage Littlefeather decreed.

The reader is gifted to follow these complex and interlaced agendas that may lead to ruin or as happens in most wars, devastation of landscape so that the controller can emerge as victor.

As the developer versus curators of place position themselves at combat, a real confrontation between those who want to tame theroughfor leisure and those who thrive within its organic harshness, who desire the innate freedom the wild place offers, dig in for battle. Those who seek such unwieldy terrain are not meant for brick and mortar, skyscapes and concrete, sun decks and chlorine. These are the lives Luvaas offers up to paint a canvas of a place where character and land are as integrated and essential to one another as space and time. Where the end (if there is to be an end to brokenness), gives us the ultimate crescendo.

Paperback: 236 pages Publisher: Anaphora Literary Press (March 15, 2018) Language: English ISBN-10: 1681143208 ISBN-13: 978-1681143200 https://anaphoraliterary.com/?s=William+Luvaas

Robin Throne has completed writer residencies at Wolff Cottage, the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, and the Writer’s Well. She is the recipient of the fourth David R. Collins literary achievement award from the Midwest Writing Center, the third fiction chapbook prize from Gambling the Aisle, and a literary fiction award from the Writer's Well for her debut novel,Her Kind and her new book, The Cotton Breath will be released in October by Anaphora Literary. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Trampset, The New Poet Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal, Split Lip Magazine, Mystic Blue Review, andCrab Fat Magazine among others.

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51

POETRY

Irretrievable We pressed flowers between rocks when we were children in hopes their petals would still be the same bright hues when we grew old-when we returned with our wrinkled hands to pry apart the stones, we learned their hardness cannot be softened with tears.

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52

INTERSECTING LIVES He walks on asphalt streets I just saw him today I’ve seen his worn, black coat turn almost grey over the past year since he became a passing figure rippling across my window pane like the smoke from my cigerette he disappears into the grime and alleys between apartments that bear the weight of a hundred years of glory and decline told and untold stories toothless old ladies exhale through pursed lips if you care to stop and listen but you don’t because you’re heading in the opposite direction of neon lights and chic high rise buildings that have not beem gnawed yet by termites with quick, short steps you hurry past an apologetic smile grazes your clean-shaven face why are you ashamed?

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53

Farewell In the shapeless hours of an endless night the old clock stops ticking I hear it chime once-a labored groan, half-shrill I do not need to look at its brass pendulum to know it is still all I know this time unlike all other times is its motion cannot be restored.

Neetu Malik, born in India, has lived in Austria, England, and Canada before settling in the Eastern USA in 1994. Neetu's eclectic work reflects her diverse background as she explores the joy and darkness of the human condition in poems and stories noteworthy for their intensity in brief span. Her poetry is published in journals and Anthologies from Australia, USA, UK, and India. Her poem, "Soaring Flames�, was awarded First-Place by the NY Literary Magazine (2017).

The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

54

POETRY

Love is a Lonely Territory It’s tensed with a hyphen; the stardust of mahua plateau home to your laughter down your poliomyelitis, my peace is a refugee let it strand lonely, desperately, haphazardly and curiously just as a few wingless waves love is a lonely territory fenced with dots, hemmed with brackets the endocrine bliss of the holy hymns clot in your appendix.

The semi razzmatazz of a gloomy incarnadine evening peeps into that enigma of the bronze age frankly speaking that’s a coffin creamy hymn on your lips at bedtime of Radha’s era the insulin of our hatred is upsurges as peace wears the new costumes to sit across the table warmly laying the gun to kiss the tears of love to hug plain, barbed wire to water our dreams around 300 kilometers now to go further the borders.

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55

Balm Remember the havoc in your thick apple-red anxiety your journey melts almost half, the night shrinks in dawn’s kisses how to coin a new emotive reaction in the rainy season your heart is a whirlpool with disproportionate gravitation the need of wrapping the name of the past can be realized a courier in a pensive polyethylene unravels all the thirsty syllables you bring the tepid season very close to the border somehow we had a deal even with an earthquake it erupts the old melic for you that’s a blameless balm.

May be a few drips of nectar from lotus leaves —bear magic of an upsurge: ahimsa and moksha constellation of a hot fountain wears the sultry decadence in the hot porcelain coffee cup the coffin of a lonely moon what language does it speak stony, fleshy, ruffle or soft Swish cake? which economic trick does it lack to sink you?

You are clothed in the sensation of that jazzy julep my childhood again was a chunk of fleshy plateau to snugly play with this time I can’t stop drinking your shadow songs still I remember the gift you parceled form Santiago on my sixteenth birthday missing the last letter of my name and the 5th zero of the postal index numbers many a time I remember how we engineered a train with matchboxes once.

A factory chimney smudges the rosy lips of the sky in a cloudy day with no electricity inside bloody hatred is like pizza allures the fragile brotherhood the piece of land we live in hisses with heinousness in broad day light this debauchery how, how?

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Half Life The brief hiatus of your spasmodic salvation paints a young acrylic garden you stir a glass of milk—when autumn is around the corner and reminisce how shy you were after the first HCG test those syllables become intentionally polyphonic in a poetry club this afternoon’s mail is a great solace to eliminate the ensuing disaster.

You have reared a purple lagoon that circumnavigates in a bucket of giggles a nascent morning stretches its bones with bonus the pink ventilator violates the temperament of a house gecko from Monday onward in the neighbourhood that absent-minded gravity tiptoes to my sub-consciousness with

sex toys I haven’t stopped rolling to and fro like an algorithm it’s an Alexandrian anecdote migrating to the farthest for a pitcher of coconut water to the land of honey, milk, spices and meat to live amidst the cedars of Lebanon forgetting the wilderness.

Your love of Chinese minced pork heightens this season with 360 degree we forget our discomfiture in a watertight compact bond mother looks through her lenses, Mao’s spirit—a huge dragon the economics of gain and inflation —Marxism, any difference?

Why millions take refuge even in a sadhu’s smelly cobweb? around me a sky of conundrums the twirling famine of divinity is where you invested your half life? a vast radius, you can find the most inhuman abyss they resort to overhaul history of softness? you are a clash, they say now, contrary to the bullet train theory there’s a restless cupidity of yawn streaming at the bottom.

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57

Mimicry Something flicks us together under a roof of vinegar. We rise like a whirlpool in the guise of parachutes; the grey dawn winks a message through a magpie’s voice; the gap of her closed heart is a solo raga and you breathe via its cleavage. The gullible evening breeze is decrepitly taciturn and at the end murkily grins at a sea of humid. We enter the solar eclipse of tretaya yuga sweetly. Is that a communication error? Those questions sweetly interact with the antiquity in the cave of your laughter. The icicle of a curse throws a slant eye, when you go into depression in a late lent season; the residue of your worn out fate curls to blossom with a heavy panache of filigree and tells me how it looked, was it a nonchemical isotope?

The elastic mimicry of spring in the fading drape of the mango flowers remains an insoluble shaft; often times a translucent floral music inquires about its virginity, the front porch of our togetherness needs whitewashing. We peacefully wait for months and years over a cup of coffee to suck the amnesia of an old essence; then we eventually interpret the new idioms of love. Remember, wasn’t that a reactionary session of meditation? Your heart pulsates with disproportionate gravitational force and that wraps floods in androgenic poignancy— coming by courier at a pensive polyethylene cascade—the tepid and warmth veins soothe us like a balm.

Maybe a few drips of nectar anoint us from the core; on the other end after a low pressure makes us shiver. I can’t feel any magic in your absence, an upsurge ensues in the blank pages of my dairy! A constellation of hot fountains in the valley; you are clothed in the hues of periwinkles; you are again a chunk of fleshy plateau to snugly play with. How can I be alone, I am making up your mimicry.

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58

The Ceremony of Half past 10 Mesopotamia is a flat valley of hibernation with tulips a glass of whisper and a mug full of cappuccino no, no, no, not at all a haphazard deception that keeps in touch with you after your first pregnancy is that heaven’s sumptuous hug?

We are some of the desiccated pronouns of the antiquity and our integral self is eclipsed or fallen off the creak of the mars’ axis sends a telegram our emotive infatuation is the ceremony of half past 10 while frolicking with depression; the moon washes its semen stains rain is a mirror in poetry enough is the less of the rhythm of rasarkeli often causeries glued with syntaxes to drink their thirst length, lines, vocabulary’s curve burn a camphor however, smiles of this city germinates less duplicity or camouflaged harmony Ask your depression when you are off solitude and on joyful sabbatical.

Rasarkeli is a word used to connote an ecstatic love affair of a group of people

Pitambar Naik is an Indian poet and advertising copywriter.

Odisha is the state where he was born and grew up. His works have appeared in Literary Orphans, Occulum, Moonchild Magazine, Bhashabandhan Literary Review, HEArt Online, Formercactus, Coldnoon Travel Poetics, Spark Magazine, The New Indian Express, The Hans India, Better Than Starbucks, Kitaab, Muse India and elsewhere. He can be reached at pitambarnaikwriter@gmail.com The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

59

POETRY

Knee Deep Homeless Man Out Front the Venetian We are leaving the Venetian to head up the strip and this white bearded homeless old timer is wading knee deep into the wish fountain out front to gather all the coins. He has a plastic CVS bag that he throws them in. A few people get out their phones and snap pictures. Others pretend as though he doesn’t even exist. Telling their children to make a wish and throw the coin to make it come true. My wife and I don’t talk for some time after that. My shoulders feel heavy and I don’t know why. Later, I see the same man in the casino with his shopping cart full of cans parked beside the slots.

He is feeding the coins into the machine mindlessly and pulling on the arm. Gaunt and starving, but refusing to eat.

Even the homeless are stuck on the dream here. I know I have felt worse in my life, but this is not a good feeling.

To see everyone trapped. The way a casino official stands behind the man, arms crossed, waiting to kick him out when he has nothing left to give.

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60

Dress of Apples Her skin is brown and she is kneeling in the street.

Collecting apples with her dress.

She holds the hem to form a basket.

A few roll out the side as she gathers others.

When she has all she can carry, she steadies herself before standing up.

Then she is off.

With all those beautiful apples.

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61

The Megaphone Kid is standing on the back hitch of this rusted out red pickup surrounded by pumpkins and bales of hay.

An sweaty older man in blue overalls leans over the driver side door left ajar.

Pushing his hair to one side like throwing open a curtain.

I cannot make out any of the words.

The megaphone kid speaks very fast.

It sounds like a different language and maybe it is.

Across the street is the remnants of a Bulk Barn that burned to the ground.

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62

Some say for the insurance, but they say a lot of things.

It is hard to believe anything anymore.

Last week I passed this old timer handing out flyers for glaucoma.

A blue pen had exploded in his pocket and he didn’t notice.

No one stopped to tell him.

When I got home I threw out all my pens and sharpened a pencil.

Dabbing my finger lightly over the tip so we could begin.

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63

Fentanyl Patch Rick wore it on his arm like a patch sewn onto the army, started calling it his “screaming eagle” as though he were still in the airborne and he had this girlfriend with ridiculously big hair that stole them from the hospital where she worked, the kind of hair you had to spray a whole can of product on so it wouldn’t budge if you hit it with a baseball bat, and when his mother found out about both the Fentanyl and the girl she kicked him out of her house, and the hairspray queen wouldn’t let him shack up with her because she knew he would steal her stuff, and when he was caught stealing he was sent off to jail so that he always had a place to stay with all the other junkies whenever their funds and connections ran out.

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64

Geezers with Tweezers A man can only stare at a water fountain so long.

Especially with all those security cameras.

And walking through the slots at the Luxor I see two old men at an Ellen DeGeneres machine pulling at their nose hairs with matching tweezers. Geezers with tweezers, I think to myself. One hand pulling the arm of the slot and the other digging for hairs.

I watch one of the men look at his findings and wipe them over the side of the chair before beginning again. The other sneezes something thick and chunky over the machine.

I am waiting for my wife to be done with the roulette table, but decide I have seen enough.

She is twenty dollars down and cashes out.

The luck is somewhere else tonight.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.

His work can be found both in print and online in such places as : Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Setu, Our Poetry Archive, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

65

A Review Of Love Death Hell – A Book By Tetiana Aleksina and Tony Single

Reviewed by Marta Pombo Sallés This is a great book to read. Its poems are written with very rich and elaborate language, beautiful and original metaphors, lovely rhymes and wordplays and, last but not least, frequent doses of humor and wit. This combination of ingredients makes it a fantastic read.

The authors have grouped the 84 poems in three topics as the title shows: Love Death Hell, only the order has been reversed. While Death still remains the second part, Hell comes first and Love is the last with the intention to give the readers a bittersweet taste of life and reality – according to how both authors perceive and describe The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

66 the world and humanity –, where the issue of love provides for more pleasurable poems as we approach the end of the book. There is a linking poem for the three sections with three parts of the same piece as well: “The Bobblehead’s Pilgrimage I, II and III”.

Part 1: Hell This is a section of 31 poems with a common theme as its title indicates. To a greater or lesser extent all the poems deal with the subject of hell, which is not portrayed as religions typically do such as Christianity. The opening poem, “The Bobblehead’s Pilgrimage I”, introduces a recurrent topic of this section: the lack of faith in god (always written in lowercase like the rest of the poems). God or Jesus is nonexistent, never there to help the individual – who, in turn, is being manipulated like a bobblehead – during his or her pilgrimage, that is, during his or her life journey, especially when life gets rough, when life becomes the real hell, “it keeps pushing me away”.

The following poems are all very well written: an original poem in Ukrainian and English called “Bilingual” about the passing of time as we are getting old, which is highly philosophical, existentialist, Heideggerian-like, posing a great question such as “how old must one be before they start to live?” Other beautiful poems are: “If Only The Muddy Fox Lives” with beautiful rhymes, musical, original and written with elaborate language; “Aweary Larva” has also great imagery and deep meaning; “Balance” has a lovely wordplay; “Cell”, very original poem about a cancer cell telling its life and with beautiful rhymes; “Four In The Morning” about time’s wheel where the first person narrator wants Jesus to stop the wheel of time; a deep poem in thought, philosophical about time and existence, the lost faith in Jesus and religion.

Other poems are: “A Grief With No Name” that also talks about the lack of faith; “Soppy Dominess” where people are described as puppet-like with “a puppeteer behind clouds”, a reckless character, God?; “Merman’s Ode To Mammon”, against our consumerist and materialistic society; “The Blackmailed Vicar”, about the church and The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

67 a sex worker that “licks her lips” and says, “amen””, a humorous critique of hypocrisy in religion and the church.

Finally, other poems that have drawn my attention are: “божевільний”, a poem with its title in Ukrainian, about the relationship between God and the human being who becomes an atheist as “god gets angry” and slams the door even though “rent is high” and the individual chooses his or her freedom instead of submission to a totally unhelpful God; and “Is This What You Wanted (Apologies To Leonard)”, a homage to Leonard Cohen and to other great artists like Marilyn Monroe and David Bowie.

Part 2: Death This section of the book contains 27 poems dealing with the issue of ‘death’. The connecting poem is the second part of “The Bobblehead’s Pilgrimage”. In this section there are again many exquisitely written poems: “La Mort d’Étincelle (A Life Without)” is a beautifully crafted poem dealing with the topics of death, family and war; all written in an unconventional way with a mixture of old forms of the English language and more modern style. The imagery is lovely.

Other poems I have enjoyed very much in this section are: “Tanjung (A Gangrel’s Dream of Georgetown)”, about a wandering beggar in the darkness. In the poem I see this artist as someone who lives in submission, lacks recognition and, sadly enough, is equalled to trash (“trash was art and art was salving/ for gashes in walls and souls without traction/ and i was art and i was trash”). “Charcot Thresholder (Shower Daze)” is another lovely poem that compares growing up with taking a cold shower. In just very few words a lot is beautifully expressed with two very powerful closing verses.

Other poems in this section are: “Where else would I be after the rain?”, which has very beautiful imagery; “27 White Raven Club” with the presence of the raven as a symbol of death but also renewal (“ravens teach us to find faith in ourselves”); “Wardrobe (half empty or full)”, which is a beautiful haiku; “Broken Tan (‘)ka”, with a powerful message; “Solstice”, a piece with lovely images and rhymes; “Ladder The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

68 To Heaven”, a kind of new version of Samson’s and Delilah’s story, beautifully worded; “You Cannot Redo” that has great musicality and lovely tripple rhymes; and “Immortality”, another lovely haiku.

Part 3: Love The last section with 26 poems is introduced by the third and last part of the poem “The Bobblehead’s Pilgrimage”. In this last part the “it keeps pushing me away”, which is related to religious faith in God or in the gods, disappears as the lover leads the first person narrator of the poem away from the bus platform. I wonder at these two lines: “i’ve stood at the stop awaiting the last bus” This could have a second reading and be a metaphor for the last journey, which could mean the end of the individual’s life, death, where only love saves this individual. The main message then would be: Love is what really counts and no more worries as “there’s neither death nor immortality” in the sense our world has made us believe.

This is a great poem to read and reread, beautifully written and highly philosophical.

Another beautifully crafted poem in this section is “Dandelion”, a poem of hope and renewal, with a lovely connection between nature and human feelings: “i’m a soul scattering seeds”. In this piece there are great wordplays and rhymes. Some lines keep repeating themselves throughout the poem and give it even more strength; they look like the chorus of a song. The whole poem possesses great lyricism, which makes it especially musical like these lines: “altho’ the frost it cake me in weakness it not take me nor quaking skies unmake me because of you” Other lovely poems are: “Awesome Sauce”, where love and delicious food are compared in an original way; “Unity”, short and with The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

69 nice rhymes; “Un[sole]mn” with delightful wordplays, “Lady’s Soul”, a beautiful poem for its concision and powerful message; “Aelita’s Lullaby” that has great imagery; “Bussed And Buzzed”, also beautifully written, romantic and with a special musicality: “we kissed on a jetty high above the fishes where warm swells loll in gentle squishes” “Cease Fire” is another lovely poem and with an unexpected original ending; “Quietus” about the departure of one lover symbolised by the ship, exquisitely written, seems to be influenced by old myths and legends from the classic literature; and finally, “Larissa”, the closing poem, short and beautiful, with the intrigue whether the lover will be waiting for the other person Marta Pombo Sallés is an English and German high school teacher from Barcelona, Catalonia. She studied English and German Language and Literature at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She writes poems and short stories mainly in English and also in Catalan (her first language), German and Spanish.

She blogs at: https://momentsbloc.wordpress.com Tetiana Aleksina and Tony Single

They introduce themselves as, “A ‘T’ on its own doesn’t seem too dangerous, but add another one and you’ll get an explosive chemical reaction. Yes, like TNT, Tetiana Aleksina and Tony Single make a noise, and that’s exactly the kind of thing they love to do! They are a strange international duo that doesn’t care much for good manners. They much prefer their Ukrainian and Australian creative sensibilities to clash in a big way, to make big words and big bangs, and they love people to watch!”

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70

Novella

Thunder exploded and lightning blazed the dark sky. Yet she remained unperturbed and continued searching through the old iron book shelves. Her eyes did not flit across to the window even once. At last, she came across a stack of glossy magazines with a green spine.

A smile of relief flitted across her face. There were about 32 issues starting from January 2010 to August 2013, after which the English version of GEO magazines were no more printed. She let out a sigh and stared at those old magazines longingly because she was an ardent reader and missed them dearly. She placed the stack of magazines on the wooden bench and sat down to search for one particular issue that she wanted. She had all these magazines at home, except the one she was in desperate need of. Once, during a bus journey from Madikeri to Bangalore, she had absent-mindedly left it in the bus. She had never forgiven herself for that felony!

Savyasachi began glancing at the cover of each magazine which usually had the picture of the main topic of the issue and also the titles of the other four important topics printed at the bottom of the picture. After looking up at twenty cover pages she found exactly what she wanted. A wolf gazed back at her from the cover page. It The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

71 had attractive eyes which had faint shades of purple. Right below it was the bold white title which read: Nuclear Waste The worldwide search for a safe repository Fortunately the magazines were not tattered, clearly pointing to the dwindling number of visitors at the government library. She was overjoyed looking at the treasure which she had unearthed. Now, she was confident of making an amazing presentation at college on nuclear energy. Her joy gave way to anxiety when she looked at the time on her wristwatch. It was 7:50 pm. The library was open only till 8 pm! She quickly replaced the magazines and trotted down the stairs, clutching the only one she was interested in.

It is a miracle that mom has not yet called me.

Quickly she took out her phone from her sling bag and saw that there was no network coverage at all. Letting out a sigh, she went to the front desk, where a bespectacled stout librarian in his late fifties, looked at her alarmed.

‘What are you still doing here?’ he asked her disbelievingly. She smiled at him apologetically.

‘I am sorry Sir. I know that it’s time for you to close the library, but I lost track of time searching for this magazine. It’s very important for my presentation and I don’t have much time to come back tomorrow. Could you please issue it to me now?’ she asked as sweetly as she could. Her sweet tone had always worked wonders for her. He let out a sigh shaking his head.

‘I am not worried that you delayed me because I have to stay back here today. But how will you go back home? Didn’t you look outside the window even once?’

Even before he could finish saying his words, Savyasachi looked at the closed window pane and slapped her forehead. She immediately ran to the entrance of the library and saw the rain mercilessly lashing Bangalore. The road was nothing short of a river in full spat!

A roaring thunder followed the almost blinding streak of lightening.

Helplessly she walked back to the front desk. The librarian gave her a sympathetic look.

The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

72 ‘How far is your home?’ he asked in a concerned tone.

‘10 kilometres, Sir. I travel by bus,’ she said timidly. He clucked his tongue. A demure telephone on the table caught her eye.

‘Can I make a call?’

‘Yes, of course. If you are lucky enough it could still be working despite the rain because there is absolutely no signal on my mobile.’

Savyasachi picked up the receiver and breathed in relief when she heard the boring dial-tone. She quickly dialled her home landline number.

‘Amma, its me.….Yeah, I am still in the library…..I am sorry I didn’t look at the time, but I found that magazine at last. How bad is the rain there?......Ohh!!.... I don’t know…. Amma I know I am irresponsible, what can I do now?.....Hmmm… okay… alright I will stay in the library. Yes librarian sir is here and he is also staying back…

Aaythu Amma! Don’t worry and tell Appa also when he comes home.

In case the rain subsides I will call back and let’s see if Appa can pick me up…. Okay I will take care, bye Amma,’ she said swallowing hard and placed back the receiver.

She knew that her mother was really worried and would certainly transfer it on her father when he managed to reach home from office. Her father’s office was barely 3 kilometres from home and he would simply walk back home even if the rain didn’t cease. She smiled weakly at the amiable librarian.

‘Don’t worry. You can stay here for the night. This is the first time I am seeing such heavy rain in this city. Make yourself comfortable at the reading table. I have a tea-maker in my cabin on the first floor. I will bring you a cup of hot tea,’ he said and walked towards the stairs.

Savyasachi took out the sling bag across her shoulder and turned towards the row of reading tables. On both sides of the table were a row of four chairs and there were four such tables. She was about to take a step forward when she looked up once again at the second table. There was a man intently reading the fat book before him. He was the only living being in that huge hall except her. There was an eerie silence around them. She quietly walked to his table The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

73 and sat opposite to him noiselessly. He didn’t even seem to notice her. He was a young man, probably between the age of 25 and 30. He had worn a light blue linen full-sleeved shirt and had rolled up the sleeves to his elbow. There was a slight frown on his stubbly face. His left hand was stroking his designer stubble and the long fingers of his right were rested on the book. There was no chance of knowing the colour of his eyes because not once did he lift his eyes from the page he was engrossed in reading.

Didn’t he hear me come? Why didn’t he look up even once? At least out of courtesy he could have smiled and said a Hi. After all, we were probably going to spend the entire night in this scary library! It would certainly be much better if we could get to know each other…

Savyasachi continued to stare at him as if willing him to look up any minute. Her efforts yielded no result. The moment she heard the heavy footsteps of the librarian on the stairs, she fumbled with the GEO magazine in her hand and opened a random page simply to pretend that she was reading. Out of the corner of her eye, she once again glanced up at that alluring stranger…

The librarian walked up to the table with a tray which had two modest cups of tea. He gave her a cup smiling politely and she returned the gesture.

‘Thank you so much, Sir. I am really relieved to have you here today. I don’t know how I could have managed it otherwise,’ she said with heartfelt gratitude.

‘Honestly speaking, I am glad that you both are here in this library. These days, hardly any youngsters visit this place and even if they do, it’s next to impossible to find them engrossed in books for more than half an hour. So I was indeed shocked to see you stay here until so late in the evening.’

The tea was piping hot and she was not used to drinking steaming cup of tea. She placed the cup before her and once again looked at the magazine. The librarian went to the man and placed the cup next to his book. She was not looking at him but her ears were straining to hear his voice. After a few moments, all she heard was a brief thank you. His voice was barely even audible but she was certain that he The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

74 must have said the two words with a smile. Casually, she once again looked at the librarian, casting a fleeting glance at the stranger. His left hand was now holding the cup, though his face was still bent down staring at the book. It really irked her.

What could be so interesting in that book?

There was no point in turning the pages of a magazine which she had already read.

‘Where is the section for classic English novels?’ she asked getting up.

‘All books related to English literature are placed on the last rack of shelves in the corner,’ said the librarian pointing in the direction of the racks.

‘Thank you again.’

‘I will bring some candles and leave them on the table. There is no inverter in the library and I expect a power cut anytime now. Later I will be in my cabin on the first floor. In case you need anything just call out to me,’ he said addressing both of them. Yet it looked like only she was listening to him. She gave him a nod and walked towards the book rack. There was no difficulty in finding the English literature section. She slowly scanned through the titles and picked ‘A Suitable Boy’ written by Vikram Seth. This was the fat book that she had been for the past few days reading at her home. She was about to return to the table when her eyes fell on ‘Gone with the wind’ written by Margaret Mitchell. This book was one of her favourites and it had been her comfort read ever since she had read it for the first time. Unable to walk away without it, she picked it up too. Carrying the two heavy books, she walked to the table. There were two candles and a matchbox on the table. The librarian had returned to his cabin and an empty cup lay near the candles. Mr.X was of course still concentrating on the book. The only change in his mien was that he ran his hand through his slightly wavy, thick black hair. He sported a short haircut.

Savyasachi placed the two giant books on the table with a soft thud. She began sipping the tea which was only slightly warmer than the room temperature. She walked around the hall looking at various The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

75 sections until she finished drinking the tea. Later she settled on the chair opposite to him and opened the book ‘A Suitable boy’. Skimming through the pages, she found the page where she had stopped reading the previous night in the comfort of her study table at home.

She missed the warmth of her room.

Mom would have certainly made pakodas if I was at home now.

The weather is perfect for it! I wish I was back home. He is literally getting on my nerves by not even looking up. Doesn’t he miss his home too? Shall I start a conversation with him?.... No! Girls don’t do it! Isn’t it usually the guy who initiates a small talk? I will come across as being too fast if I talk to him. Let him make the first move if he wants to, why should I bother?

Savyasachi returned to reading her book after much effort.

Though initially she was finding it hard to concentrate, later she immersed herself in the novel. Occasionally she could hear the sound of page turning from the opposite side. The rain pattered outside but since the door of the main entrance was now closed, she could not hear the noise outside. Only the roar of thunder broke through that eerie silence. That was all! A young man and woman sat opposite to each other with their eyes fixed on books on a romantic rainy night…

BANG! BANG!!

The very next moment after that loud sound jolted her from the interesting novel, the four tube-lights in that huge hall went out.

‘Oh!’ she gasped. It was completely dark around her. She quickly picked up her bag and started searching in it to get out her mobile so that she could switch on the torch. But she dropped some pens and notebook from the bag during her frantic search.

‘Allow me to help you,’ said a deep voice from the other side of the table. She froze on the chair!

Click!

A small flame came to life before her and there he was! The mystery man who had awakened the curiosity in her mind. The first thing she noticed was his dark eyes and sharp features. He looked rugged with a light moustache and two days old stubble. There was The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

76 a lighter in his left hand which was the only source of light between them. She could see nothing other than him in this big universe. This was the most intimate romantic moment that she had ever shared with a man… A hint of smile crossed his face. He picked one of the candles and lit it up. Then he placed it on the table between them and smiled at her warmly. Savyasachi let out the breath that she had been holding and smiled back hesitantly.

‘Power cut is indeed a killjoy, isn’t it?’ he said casually. She simply nodded in reply.

‘I doubt that we can go back to reading our books in candle light. By the way what were you reading?’ he asked peering at the two fat books on her side.

‘A Suitable boy,’ she said closing the book. He creased his forehead for a moment.

‘A book by Vikram Seth? It’s indeed a big novel but worth the effort. I read it some years ago.’

Savyasachi gaped at him literally! This was the first time she had heard a man say that he had read a novel and that too one as big as that book (1535 pages, to be precise!). She could no longer supress her curiosity.

‘Which book were you engrossed in?’ she asked instantly. He could sense the urgency in her tone.

‘The Arthashastra,’ he said almost apologetically. She chuckled at his answer.

Why on earth would he read The Arthshastra by Chanakya in 2015??!!

‘Are you a History or Economics student?’ she blurted out. He looked at her amused and it was now his turn to stifle a laugh.

‘Nope! But I can understand why you asked me that question,’ he said with a lopsided smile which set butterflies flying in her stomach. She looked down embarrassed that she had probably crossed her line.

‘Could I know your name?’ he asked slowly, trying to keep his voice as smooth as possible. She looked up and locked eyes with him.

‘Savyasachi.’

The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

77 He leaned forward and shook his head.

‘Savyasachi?... interesting! Are you what your name says you are?’ he said crossing his arms. This was the first time anyone had asked her that question because until now people only asked her the meaning of her peculiar name.

‘Do you know the meaning of my name?’ she asked incredulously.

‘Yes indeed. Savyasachi means ambidextrous. A person who can effectively use both hands. Its also one of Arjuna’s names because he could use the bow in both his hands with equal skill. So are you ambidextrous?’ he asked with genuine interest. She smiled shaking her head.

‘Not at all! I tried writing with my left hand but my handwriting was nothing less than a disaster and I gave up seeing that horror in my book,’ she said grinning. Her smile had an innocent charm to it which he found strangely attractive.

‘Are your parents very much into mythology? Why did they choose this name?’

‘My father is a huge fan of Mahabharata and had developed a strong liking to this name. He had made up his mind to name his child Savyasachi irrespective of its gender. He always recollects the way my mother vehemently opposed his decision but he did not budge and eventually she had to give in. Yet it did not take long for her to make peace with my name.’

He listened to the history of her name with rapt attention without even batting an eyelid as if it were a matter of national importance. She was more than happy to keep him interested in the conversation. The fear of night was washed away in the honey glow of the lone candle light.

‘I think your name becomes you. It is as unique as you,’ he said intently. She almost blushed at his compliment.She knew nothing about him except that he read Arthashstra and had finished reading ‘A Suitable Boy’. Yet she was spending the night with him in candle light discussing the story behind her name! Once again there was silence between them which was really unsettling for her. It was as The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

78 if the silence brought them uncomfortably close enough to set their hearts racing. The darkness intensified their intimacy further.

‘What is your name?’ she asked breaking the silence.

‘I thought you would never ask…’ he said in his gravelly tone.A flash of lightning lit up the hall for a second and a roaring thunder followed it. He could feel her shudder softly at the sound.

‘Aatish.’

Savyasachi looked at him a little puzzled. She had never heard that name before.

‘What does your name mean?’

He leaned back on his chair and stroked his stubble.

‘Aatish means fire or a dynamic personality.’

‘Wow! Then you are exactly what we need in this darkness. A raging inferno to fill this darkness with light,’ she said with her eyes twinkling. His eyes narrowed a bit.

‘You sound very poetic. Do you write poems?’ he asked as if he knew the answer. She averted his eyes timidly.

‘Not many, just a few…’

‘Ah! I was right. This is the first time I have come across a poetess in my life,’ he said winking at her. Even that silly gesture made her heart skip a beat. Aatish took a look at his Fastrack watch under the candle flame and let out a sigh.

‘What time is it?’ she asked trying to change the direction of their conversation.

‘Ten minutes to nine.’

She rolled her eyes and cupped her face in her hands. Aatish watched her keenly. Previously, he had noted that she had worn a short-sleeved light purple kurta over beige cotton jeans. She had no accessories other than the wristwatch with a big dial and the colour of the belt of her watch matched that of her jeans. Her hair had been loosely plaited on the left side. There was nothing distinct in her appearance which could grab someone’s attention, yet there was something alluring about her. It was just that he could not figure out what it was. Suddenly she looked up and caught him staring at her. He was gazing like a panther eying its prey. She shifted uncomfortably in her The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

79 chair.

‘I think you are a student. What are you studying?’ he asked trying to strike a casual conversation with her. He too felt awkward at being caught red-handed.

‘I am studying in final year engineering. Today, I came here to find a magazine which had a really interesting article for a presentation that I have to make on Monday,’ she said coolly.

‘Was engineering your field of interest when you chose it? Or did you also succumb to parental, peer and social pressure?’ he asked in a mocking tone. She looked at him evenly.

‘I am happy with what I am doing. Are you an engineer too?’ she asked flatly.

‘One can say so…’ he said wryly.

What sort of an answer is that? Anyways, none of my business!

‘Which is that other book?’

Aatish tried to sound perky with some effort. Savyasachi moved the book towards him so that he could take a better look.

‘Its ‘Gone with the wind’ by Margaret Mitchell. My all-time favourite!’ she said beaming as if she had written every word in that book. He turned a few pages and smiled at her enthusiasm.

‘I think this was also made into a movie. I have heard about this book but was never fortunate enough to read it. Why do you like it so much?’

His questions sounded so personal and intimate. It was as if he was more interested in her than the book.

He can simply ask what the story is about.

‘Well, it’s about the life of Scarlett with a backdrop of the civil war. It excellently describes the courage and steadfastness she displayed in the face of adversity. It also captures her emotions well and the way she crosses every hurdle in life.’

Aatish rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward raising an eyebrow.

‘I asked why you like this book.’

Savyasachi thought for a moment and caressed the loose ends of her plait.

The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

80 ‘Hmmm… at the heart of the book is the love story of Rhett and Scarlett. He is the ultimate bad man practising all possible vices and yet he is extremely charming. Nobody could understand her the way he did, but she took a really long time to feel his love…’ she said softly, almost lost in her thoughts. She spoke to him with so much emotion that he could feel himself being dragged into her thoughts.

‘Which is your favourite book?’

He ran his hand through his hair.

‘I read a lot. I don’t have any book in particular as a favourite but I do like a lot of them. I simply start reading any book which I lay my hands on. Reading is one of my addictions which I can’t live without. It intoxicates me,’ he said huskily. His voice sent a shiver down her spine. Every time he spoke, she didn’t want him to stop.

‘I am impressed that you are so much into books. You are really interesting,’ she said impulsively. The very next moment she was amazed at her own audacity for being so upfront with a stranger.

Stranger??!! Is he still a stranger to me? Doesn’t feel so…

Aatish laughed at her words. His laughter was not in merriment, it was dark and rude.

‘Interesting?! Is that what you really think about me? But she always says that I am very boring,’ he said wryly.

‘Who?’ she blurted out.

‘Who else? My girlfriend,’ he said shrugging. Breath was knocked out of Savyasachi. Suddenly she felt the darkness of the room close in on her. She looked away into the distance and took a deep breath discreetly. His last two words had almost broken her heart. Yet she composed herself quickly and smiled slightly without giving away even a small hint about the turmoil in her heart.

Why didn’t I think of this before? He is certainly old enough to have been married too. Therefore, it’s no wonder that he has a girlfriend. Why is it bothering me so much? Stupid Savya!

Aatish was sensitive enough to note the faint changes in her facial expression. Her eyes betrayed the smile on her face. For some unknown reason he felt sorry and guilty too.

‘I never keep a steady job. I work only if I am interested in doing The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

81 it. I hate to work under strict framework of rules, it suffocates me.

She is not very happy about my reckless attitude and is always trying to have me settled in a steady lifestyle. My family also wants the same. Nobody tries to understand me…’ he rued. She nodded trying to empathize with him.

‘I don’t know what to tell but I can understand how you feel,’ she said softly. His lips curled into a harmless smile.

‘You don’t have to say anything, you are too young for this. The simple assurance that you understand, makes me feel better. Thank you.’

‘You are welcome, Aatish,’ she said smiling back. His name lingered on her tongue like a dewdrop on a flower. His eyes once again grew intense.

‘Say my name again, Savyasachi.’

He said her name with a touching tenderness. Instantly she realised why he told her to do so, exactly for the same reason why she wanted to hear him say her name again.

‘Aatish,’ she said softly. He closed his eyes, trying to hold onto that moment forever. He let out a long drawn breath and opened his eyes. They both were trapped in a whirlpool of bewildering feelings.

To distract herself, she opened her sling bag and took out a chocolate. It was a Cadbury’s Five-star, her secret indulgence! She tore open the golden coloured wrapper and cut the chocolate into half.

Wordlessly she offered one half to him.

‘Do you always carry one in your bag? You must have a sweettooth,’ he taunted with a smile crinkling the skin around his eyes. She grinned back.

‘Chocolate is my weakness. I would do anything for a chocolate cake,’ she said unabashed. They both bit into the comforting soft chocolate. The whole time, he kept admiring the way her long fingers held the melting chocolate.

After a while, Savyasachi began scraping the candle wax from the table and began moulding it into a small ball. He watched her amused and they both indulged in some careless banter about the weather.

The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

82 ‘I think the rainy season is the most romantic of all seasons,’ she declared concentrating on the wax. Without thinking, he moved his hand forward and stroked her fingers lightly. His casual touch sent shock waves through her body.

‘There is always romance in rain…’ he said in a drawling tone.

She swallowed hard trying not to swoon.

This is crazy! I shouldn’t fall for him. He is already committed!

Savyasachi’s rational mind was screaming in protest, yet she could not fathom the strong allure of this handsome man.

I should stay away from her!

No amount of admonition could stop him. They both hovered around the lone candle flame like moths. It was a peril that both of them found pleasurable. Though they did not know where this night led to, this journey was certainly both mystifying and passionate beyond comprehension. Looking into each other’s eyes in the golden glow of the dying candle, they left behind their past and did not dare to step into their future. It was a moment of living in the sheer intoxicating present...

A strong gush of wind forced open a closed window pane and blew over Savyasachi’s face. Many strands of hair escaped her loose plait and danced over her face. She moved them away from her face and tucked them behind her ear. With dishevelled hair and dreamy eyes, she looked picture perfect in that faint light.

The beauty of imperfection silhouetted in innocence…

Aatish was probably in the danger of turning into a poet himself.

‘I think we should close that window and secure it tightly. Otherwise the rain droplets might land on the books,’ she said in a concerned tone. He nodded in assent and stood up. He frowned when she did the same.

‘I will go and close the window. You can stay here or are you scared to stay alone?’

His tone was not mocking but with genuine concern. She giggled at his words.

‘I am not scared. I only wanted to help you,’ she said outstretchThe Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

83 ing her hand to pick up the candle.

‘No! Wait! The molten wax will spill on your fingers.’

He found some old newspaper on the table and folded it to make it a stiff piece of paper. The he made a small hole in it and slid it to the middle of the candle from below.

‘That’s better,’ he said and handed her the candle. His actions filled her with warmth.

Even mom never did this for me before! Is he so caring about everyone or just me?

Savyasachi pushed aside those thoughts and walked carefully protecting the flame from the wind. He walked next to her, maintaining as much respectable distance as he could in that darkness. Yet she was quite mindful of his taut physique which was almost touching her, but actually not. When they reached the rows of windows on the wall, it was not just one but two windows which were open and the window panes were dangerously swinging with the wind as if they intended to crash on the rods of the window.

‘You close that one, I’ll manage this,’ she said and placed the candle carefully on the book shelf. The thunderstorm had not ceased even a bit and it continued to wreak havoc in the Garden city. With some effort she pulled the window pane closing it and secured it firmly. The rain had sprayed a little on her purple kurta, also her hands were completely wet. She was surprised to see that he was still struggling to close the other window. Since he was exposed more to the rain, his shirt was almost wet, completely soaking his hands and also his face.

‘Shall I help?’

‘No… I can handle this. It’s a little tight…’ he said still struggling. Then at last he was successful in closing it.

‘There!’ he said with a triumphant smile. She showed him a thumbs up sign went to pick the candle. After two steps she slipped because the floor was slippery due to the rain. Her hand involuntarily pushed the candle blowing it out. In that darkness instead of touching the cold and wet floor, she landed in his sturdy arms. Her face hit his hard chest. She gasped when his arms circled her waist The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

84 protectively to stop her from falling down.

It was completely dark and quiet. She was breathing hard and his breathing was heavy. Her heart was pounding so loudly that she could hear literally hear it. Her right palm was exactly above his heart and she could feel his erratic heartbeat too. They could smell an enticing fragrance of the wet earth and the rain combined into a heady mixture. Soaking in the warmth, neither of them moved. She wanted to melt into him and he wanted to take her into his arms. After a moment, he slowly released her from his hold. They could only hear the music of each other breathing heavily. A flash of lightning lighted up the hall only for a second. It was more than enough to see the pure desire in their eyes.

Click!

Once again his lighter came to life and the golden flame revealed the unadorned passion glowing in their eyes. Though she wanted to lower her eyes bashfully, she continued to brazenly gaze at him in longing. Aatish was very well cognizant of the fact that he should not be playing with her emotions, yet he could not pull away from her. They were both equally helpless and formidable! He ardently ran his finger along her cheek and she closed her eyes giving in to his touch. He had a maddening urge to kiss her soft lips and he knew she would not protest.

Stop it! You cannot be with her. Things will never workout between the two of you!

Aatish instantly withdrew his hand and stepped back. Savyasachi was rudely pulled back into reality. She lowered her eyes in embarrassment and pain. He quietly picked up the candle and lighted it using his lighter. Wordlessly he moved ahead and she followed him to their reading table.

‘I am sorry,’ he apologised earnestly once she sat on her chair.

She still did not look up at him.

‘It’s just that… we were a little carried away. I can totally understand and you don’t have to be so embarrassed.’

Hesitantly she looked up at him and smiled weakly.

‘I am sorry too.’

The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

85 ‘You don’t have to be. Moreover I think it is this weather which is to be blamed. As I said before, there is always romance in rain,’ he said and winked at her playfully. They both laughed leaving behind the embarrassment. To make the situation even more less mortifying, he once again picked up the book ‘Gone with the wind’.

‘Which is your favourite line in this book?’

Aatish flipped through the pages while asking her that question. She did not have to think long before answering.

‘There is a line in the end: “Had she ever understood Ashley, she would never have loved him; had she ever understood Rhett, she would never have lost him.” I really like that line. In simple words, it says everything about her heart and its pain.’

Suddenly his eyes began to twinkle and his lips curled into a lopsided smile.

‘Will you narrate this story for me, Savyasachi?’

Every time he said her name, her heart leapt with joy. It was as if she was hearing it for the first time in her life.

‘Err… it’s quite a long novel,’ she said a little unsure. He held up his wrist and pointed to his watch.

‘It’s only 11.05 pm. We still have an entire night to be spent here.

We may as well entertain ourselves if you don’t mind.’

‘Okay. But on one condition, you will have to tell me the story of ‘A suitable boy’.’

He shook his head sheepishly.

‘I am sorry but I read that book long ago and it’s indeed a long novel. I don’t remember the details of it now to narrate to you,’ he said earnestly. She looked at him evenly.

‘A deal is a deal. I won’t agree unless you give me a story in return.’

Her mild obstinacy was enchanting and he simply could not refuse her.

‘Have you read ‘To kill a mockingbird’ by Harper lee?’

She shook her head in denial.

‘Perfect! I will narrate to you that story and to make up for the earlier disappointment I will also narrate ‘The secret life of William The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

86 Shakespeare’ by Jude Morgan. I read the latter recently and trust me, both the books are really amazing,’ he said enthusiastically. She was more than happy with that deal.

Savyasachi began narrating her favourite novel with the right mixture of emotions it demanded. He listened to her with rapt attention without taking his eyes off her even once. Her voice sounded like a melody being played in the dead of the night. It was comforting.

He loved the way her voice softened when she spoke of love between the protagonists. He had to use every ounce of his self-control to stop himself from kissing her flushed cheeks while she was mentioning the intimacy between Rhett and Scarlett. Sometimes he interrupted to comment on the events that were really significant in the story. This really pleased Savyasachi rather than irking her because it showed that he was not only hearing but also listening to her words.

Once she finished her narration, they both discussed about civil war for some time. He was amazed at how well informed she was about the history of the war.

‘I don’t remember when was the last time I had such an interesting and intelligent conversation with anyone,’ he said clearly impressed.

‘It is not difficult to sustain such a conversation when both of us are so much into books,’ she said completely satiated with that experience.

‘You are right. Okay! Now, my turn…’

He first began telling the story of ‘To kill a mockingbird’. It was a simple and yet a very intense story. Though he was clearly not very articulate and expressive like her, he made a decent narration. She liked the story and immediately announced that she would certainly read the book soon. Savyasachi was a huge fan of Shakespeare’s plays and therefore was more interested in his second story. ‘The secret life of William Shakespeare’ had made a wonderful effort to capture the private life of the literary genius. Some facts were so astonishing that she gaped at him wide-eyed.

‘I cannot even imagine the hardships he must have gone through to choose writing as his career. The truth that his father was quite opThe Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

87 posed to his decision is understandable. It requires a lot of courage to tread on an offbeat path,’ she said appreciating Shakespeare.

‘Sometimes it is curse to choose different…’ he said coldly in a voice thick with emotion. She really could not guess why he said that but there was something intense hidden behind those words. After a moment he pulled himself out of his thoughts and smiled at her genially.

‘Have you ever been in love?’ he asked in his deep beguiling voice. She inhaled sharply and averted his eyes. If he had asked her ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ she would have easily said no.

Have I ever been in love? Not until tonight.

Savyasachi simply shook her head unable to tell the truth.

‘Why?’ he asked softly.

‘I am scared.’

Anyone else would have certainly laughed at her answer and that was what she expected from him. He remained silent trying really hard to know what she was thinking. He waited for her explanation tenaciously. Seeing his intense eyes and assured that he was not going to mock her, she mustered up courage to unlock the fear in her heart.

‘I have read and seen many love stories. Some end happily while some have a tragic ending. I don’t think I will be able to handle a heartbreak in my life. It takes a lot of courage to be in love and I don’t think I have it in me. Above all I had never come across a man who could expel this fear from my heart and sweep me off my feet,’ she said letting out a sigh. Her vulnerability casted a spell on him and he did not want to leave her ever.

Don’t be a fool! I should not go anymore deeper into this. It will only hurt her more…

‘Love is not something to be feared. Someday you will realise its true meaning in life. I hope you find someone who will love and cherish you forever.’

He said those words with a pang of jealousy for her future lover, who he knew, could not certainly be him. She moved her finger across the candle flame playing with it. She felt it was better to not The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

88 talk further on this topic because she was scared that unknowingly she might let him discover her feelings for him.

‘I love rain but I never got an opportunity to drench in it. My mother is always very particular that I shouldn’t get wet and fall sick. Somehow or the other every opportunity would slip out of my hands,’ she said throwing up her hands in irritation. He laughed at her gesture. Instantly he stood up and walked towards her side of the table. She caught her breath when he outstretched his hand to her.

‘Come now. This is the least I can do for you. Let’s fulfil your desire.’

She looked at him incredulously.

‘What do you mean? Now?? I am not sure if¬¬—‘ ‘Now is the time Savyasachi! If you really want something, you should simply follow your heart. Don’t let your mind stop you.

Your life is within your reach. All you have to do is simply stretch your hand…’ he said ardently. Passion glowed in his each word. She looked at his hand which held a promise of unknownpleasures. Her eyes were filled with a mystifying fear and uncertainty.

Hold his hand Savya! Give yourself a chance at life. Just go and live this night.

Savyasachi’s heart was not going to obey her brain today. His offer was too tempting to not accept it. He waited for her with bated breath. She took in a deep breath and held his hand. All inhibitions flew out of her mind. Aatish was elated as he firmly held her soft hand. He took out his phone and switched on the torch. It shone brighter than the candle and they both walked towards the entrance of the library. The librarian had only latched it instead of locking it as usual. He gave her his phone to hold and unlatched the door, without letting go of her hand even once. It was completely dark, but the frequent flashes of lightning kept lighting up the place every now and then. The rain had mellowed down a little. Nevertheless, it was still raining ceaselessly. Once outside he let go of her hand with a smile.

‘Thank you,’ she said breezily and ran into the rain. He watched her as she outstretched her arms and embraced the rain. She held up her face unflinchingly soaking herself completely. He left his phone The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

89 carefully near the door so that it did not get wet. It was 2.13 am when he checked the time before placing down his phone. He watched her carefree laughter with a heavy heart.

If only this night would never end…

‘Join me!’ she called out to him over a roar of thunder. Wordlessly he walked into the rain and closed his eyes allowing the sacred drops of water drench him completely. Both were completely wet and there was about one feet of water flowing down the road. Suddenly he felt more water being splashed on his abdomen. When he opened his eyes, she was playfully kicking the water at him.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked stepping back. She relentlessly continued to kick water.

‘I am playing football! Wanna try??’

‘Oh really! Then here is my goal!’ he said and kicked more water towards her. They continued doing it like two reckless children.

Their laughter joined the lonely thunder and filled the night. There was nobody to witness their fun except the rain, thunder, lightning and the sombre library. It was as if only the two of them existed in this big world. After what felt like an eternity they both stopped almost panting for breath.

‘I think we should go inside. We have played enough in the rain.

I hope you are satisfied,’ he said cheerfully.

‘I will never be satisfied with the rain! I could spend this whole night getting wet!’

‘Of course not! Let’s go inside. I don’t want you falling ill,’ he said sternly. She laughed at his words.

‘You sound like my mother now.’

Aatish was not going to indulge her anymore. He held her arm and began walking towards to door. She rolled her eyes and followed him sulking. Switching on the torch on his phone they both walked inside. He latched the door and she walked towards their table. The candle was on the verge of being completely melted, when she lit up the other one. Savyasachi unfastened her plait and let her loose hair fall over her shoulders. He ran his hand through his wet hair, shaking off the droplets of water. Squeezed some of the water out of ends of The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

90 her kurta and began lightly patting her hair. When he looked at her, she narrowed her eyes and looked away. He chuckled at her softly.

‘Are you angry with me? I think you have enjoyed enough in the rain today. I am sure that the weather is going to be the same at least for a couple of more days. Tomorrow again you can indulge in this pleasure.’

She frowned at his words.

‘Yeah right! You are going to be with me every day to let me play in the rain like this,’ she said sarcastically. Immediately the smile was wiped clean from his face and he looked grim.

‘I have something important to tell you. I know I am going to regret telling this to you, but I really can’t hide it from you anymore.’

He swallowed hard and looked into her bewildered eyes.

‘What is it?’ she asked softly when he did not say anything further.

‘I lied to you that I have a girlfriend. I never had one.’

What??!! Really? Are you kidding me?

The wet clothes were making her almost shiver in cold.

‘Why did you lie?’

He stuffed his clenched fists into the wet pockets of his jeans.

But he did not take even one step towards her.

‘I didn’t want us to get any closer to each other. I wanted to keep you away from me,’ he said in a strained voice. Savyasachi’s heart was racing in anticipation. She could almost guess where this conversation was leading to. He was fighting a fierce battle within himself which was headed towards a defeat.

Go on! You have to tell her. She deserves to know.

‘I love you, Savyasachi.’

Breath was knocked out of her. The silence which followed his words hung like the mist on a winter morning. He did not stir from his place and continued to gaze at her in longing.

Is he actually confessing his love to me? Did he really do it just now? Let this not be a dream!

It was certainly not a dream and the man for whom she had harboured feelings in her heart was standing before her. In this huge The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

91 library with none around, he had laid his heart before her. The rows of books were the only witnesses to this momentous night. She did not fathom if it was his confession or her own bottled up emotions which emboldened her. Savyasachi strode towards him and flung her hands around his neck. He gasped turning into a stone.

‘I love you too.’

For a moment he was torn between love and indecision. Then he threw away all other thoughts from his mind and embraced her.

They melted into each other’s arms. After a few blissful moments, he released her from his embrace. She smiled slightly and looked into his eyes, but to her astonishment they were filled with anguish.

‘We can never be together, I am sorry,’ he whispered. With these words he had stabbed her heart with a rusted dagger. She staggered back a few steps in shock.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked meekly.

Aatish rubbed his face with his hands and let out a long drawn breath. It was time for the truth to be revealed and break her heart forever.

I am never going to forgive myself for this…

‘I don’t lead a normal life, Savyasachi. Every day in my life I am fighting for a cause. I have taken refuge in Bangalore only for a few days to remain undiscovered. I should never have let you walk into my life and endanger yours.’

Regret and pain saturated his voice. She looked at him incredulously. Not a single word what he spoke made sense to her. Tears trickled down her wet.

‘Who are you? What cause are you fighting for?’

‘I cannot reveal it,’ he said with finality which made her quiver.

She tugged at his wet shirt looked up at him in defiance.

‘You owe me an explanation, Aatish!’

‘I know I do but I can’t. I came to this library because I knew not many will visit this place. It was the safest place to hide. I didn’t want to talk to you and tried really hard to keep distance but when you came and sat before me, I could no longer hold onto my indifference,’ he said in a helpless tone. Savyasachi buried her face in her hands The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

92 and stepped back. It was killing him to see the way she was breaking down. Suddenly she looked up at him in horror.

‘Are you a terrorist?’

Despite the wretched situation, her words brought a wry smile on his face.

‘If I say yes, will you hate me?’ he asked unsure. She stood there deep in thought unable to utter a word.

‘I know you won’t. So there is no point in lying about it. I am not a terrorist, but a revolutionary.’

His eyes twinkled with pride when he said the last word. A mild relief entered her distraught mind.

‘Being a revolutionary is no crime. Why do you have to hide your identity?’ she asked puzzled. He walked up to her and took his face in his hands. Tenderly he wiped her tears.

‘Sweetheart, you only see this world as black and white, good and bad. You have to understand that there are various shades of grey in between. I am right in fighting for a noble cause, but I have broken many rules to reach my goals. I am an offender in the eyes of law,’ he explained carefully.

‘There must be some way to make this work…’ she said tense with expectation.

Aatish let out a sigh and placed his forehead on hers.

‘I really wish there was… but it’s impossible.’

A lightning struck and thunder roared at a distance.

‘Then I will come with you,’ she said straight away. Her eyes were glowingfiercely and he knew instantly that she really meant it.

‘You are saying that you will leave behind everything for me.

Your family, your career, your life! Please don’t say it again, love. You have been well protected, nourished and cared for in your life. Not everyone is fortunate like you. I won’t let you throw everything away for me. This night was probably the first time that you were left unprotected but what I have seen is far worse. Innocent children, women, men were mercilessly slaughtered. I have seen my loved ones being murdered right before my eyes…’

His voice cracked on the last sentence. A tear slipped out of The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

93 his eye and he let go of her. He was trying to control the emotions overwhelming him.

When was the last time I shed tears over them? I shouldn’t reveal my secret. Let her stay untouched by my suffering. She won’t be able to carry the burden of my pain.

Out of the blue his phone began ringing. He was startled at the sound because he knew who might have called. There was no point in taking a look at the number because it would certainly be an unknown number. He took a deep breath and composed himself before answering the call.

‘Hello… there was no signal on my phone before, so I didn’t call… I didn’t notice… yes, I am in the library… the librarian is asleep… no, I am alone… okay… let me know,’ he spoke brusquely and cut the call. She was breathing hard trying to convince herself that this nightmare would end any moment and he would simply take her into his arms saying that all this was only a prank. They would again go back to laughing without a care in this world. When he turned to look at her, his face was hard and expressionless.

‘I should leave soon. I am too deep in this battle to back out. I should fight for their life, for justice. They need me, Savyasachi,’ he said fervently.

‘So do I. Finish your fight and come back to me. I will be waiting,’ she said with a steadfastness, that he stared at her in awe. Without thinking twice he pulled her closer to him. She felt an unfathomable gratification in his arms. He held onto her like she was his only reason to live. With wet clothes making them shiver, the warmth of their intimacy grew stronger. He slowly bent down and kissed her.

The girl who had never believed in falling so madly in love was now kissing him back. No matter how much the memory of this moment was going to hurt them later, they gave in to the pleasure and kissed passionately. When he reluctantly pulled back, they were both breathing heavily.

‘You are not going to wait for me because I am not coming back ever. I want you to live a happy, comfortable and fulfilling life. You should remain warm and protected till a ripe old age surrounded The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018

94 by your grandchildren and a loving husband. I wish you were not so unique, then maybe I would not have fallen in love with you. I am sorry, love…’ he breathed. She did not say anything except being acutely aware of his presence. She could feel his comforting hot breath on her tear-streaked face.

Breaking the silence of the night, a car horn blared twice. Aatish gasped and tightened his hold on her. Once again he kissed her with a frightening urgency and locked eyes with her for one last time.

‘I love you and always will,’ he said with ardour filling his eyes.

For an eternal moment they stood there, lost in the depth of love.

Then he turned abruptly and strode towards the door. Savyasachi stood there hoping that he would turn back. Her heart pounded fervently longing for him to come back. He did not look back even once and quickly walked out of the door closing it behind him.

Savyasachi was cruelly pulled out of her trance when she found herself standing all alone in that huge library. The loneliness suffocated her and she sobbed ceaselessly. She was crying over a man about whom she knew nothing and not even once had she seen his face in daylight. Yet seeing him walk away from had left her shattered. She collapsed on the cold floor picturing the stranger who had changed her life forever. He had left something valuable which she would cherish forever.

One night at the library, you showed me what it means to love and to be loved forever…

BOON OF A CURSE Meeting you even for a minute, Is nothing but a curse.

For all that I do After you leave is, Miss you like never before!

Yet a fool that I am, I never yearn for a boon, I live for love!

If loving you is a curse, The Wagon Magazine - September - 2018

95 I ask for just one boon, ‘To be cursed With love for life…’ *** The End***

Sahana L and her writing both were born in Bengaluru. She started writing poetry at the age of 12 and for a few years she continued her tryst with poetry. Later, she wrote a few articles and short stories for her school and college magazines. She graduated as an engineer in 2014. It was during her second year of engineering that she began writing her debut novel.

She has self-published her book Mithra through Partridge Publishing.

She was one of the finalists at the 1st LitMart event organised by Bangalore Literature Festival (2014) for her novel. She is an active blogger and an avid reader. The link to her blogs are given below. http://sahanamithra.blogspot.in/ https://sahanal.wordpress.com/ She was one of the finalists for the 3rd edition of Litmart at Bangalore Literature Festival (2016) for her collection of novellas titled ‘Love, Rain and… You’. She received the Bharat Award – International (2017) for Short Story Contest. The next year, she won the second prize for the Bharat Award – International (2018) for Short Story Contest.

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POETRY

It was a dull grey night, you came up Moss scent on your hair Your eyes were blue When you talk blue whale sings in your voice Mysterious secret beauty which I can't get enough When you smile the bottomless well of the ocean in your eyes which I don't have the heart to drown in

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A deep blue inside the blue Since that day I have been a seagull on air, a fish in the water My kinship with the sea birds has begun with you In an autumn evening In fact, the seagulls are addicted to the blue on the other hand the cormorants to the deep blue and they feed from time to time

Özer Genç (1953 Istanbul/Turkey) He hails from a folk music and dance family. He has participated in events at various institutions and folklore festivals. His interests are poetry, fiction and drama and his works have been published in various magazines.

Serkan Engin is a Socialist Laz-Turk poet. His poems and articles on poetry theory have appeared in more than fifty literary journals in Turkey. In 2004, he published a poem manifesto, entitled Imagist Socialist Poetry. He has been trying to launch a new movement in Turkish poetry and to this end has published numerous articles about literary theory. http://paperboatsofpoetry.blogspot.com.tr/ The Wagon Magazine - September- 2018