What You Missed That Night When You Skipped the Party
The Slow Burn
James Urquhart
Debi
Devon Chang
Anushka Gupta the trilinguist
What’s in Your Mind
Debi Kim
In The Clouds
Elizabeth Chin ancient marble
Anya Glass
The Other Side of the Smokescreen: Ruminations After a House Fire
Ishaan Rajiv Rajabali
Don’t Hide it From the Sun
Felix Yu
Chasing Time
Maria Sokolowski
Editor-in-Chief Veronica
Editor
Managing
Creative
Arts
Opinion
Campus
Poetry
Voices
Copy
Oyinkansola
Art
Treasurer
dear reader,
When I was 17, my best friend lived 4,320 kilometers to the west of and three hours behind me. We met on Discord (embarrassing, I know), and the moment we realized we were both writers, our sleep schedules were doomed forever. Every night, I would smuggle my laptop beneath my covers, the space’s darkened hush illuminated only by the stark white of my screen. Then, for hours, words would march across the screen– scattered one-liners from me nestled within the paragraphs she churned out so effortlessly. We would co-write until my head pounded and eyes burned in protest at the sight of size 11 Arial font, desperate for at least three hours of sleep before the next big plot twist.
Some nights, I would jolt awake to find that I had fallen asleep mid-phrase and keysmashed over the side character we were trying to kill off. Some nights, my friend would wisely point out that it was way too late at night to iron out yet another side character death for the MC’s tragic backstory. We would drift off to our respective midnight and three a..m. bedtimes then. But on my most restless nights, I wouldn’t sleep until sunrise, unable to close my eyes even as my room brightened from murky gray to candlewick yellow. Staring up at my ceiling, I would daydream of the worlds we had crafted together, where skyscrapers loom in gravity-defying repose, electricity thrums through the city like a heartbeat, and revenge is just one hovercraft ride away.
And I would daydream of a world in which we were together on the same coast, huddled around the same table. I like to think of writing as a snapshot of a writer’s psyche—their passions, their obsessions, their insecurities, and if nothing else, their sense of humor. Sharing the creative process with someone dear to me made me feel truly seen. On those sleepless nights, I was certain that my friend was the only person in the world who could come close to understanding how it felt for me to exist. To know and be known so deeply was one of the greatest treasures in my life, but also one of my greatest pains. The fact that I had never once given my best friend a hug, or exchanged midnight gossip with her in the comfort of a shared living room filled me with an aching emptiness. A hopeful void, but a void nonetheless. A few weeks before I set off for college, I promised her that the moment I graduated, I’d hop directly on a flight to her home state. One way.
I am twenty-one now, just a few months shy of the graduation that was always just a distant promise. My best friend still lives 4,320 kilometers to the west and 3 hours behind. When I look back at the writing from our high school days, I am struck by how young we were. Trapped within those pages are petty grudges we’ve long let go of, people whose faces we no longer remember, and dreams we eventually wrote off as “just a phase.” Some dreams, however, have endured.
In a twist of fate, my best friend was the one to fly to me. Draining her hard-earned unistudent money, she visited me for the first time just a few weeks ago. That long awaited weekend was a whirlwind of tourist traps and too many missed trains. And somehow, it ended the same way as our friendship began, with both of us cozied up in bed, staring down blank Google Docs. Ever the plotter, I daydreamed hard about my WIP before exhaustedly opting not to write a single word. I fell asleep to the sound of my friend typing away on her physics P-set, then, on her on-and-off again WIP of five years.
I don’t think I’d slept that horribly since high school. I don’t think I’d ever felt more complete.
All this just to say: Dear reader,
May all your voids be made whole.
ivi
ps: the theme of this issue is void because nihility (or null) is too big of a word. sorry, acheron.
dear reader,
A few weeks ago my two housemates and I sat huddled around a small yellow padded envelope addressed to our exact unit with a name we had never seen before. For two days it sat unopened on our counter before we decided to tear it open.
Inside was absolutely nothing. You might say that it was void.
I thought it odd. Was it a message? A warning? What were they trying to say? For it to contain literally nothing was unfathomable to me. So it had to be something. Because like the envelope, I am so many things and nothing is not one of them because it can’t be, and why should it be, anyway?
I like the smell of jasmine, and I pull over to cry when other drivers honk at me, and I don’t really enjoy hugging unless it’s my boyfriend, and I love running until I go past one mile. I sobbed in the shower after finishing my favorite childhood book again, and I always accidentally show up three minutes late to class. I love hats and boots and sleeping in nightgowns. I’m the middle child but feel like the oldest sometimes, and I’m Chinese but not fully, and I like fancy things and I’m genuinely scared of the dark. I have many names but also really just one, and I love talking about etymology and the plot lines from my stupid romance novels. Someone once told me that I look like my mother and act like my father which reminds me that I exist as a legacy. I’m objects and memories and fixations and identities and preferences. I’m something. I think you are too.
And when I think of things that are truly void, it scares me. Because I find it so inconceivable for anything to contain nothing. So I’ll believe in God and hope that when I’m old I’ll be more okay with dying. I won’t think about outer space and black holes too much and I’ll try not to forget anything. I’ll be convinced that my grandfather is the deer in the woods near the creek and my best friend’s brother is the hawk hanging over his own memorial service. I remedy the oddity of the empty envelope with a solution that there must have been a motive. Because who sends mail with nothing in it?
But, if you’re like me, then I’ve got something for you: this issue has reminded me that our understanding of “void” itself is rather paradoxical—because for something to be “infinitely nothing” there must be an “infinity” and a “nothing.” And maybe if I were to put on my linguistics hat I’d tell you that “infinite” is just modifying the notion of “nothing,” but I don’t really like that point of view so I’ll scrap it. Maybe some things don’t really make sense. I kind of like the idea of everything being something. And when you read these pages, you’ll realize that this compilation of “nothings” was created by people containing such “some thing.” So maybe “voids” don’t really exist. Except for that empty envelope. I’m slowly being convinced that there really was no reason for it.
Peaches
between
2 and 3
By Blythe Elderd
A water gun, neon plastic faded in the sun, is laid to rest next to a roll of duct tape, almost finished, a layer or two until the cardboard. A Dan Brown novel, pages clumped and wrinkled from a spring rainstorm, nestles in beside the tape. A blanket, draped haphazardly across the trunk, partly hides a box of jumper cables, blurring recollections into soft, heathergrey hills.
I peer into the back, squinting past the layer of pollen dusted across the window. The car has not started in two years, the trunk has not opened in three.
Mom called and told me there were wasps living in the side mirror, nest bubbling out from behind the glass. They don’t go near the front of the car now.
I cried.
It doesn’t drive any longer. I barely drive now. I don’t live here anymore.
Mom cleaned my dresser when I was away last winter. She gathered my collection of glass vases, dried petals curled in the grooves; my wax hand; a middle school ceramics project. They now sit, huddled—collecting dust, in a box in my closet.
The calendar on my bookshelf is flipped to the month of May. It’s August. The date of my graduation sharpied in.
Sunday.
I use a spare toothbrush in the bathroom, dressed in a shirt from fifth grade and silk pants Mom doesn’t wear anymore. Mossy thread puckers the lilac fabric— stitches climbing across my thigh. The sheets on my bed are solid blue. The guest sheets.
I fly back in three days.
ART BY LEILA TOUBIA
Tomorrow
By Abilene Adelman
The first time I saw the world end, I forgot to take a shower before going to sleep I think my guilty conscience forever stained those sheets
There are many parts of my life I hope to never forget: Falling in love with Wednesdays on a wet bus in Montreal
November slipping away under the guise of having enough time
Breathing underwater for the first time with my mouth closed, because nothing makes any sense at all
Loving a girl for the first time with my eyes open, because sometimes dreams do come true and I never want to look away
In my mind, for once, the future is stained with flowers and flames alike, and I’m proud to call upstate New York my home
Except for when I go home
Except for when I leave
I will leave, if I’m lucky
Because leaving only lasts so long; I will return
I will find these hallowed high school halls fuller than I left them and not think about what that means for me and all I failed to give I will have sex one day with someone who makes me feel beautiful and it will all be worth it
I will learn to love the future the way my mother loves her gardens, until all my tomorrows taste of cucumber and mint
I will treasure my indefinite tomorrows I will fear the place where tomorrow ends
Speaking of tomorrow
All I can think about is the end of the world
Speaking of tomorrow
There is never enough time, but maybe that is the point
The next time I see the world end I will stare into the void and hold my friends close while they learn to believe in God
I will go back to my childhood home and watch the mountains I grew up in burn to the ground
I will leave again, and run 158 miles away from where I learned to drive
I will start from scratch
Lost in a forest, guided by trees
By Chaliya Holder
Seeing your stillness, I was sure you were just a technicality of life compared to those of us who are truly alive.
But the alive-seeming, surrounding beings said, No, it’s quite the opposite: you, your stillness, is not merely living adjacent— your stillness is a testament to how alive you really are; your presence is felt without even moving.
Stillness is tricky with me.
On the rare occasion I am grounded enough to take root, it's at the exact moment I need to leap into action.
Just yesterday, I waited until the last minute to head to the shuttle. Unfazed by the moving cars, I ran through the street and kept on until I saw the man on the ground. He’s fucking dying, they said, canopying the newly still body.
What is it like to get up and go to the right place at the right time?
To break the stillness without a pep talk, To know and believe everything will be fine.
What does a tree do in moments of unbreakable stillness?
They see things the same way we do. Grounded in stillness, they must make peace with life moving on.
What does a tree think of a being becoming still? A fleeting moment that encompasses a lifetime. As he was taking root, his presence was felt without even moving.
Is stillness anything to a tree who must know that I don’t need to move to move you.
ART BY ELIKA WILSON
Hunting Season
By Jo Haggard
It is hunting season again, and the leaves have begun to burn my nose red.
I can’t remember my rst hunting season, but sometimes I sneak scrapbooks from Father’s closet and stare at the three pairs of bright eyes by a replace in the fall. I nger the worn photo, so like it has been handled a thousand times and wondered if Father still looked, too. I’d catch glimpses of cracked smiles with unstained teeth inside them, Father’s hand wrapped around a ri e lovingly. Father doesn’t talk about those days but he still oils the ri e in long swi strokes, his back hunched with invisible weight.
Some time during my second hunting season teeth poked through my pink gums. I tried for the rst time the red meat Father had brought home in his pickup. It took me ten minutes to suck all the juice out of it but would be another year before I could swallow the tough tissue that was le . ree sets of laughter lled the room up to a leaking point.
My third hunting season was marked by a pair of too-tight camo pants that I refused to take o . I would be ready when it was my turn to ride shotgun, sitting upright in the pickup truck as Father taught me to be a son. I would wake at dawn to watch the cloud of dirt disappear behind Father’s truck and stay frozen for hours until he returned. at year I dressed up in red velvet at Christmas and tiaras at Halloween.
In my fourth hunting season, I remember too much yelling. I would hide under my so yellow sheets and tell stories of the woodland creatures Father spent his time with. I was always their prince and Father, their king. Father spent more time than past years in the towering woods, but he never came home with blood on his denim or antlers in hand. at season, two meatless meals lay on the table that used to t three.
I spent my h hunting season with a wrinkled woman I didn’t know. She said she was my grandmother, but her hands were so cold that I didn’t believe her. She kept four ri es locked in a glass cabinet and never took them out, but sometimes I would nd her kneeling next to them like she was praying at an altar. She cooked greens until they blackened and frowned at my trucks and toy soldiers. She liked to grip my bony shoulders and whisper that Father was a sinner whose path I should be careful not to follow. I thought she was weak and wretched.
I spent my sixth hunting season mostly alone. I returned to Father and never felt so lucky. Boxes of dresses and warm handmade quilts disappeared slowly from rooms, and nothing replaced them. I learned how to open a can of soup with a multi-tool blade, and how to brush my hair back so that it looked short instead of long. Father seemed to nd it hard to look at me. I did enough talking for the both of us.
During the seventh hunting season, I cut my hair with a pocket knife to match Father’s. It hung longer on one side, but I had never felt more handsome. I threw armfuls of pink into the trash cans outside. I cut my camo pants into shorts and wore them like I had before. Father made me dinner and tousled my hair. We sat on either side of a too-long table where I thought hard about what to say to make him laugh. His eyes and mouth hung blank like a badly timed photograph. Father moved his meat from side to side on the cracked plate and never took a bite. But he made up for it by doubling the golden liquid that made him chuckle at the wrong time.
My eighth hunting season was the coldest one yet, the house, the food, Father. at was a year of watching. e only warmth was the heat in the bench seat truck, with Father at the wheel. We would drive around for hours in perfect silence, and I would watch him tap two ngers on the dashboard. He brought me hunting three times that year. I huddled behind him and inched at the sound of the gun but mostly at the squeaking of swallows as they ew from the trees. I hated those mornings in the forest, the cold so biting that tears would join the snot running down my chin. But I kept quiet and hoped never to hear anything as loud as that rusted ri e again.
In my ninth hunting season, Father let me become a son. I became a boy when Father took his hands away from mine and let me pull the trigger with my own shaking ngers. I put a bullet through the belly of a fawn whose spotted fur hit the dirt, and blood pooled around its head. I didn’t feel guilty or sad. But when his mother bounded out from the bush to mourn her fallen son, I think I was jealous. Father put a bullet through her belly, and they lay together, and I was jealous.
In my tenth hunting season, I started school. My classmates stared but never spoke to me. ey whispered about my boyhood and my torn camo pants. I stared back at their smoothed-out faces and uncracked smiles and wondered if they hunted, too. I wore face paint of green and brown to class because that’s how Father showed me to blend in. Sometimes I would forget and wipe dirty, oily hands onto my homework and desk.
I made a friend in my eleventh hunting season, a girl named Emma. She sat behind me in class and pulled on my short hair. Emma liked that I looked like a boy and talked like a boy but that I knew how to braid hair and liked to play with dolls. Emma kissed me on the monkey bars, and the teacher made us sit on di erent sides of the classroom. Later that day she talked to our parents in a squawky, hushed voice. Father laughed and said that it was natural for girls and boys at this age; the other adults glanced at each other like he was foolish. His breath smelled sour, and I was embarrassed when he tripped walking out of the classroom.
In my twel h hunting season, Father stopped going to work. Instead, he would wake up at two in the morning and stumble out to the truck. He would drive into the woods, staying hidden behind bushes till the sun rose to its peak in the sky. He would come home to sleep, waking up only to repeat his practice. Father didn’t eat much that year; only when he claimed a prize from the forest did he seem to have the energy to fork food into his mouth. e food in the cabinets slowly disappeared and I never dared question it. As he withered away, I did too. Like Father, like son. e thirteenth hunting season was lled with change, the bad kind. Hair grew in all sorts of places, and other things grew too. It was harder to hide my skin in school and even harder at home. I hated showering, hated looking down at this unfamiliar body. Instead, I would take a wet cloth to each part of my body, redressing the others as I went. Father said I was a man now, and he bought me a gun for my birthday. It was long and glossy and cool to the touch. When I held it, it seemed to drag my arms down as if to say: you aren’t ready.
In my fourteenth hunting season, I started high school. I spent more and more time out of the house, walking for miles through the beaten-down paths of the woods. Sometimes, Emma would join me; she talked about her friends and all the boys they kissed. I found it hard to listen, but it felt nice to be in someone else’s presence. She never needed me to say much, just to smile when she glanced at me expectantly. Teachers started to notice the gauntness in my face,stopping me a er class to ask if I was okay. I would look at them with apprehension and slink through the doorway. e lack of food kept a lot of bodily monsters at bay. When I would return home, Father was rarely conscious, and when he was, he was angry. He would yell her name at me, an accusation of belonging.
e eenth hunting season brought me and Father closer; he needed me, and he began to realize it. e year had turned his anger into sadness; instead of screaming when I entered the door, I was greeted by whimpers leaking out from behind his closed door. I began to bring home groceries myself now that I could drive. Heating up soups and placing them near his door. When the moaning would become too much, I would creep through the door and sit near the bed. On my eenth birthday, Father le the keys to his rusted truck on my door handle. He had yet to hunt this season. I pulled the shiny gun from my closet and placed it in the back of the pickup. Fingers tapping on the wheel, I disappeared into the woods.
In my sixteenth hunting season, Father again faded into a world completely separate from mine. I spent most of my time driving up and down the long dirt roads that stretched through our town—getting home long a er Father had passed out on the couch. Emma and I had gotten closer; she sat by my side in the pickup and turned the music up to sing aloud. On the rst night of snow, we turned into the driveway and saw a gure on the bent roof of the house. I jumped out before the truck wheels stopped turning. Father stood on the roof, one leg up like a stork. He cocked his head back and forth slowly, and said “When I y, no one will shoot me down.” Father screamed that he was not scared of the bullets; he would be fast enough, strong enough, to elude them. Emma cried in my arms that night; she was so scared.
It is now my seventeenth hunting season. Father’s health in mind and body has declined rapidly. I sit next to his bed most nights; the air is dry and cool but nauseating nonetheless. For the last few months, I have only been able to fall asleep when I hear his strained breath. Father will talk in his sleep, mumbling about the woods, about Mother. As hunting season comes to a close, the colder it gets, the more restless Father has gotten. I am sitting next to the tangled sheets of his bed, his form almost invisible beneath them. Father begins to whisper over and over, “my boy, my boy, my boy.” I want to scream, but nothing comes out. Instead, I squeeze his bone- lled hand so hard I think it might break, and I don’t stop.
By Anushka Gupta
what you missed that night you skipped the party
I dropped my second earring, and when I picked it from the floor, I found a thread woven round the gem, tail dangling from it.
I pinched the strand, raised my brow to an indie number, stretched my lips to touch my ears, joined hands with my lab partner for too long a moment, and crouched.
I crept between stomping oxfords, noted that the bass line—in morse code—spelled “You chose… the wrong… shoes” “Every… body… hates you”
Afraid of losing it, I slipped the jewel back into my ear. We can’t help but wish for the shiniest things to reflect good character. Having taken the bait, hook in cheek, I shuffled on at the whim of that thread end, which wound itself on knuckles and anxious cufflinks, cutting off blood circulation, splitting bottom lips at the sight of uncouth advances.
On my way towards the stage, instead of “excuse me” I rammed my head into shins, chuckled confusedly, preached the antidote to late-night regret: How not to rue each drunken breath
What to eat to avoid a hangover
How to tell who your real friends are
The thread took me onward, my moral tightrope, wrapped inconveniently round the mic stand.
Waving a sharpie pen, the drummer corralled us into single file, on my turn he marked my drink count, and on my forehead: the age at which I’ll know I’ve found my calling: thirty-seven
Later, the singer took an intermission to teach us how to meditate, we each turned to the person on our left, shared our biggest mistake, and how to fix things without emotional casualties.
I traded vocal cords with an ex-boyfriend, no one is fundamentally unlovable, flirted with my own seltzer-can reflection and that girl whose dress fit her like a silk-woven piece of universe.
She proclaimed we should all have children, instilled hope that the earth’s crust may not absorb humanity just yet, and when the pianist hit a wrong note we dropped to one knee, reckoned with the permanence of marriage, practiced how to exhale with bricks strapped to our chests.
Before leaving, I confessed to a circle of strangers the things I believe the moon has done for me, my rationale for carving its phases into my bicep, that it is our duty to observe how meaning drips like blood from mundanity’s wrist.
I stepped outside, finally, and let the thread linger, winding down my calf, drinking from a puddle. Only then did I take comfort in knowing that the smallest pull of gravity can feel like salvation, that it was enough just to be here.
DESIGN BY MADISON CLOWES, ART BY YAYLA TUR
ART BY MARIA SOKOLOWSKI
Henry sanitized himself in the mornings. Purell to the face. Soap to the lips. Detergent to the eyes. He stood in the mirror and wiped off his fucking depression like dirt. Then he put his contacts in, went downstairs, and smiled. ✮
Subtitle(24 pt)
Robin was getting drunk on Saturdays. An appropriate amount. She felt hungover until she got out of bed. Then she made a coffee and felt okay. But her mother liked to confess things over the phone, and Robin knew that in the dreary months of late winter, Henry’s thoughts were just a host for bacteria. It was weird, though, because he cleaned himself so well that she might have thought he was never sad at all.
✮
Pull quote(18 pt)
The stickers above Henry’s bed had been placed there by Robin. Purple fairies. Blue giraffes. A twirling ballerina. A “You Did It!” bubble-lettered childhood consolation prize. In polka-dot pajamas, he’d shut his eyes tight as Robin crept in, shouting, “Do NOT open your eyes!” and he wouldn’t. In her clear box, she’d rummage around and pull out a sparkly mermaid, pull it off the paper, and stick it to her pointer finger.
“One second! Keep your eyes closed!” She’d yell after pasting the fish creature to the wall and running back into her room, dropping the evidence on the floor.
“Okay, now open!” She declared upon coming back.
Henry peeked from beneath his fingers. “She came!”
“Yep,” Robin quipped. “She was right here. I saw her.”
“Why doesn’t the sticker fairy ever leave me boy stickers?”
“Because she’s a fairy. And all fairies are girls. She’s being soooo generous already, Henry.”
Henry looked solemnly at Robin’s face.
sticker fairy
By Peaches Wright
“I know it’s you, you know.”
“How dare you!” Robin gasped. “ I’ve been right here all along!”
✮
Robin imagined Henry at the end of the night, wiping off his grin like makeup. Removing his hands like thick blue latex gloves. Letting dark mold creep into his lungs. And getting into bed. And not be-
ing the person Robin knew at all. When she called him on the phone he’d just say “I’m okay.”
“I know you’re not,” Robin said. “How come Mom keeps calling me and freaking the fuck out?”
“I’m fine.”
✮
Henry’s sterilized self was pristine. Sterilized Henry was so “I’m fine” while their mother ached at the way he cleaned. Henry’s mom would say that “half a parent’s job is to worry,” but her anxiety seeped like blood from her pores, her fear like wounds she couldn’t cauterize with her own hands. Ones that opened again and again every time Henry came downstairs, new and wiped away. So, crimson coated her fingers as she dialed the phone.
“I know he’s not okay,” she’d say.
“I know,” Robin replied.
“How can we help him?”
“I’m not sure.”
He wasn’t okay. They knew that. And Robin sometimes wondered what was left of him. Henry was polished, disinfected, and washed. She didn’t know him anymore. And even if Robin had the best chance of understanding, she didn’t want to think about Henry. She wanted to get drunk on Saturdays. She wanted to wake up hungover. She wanted to feel like shit until she got out of bed.
“It meeeannnsss you can’t touch my doorknob!” Robin had yelled from her room one morning. “See?” She pointed at the tiny piece of turquoise-and-white striped tape stuck to the handle. She had the roll around her pointer finger.
“Well then you can’t touch my doorknob!” Henry replied, stomping back to his room.
Robin stepped into the hall to examine the polka-dot purple tape that had been plastered to his own handle. They had spent the past few hours labeling objects that only they could touch, claiming them using respective rolls of tape. Robin had blue sticky stuff on her lamps, her desk, her favorite books, the foot of her bed, and each of her stuffed animals.
Staring at her things, Robin pondered for a moment before going out and knocking on his door.
“You can’t touch my door either!” Henry’s voice was muffled by the walls of his room. “I taped the wood too!”
There was a small piece of tape in front of her face.
“Well, okay, but come out, I have an idea.”
Henry peeked through the slit of the doorway.
“What?”
“I think that just for the doors, we can both claim it. See, you can put your tape on mine.” She gestured towards her room. “But that means just us can go in. No Mom or Dad.”
✮
Robin felt like a bridge. “See what’s bothering him,” her mother urged. “We need to know how to best support him.” Robin was a universal blood type. She was O-Neg. She was her mother’s donor. She facilitated the transfer. Her platelets could always be taken.
“So how are things?” Robin asked Henry in May.
“Well, not the best,” Henry replied. She swiveled around. He looked at her with a small smile, and then looked away.
Robin closed her screen and dropped her hands in her lap.
“Tell me about it.”
Maybe he tried. But Robin felt like she was wiping at clean glass. His answers were sprayed with disinfectant. She wanted to find more germs. She wanted to see colonies of bacteria. Or dirt and mold. She couldn’t find any.
✮
Robin used to be sure that she had ghosts in her closet. Tiptoeing down the hall, she’d gently push open Henry’s door.
“Henry,” she whispered. “Henry!” Henry’s figure twisted slightly under the covers, and he raised his head so his eyes tilted above the blankets. He stared at her. “Nooo, go away,” He shoved his face beneath the sheets.
Robin crept in anyway, hands on her beige bunny rabbit fitted with an orange crochet hat.
“Can I sleep here?” She asked. “No.”
Finding the foot of the bed, she crawled over his feet and found his head beneath the duvet.
“Please?”
the cotton and polyester. “You’re older than me. Go to sleep in your own bed.”
“Robbbinnn.” He groaned, muffled by the cotton and polyester. “You’re older than me. Go to sleep in your own bed.”
Henry!” She whispered loudly. “And it wants
“But there’s something in my closet Henry!” She whispered loudly. “And it wants out!”
“Go away.”
covers where she knew his ear would be.
Robin pressed her mouth against the covers where she knew his ear would be.
“Please?”
covers. Robin got in next to him.
A pause. Then, Henry pulled back the sheets. Robin got in next to him.
Henry asked, flipping around to face her, his brow scrunched.
“So what exactly do you think it is?” Henry asked, flipping around to face her, his brow scrunched.
the zombie.”
“I think it was the skeleton ghost. Or the zombie.”
grin. Disinfected. Clean. Scrubbed. Wiped off his fucking depression like dirt. Maybe it was his breaking point. Maybe it was just like any other day, and she’d just never seen any of it before.
Over and over, Henry wiped off his grin. Disinfected. Clean. Scrubbed. Washed off his depression like dirt. Maybe it was his breaking point. Maybe it was just like any other day, and she’d just never seen any of it before.
room and finding ugly stains on the ground. Dirt in the carpet. Bacteria on the walls. But beyond the dirt were buckets of Clorox on the counter. It was like detergent spilled across the floor, soap suds covering the mir ror, the smell of bleach so pungent that it hurt to breathe. And Robin’s mouth went
But that day in late summer was like peeking into Henry’s room and finding ugly stains on the ground. Dirt in the carpet. Bacteria on the walls. Robin’s mouth went dry. She noticed beyond the filth that there were buckets of Clorox on the counter. Detergent spilled across the floor, soap suds covering the mirror, the smell of bleach so pungent that it hurt to breathe. She couldn’t move. Her knees hit the floor anyway. She couldn’t feel them.
tired. Her arms and hands were covered in blood that had been completely dried.
Slowly, she looked at her mother, who was so tired. Her arms and hands were covered in blood—worry—that had completely dried.
now, Robin.” Her mother mustered. “We’re all thinking about next steps.”
“There’s nothing we can do right now, Robin.” Her mother said. “We’re all thinking about next steps.”
sion. She looked back at his room, at the filth on the walls streaked away with bleach. At the process. At his life. At the dirt. She looked at all of it.
Robin stared at her blank expression. She looked back at his room, at the dirt on the walls streaked away with bleach. At the process. At his life. She looked at all of it. She wished she hadn’t now.
okay?” Robin asked. She didn’t get the last part out.
“Who’s gonna make sure he’s gonna be okay?” Robin asked. She didn’t get the last part out.
She wanted to get on an airplane and never look back, so she could get drunk on Sat urdays and drink her coffee and drop her
Because Robin didn’t want to see it all. She wanted to get on an airplane and never
look back, so she could get drunk on Saturdays and drink her coffee and drop her lowest grade and do well in the classes she’d enrolled in.
But her mother looked empty, and she remembered she was O-Neg. Robin was the sticker fairy that never existed, because there was no real fairy and it had always been Robin anyway.
She felt hot tears like blood. Like the way her mother bled for him. Robin’s hands turned scarlet along the seams. But it felt dried and dark and oxygenated too. Maybe she’d been bleeding for a while. Maybe this was the hemorrhage. But it was quiet. Silently, crimson mixed with the thick bleached carpet and the dark dirt.
Robin pushed open his door later that night. “Hey,” she said.
“Where have you been?” Henry asked. “I thought you were out all day.”
“No. I’ve been here.”
“Oh.”
“Can I sit here?” She pointed to the bed. “Yeah.”
They sat there in the dark. She wished that Henry would open the covers and let her sleep. She wished he would tell her that she shouldn’t be scared. But she looked at Henry, and he was so clean again, like the bedroom hadn’t been true. And earlier, Robin had picked herself up off the floor, looked around, and brought Purell to her face. And soap to her lips. And detergent to her eyes. And she wiped off the blood.
In the Clouds
by Elizabeth Chin
I laid flat on my back, face to the heavens above. There’s no rush up there, I thought, no worries about the ever-changing skies. All movement was welcomed, tender and pleasant. I watched the clouds in passing. They lingered and drifted; some stayed to tell me a story. The birds weaved through the condensed vapor, soaring among my imagination’s creations. A breath of fresh air, you laid beside me, pointing out shapes and laughing to the sky. The overgrown grass waved by your side. I felt my chest expand to you. My ribcage and its cavity invited in your warmth just like the clouds as they thinned, pulling apart and expanding with all the air the sky had to offer. You turned your gaze to me, and I could concentrate only on how beautiful you looked framed by the blooming willows. I closed my eyes and basked in your sound.
I feel the first chill as the breeze catches my ear. I open my eyes to see the sky has begun to turn and the birds have all returned to their nests, but still I lay here by the willows. I listen in the wind for your melodies. I look to the dangling branches for your beauty. The last of the clouds pass me by, stringing out into wisps. The wind nicks my skin, and my stomach begins to churn; I feel as though a pit inside me has suddenly begun to rot. I ache as my ribs splay, pried apart by the changing skies. I lay with my open chest—a fish, reeled in and thrown aboard, shipped away with the hopes of starting
anew, only to be tossed onto a cutting board, gutted and stripped. The wind claws past my ribs and through me; it licks the tissue clean from the bone. At last, your warmth escapes me, the wind claiming you as its own. I beckon to the skies for another fish naive to the hook. Together we could indulge in a fleeting hope. But then again, what good would we be: two fish side by side—sliced open?
So I keep myself warm by holding my arms over the scars that imprint my chest. I lay here alone and wonder whether you ever truly belonged here in the grass. I grasp at wisps of memories that were never mine, longing to exist amongst the clouds. I don’t know that I’ll ever see you again— I don’t think I will—but if I do, it’ll be on a quiet day. I’ll have settled into a spot between weeping willows, back flat on the earth. And there I’ll see you, when I’m watching the clouds again.
DESIGN BY DANA JEONG, ART BY SOLEIL YODER SALIM
Ancient Marble
By Anya Glass
i am a statue with no nose
the curators had it butchered with the scythe’s quick slice along the model’s blueprint the surgery was successful
my ancestors had that nose— too prominent, too pale, too persistent— it sni ed the daily bread for rot as a foul riot nearby revealed the state it savored the rush of salty air when escape was a cheap schlep away it sneezed as dust li ed from the patinated picture frames and settled among every new thing
there would be many new things there would be me
my nose, their nose— sent to the highest bidders with perfect faces obscured by the blade’s lustrous promise they cleaved it from my face forever
as it was a dangerous force a tunnel for noxious fumes a tunnel to my past, desired no more
my eyes, glittering with tears and my mouth, curled into its usual frown remain intact
co-conspirators to be sure, but nothing can be proven
the curators anchor my body in the Great Hall noseless, soulless, a Legacy preserved.
TS he low B u rn
By JamesUrquhart
October 14, 2023
I bought a pack of cigarettes. Marlboro Gold. Intention is to help me with stress. Mostly ineffective. Smoking my last one now. I’ve smoked too much this week. I don’t want to finish this pack. 20 cigarettes is too much—already at 19. Still, want to keep smoking cigarettes. Until I finish the last one, I still have the safety of cigarettes. Once I finish it, must face the urge to buy another carton. Will be my only option. Thinking about Dad. I will not see him gone until the final moment passes. He is on his last cigarette now. Taking final drags. Problem is that I can buy more cigarettes, but can’t buy more Dad.
October 17, 2023
Jake gifted me another packet. Naturally, I smoked some of them. Less guilty since I didn’t buy them this time. Smoked one last night, around 11:45 p.m. Dad is in hospice now. Wasn’t on my mind. Problem with cigarettes is they always come back. Problem with Dad is that he leaves too soon. Easy to forget about. Easy to detach from. I forgot about him and separated from him. Now all I think about is the next fix. Wish he was on my mind instead of cigarettes.
October 18, 2023
Dad is dead. Mom called this morning to let me know. Took the call on speakerphone in front of Toby. Went back to bed after. Thinking about the last time I saw him. Lying in his hospice bed, struggling for breath. Didn’t realize I was there. I couldn’t talk to him. Once suave long hair was like a rotten mess of weeds. The beard he grew out had last night’s dinner hanging from unkempt bristles. Like the cigarette ash on the mohair sweater Mom bought me. I saw his age, his frailness, in his gray hair. Right now, Mom is turning his pewter hair and weightless body into a vibrant pile of ashes. I would have let her borrow my lighter. Weird thing is, feeling bad today feels good. Feels necessary. I woke up again to Spencer calling me crying. We reminisced about Dad’s blunt British humor. How when Spencer came over for dinner Dad would make us guess the 70’s rock artist. He always made it especially difficult just to be an asshole. Classic Dad stuff. Reminds me of how much I loved him. Smoked the first cigarette of the day and then went to get breakfast.
November 25, 2023
Just had the memorial. First half—the sad half—was in the church. Same church I watched my sister get baptized in. That must have been the last time Granny and Grandpa were here, sitting restlessly in the first row of pews. During the service I read Because I could not stop for Death, Emily Dickinson. Dad once made me recite it at a Thanksgiving dinner because I had to practice for my poetry reading competition in 5th grade. Was embarrassed then, am less embarrassed now. Second half was the fun half. Cried a bit. Laughed a bit more. Partied with my friends all night—a good way to forget about things. Whiskey bar was in full effect, 70’s rock playlist blasting throughout the open wooden mess hall. Maybe a good way to remember life’s joys. Dad told us to party. Smoked a couple of cigarettes tonight. Mom talked about how she used to do the same. Felt like a family moment. Cigarettes are always here. Cigarettes helping the family stay strong.
August 22, 2024
Spending some time on family vacation. Dad’s side of the family. They’re much more fun. Like to party. Cousin Nick started smoking, Uncle Ross calls it “chain smoking.” Think they’re just worried about him. Everybody’s a bit more worried now. I’m resisting the urge to ask him for one. Don’t want to make the family too concerned. Uncle Ross has always smoked. Has always had a brother, until now. Wonder if he knew cigarettes would last longer than siblings.
August 31, 2024
Had a dream last night. Was smoking on the patio outside. Got a phone call from Dad. I picked up crying. First time I heard his voice since he died. First time I remembered who he was before he got sick almost four years ago. I don’t remember what we talked about. I remember having the courage to say I love you. Was missing that courage the last time I saw him. Phone call was short. Hard to keep up a conversation with a dead man, I figured. Stared at my phone for a while afterwards. Cigarette I was smoking before the call continued to burn. Woke up soon after that. Left the memory of Dad in my dream. Left the cigarette there, too, lying on the cold stone ground of the patio.
October 18, 2024
Been a year. Since Dad died. A lot has changed. I stopped smoking two months ago. Wouldn’t call it “quitting” as much as taking a break. They’ll come back. Dad has been gone for 10 more months than cigarettes. Cigarettes made me too anxious. Smelt bad. Feeling nothing today. Not sadness, not joy. Mostly nothing. People call me to ask if I’m okay. Always okay. Lungs are getting healthier, at least. Seems like people care more than I do. Wondering if I should care more. My brother tells Mom I haven’t dealt with it yet. What they don’t know is that I stopped smoking. Realized that it’s much easier to forget about things when you choose to leave them than when they leave you. Cigarettes will always be on the shelf behind the cash register of the bodega two blocks away from home. Dad only exists in my dreams. But then again I don’t dream that often.
ART
the trilinguist
By Devon Chang
“蘋果” “りんご” “Apple.”
A baby gurgles apple sauce. A mother splits her tongue in three.
The learned language~
I was around four years old when I first experienced a paralyzing sensation in my mouth.
From the moment my teeth broke through the thick skin of a Granny Smith, I began to feel red swelter through: first around my lips, and soon after, sprawling recklessly through the fleshy insides of my mouth—gums, cheeks, tongue, throat—in that order. Quickly, it became difficult to speak, but I could make out this noise:
“Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! 不舒服!!”
“
寶貝, 媽媽 來了!” Darling, hold on, Mommy is coming!
I listened to the sound of a petite woman scurrying back and forth from the bedroom to the kitchen to the living room where I sat, a cup of water and a bottle of Benadryl in her hands.
Soon, a glass of water was pressed against my lips.
“
幫媽媽. 頭抬起.” Lift your head. For Mommy.
She held the cup up to my mouth, wiping away all the water that managed to drip down the sides of my chin. It traveled down the same way, from lips to mouth to throat, washing away the last sweet syrupy remnants of cherry Benadryl. I waited for the itch to fade into a tingle until the feeling left my system altogether. This wouldn’t be the last time I faced the feeling of a paralyzed mouth, silent and confused. This sensation surfaced again years later, in moments when I was no longer able to decipher the difference between learned languages.
Four years old was the first moment I stood between languages, but perhaps the last moment I stood between only two. Mandarin already claimed citizenship from my native tongue, easily so, as young flesh always seemed to be the most amenable to a mother’s sound. English only broke out in clumsy run-on sentences at night, when my father came home from work. I waited longingly for the evenings to feel complete. I always found it more challenging to make noise than to consume it. After all, words come up against gravity: throat, tongue, then lips. I would cycle through various third languages in the years that followed, desperately seeking a sound that felt most true to myself. My life would be a continuous balancing act, triangulated between languages, lands, and love. Mandarin, English, — Taiwan, America, — Mother, father, daughter.
When my mother taught me how to speak, she repeated every word three times, each in a different language—a platter of our language lineage. Mandarin, Japanese, English: “蘋果,” “りんご,” “Apple”. The Japanese invaded Taiwan, her motherland, decades ago. Her father was the last in our family to carry that red-and-white blood. English became important later in her early twenties when she began to dream of America. She pulled her roots out of the ground and planted them here, in my father’s homeland. For her, it would end with just the two of us—herself and her American-born child.
“You have to be careful with Mandarin. 音必須是正確的.” The sound has to be perfect. or else there will be miscommunication
There are four tones in Mandarin: neutral, rising, falling then rising, and falling. The sound “ma” for “mom” can easily mean: “numb,” “horse,” and “scold,” all at the same time. I practiced drawing out the tones with my mom, tracing the lines she etched into paper with pencil. I found that if I pieced the four segments together in one continuous line, I could create the shape of a pointy mountain. Or better yet, a triangle. Things often make the most sense to me in threes.
“看媽媽的嘴.” Watch Mommy’s mouth carefully. “lē lé lě lè le…”
I watched the tip of her tongue flick the roof of her mouth and her two front teeth.
“Different from, le, le, le.”
I nodded my head.
“那你就得跟我一起做” Then you have to do it with me
We sat on the floor together, face to face, as I mimicked the movements of her mouth, watching if the shape resembled something of a circle or oval, if the sound ended with pursed or flattened lips. We repeated words, back and forth, trying on various intonations until the sound became perfect. I would spend my early life searching for that force within me, strong enough to push sound up against gravity.
Throat, tongue, lips.
The mimicked language
“Today me, India, and Livia traded lunches!”
“How many times, Devon…”
“Right. Sorry. India, Livia, and I traded lunches.”
“Thank you.”
A child learns to correct her language.
A father shows her how.
I could always hear the difference between my mother’s English and my father’s. One carried an accent, denoting the sound as a learned language. The other already had roots in our motherland. In America. Slight nuances in tone made it clear that this sound had evolved from carefully imitating the voices of many others.
Naturally, I compared all tones of English to my father’s. Some sort of reference for truth. I remembered all the moments in my youth when he caught the pieces of my mother’s broken English with lines of perfect sound. It became clear to me, the kind of effect that correct sound can elicit, especially in a world like this.
When I got older, he made sure I knew this:
“Devon, you know, someone recently told me that there is a certain weight to what I say and how I deliver it. It was thoughtful. Considerate of the other people in the room. Keep this in mind as you think about how you want to present yourself to others. Figure out your demeanor, you know. Learn to take up space, strategically.”
On Mondays, he taught a group of graduate students something called “brand strategy.” In the simplest terms, he defines it as: “A set of planned actions that creates favorable knowledge of a product or service for gain.” I wonder if he told his students the same things he told me. I look at the grammar books he gifted me over the years, now sitting on the shelves in my college dorm room. I have been quietly curating my sound, imitating his demeanor, for as long as I’ve known how. Trying to sound like him, before I ever had the chance to sound like myself. I told myself that any style, and any sound, could be mimicked if I just observed closely enough.
The created language~
At seventeen I began to search for authenticity. I would learn that nothing I created could be born into existence without recognizing its connection to all I’ve known and loved.
It feels strange to be back home, though this place hasn’t really felt like a home for a long time now. Not since Dad moved out and took the fish tank and his record player and stereo system. The one that would play New Order every Sunday morning before either of us woke up.
Now this space just houses one body, a mother, at least most of the time. But it was already this hollow before I left. I stare out that same south-facing window, from the seat of my desk, craving the life that once flourished here within these walls. Full of beaming brightness and
laughter, anger and agony. The space where I first learned to speak and scream and cry. I can’t help but grow nostalgic for the sweetness of this memory, so I tell myself I will hold this taste in my mouth forever, for as long as it will let me.
I sit here now, writing out our stories, thinking that this language, the language of love, might be the only speech I yearn to be fluent in. The one that has secretly sat at the bottom of my diaphragm this whole time, belting out songs that I could never hear.
I think about the boy I loved when I was seventeen. The first time I felt love for someone with no ties to my blood. Love that was born out of my own heart, love that was just selfishly mine.
I remember that foggy day in November when summer had really begun to fade, and the tick of time was beating in my heart louder than I could ignore.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“Me neither.”
I was being literal, knowing I had to go home soon, though I also knew, and I think he did too, that I meant something else. I watched his eyes water. But a tear could never meet his cheek. No, not for him. Then came an embrace strong enough to feel real. Real enough to thwart away the feelings that were always seemingly lost in translation.
For many years, I spent time searching for that force within me that helped me to project sound against gravity, and to see it mirrored in the eyes of others. Perhaps it all begins in the life of the heart—red, fleshy, beating, heart.
“Can I tell you something?” I searched for myself in the reflection of his eyes. “I think I might love you.” I knew I loved him. For an instant, I felt my mouth go numb again. Paralyzed, as if my system was rejecting the moment itself.
“I’ll get there.” He hugged me. I couldn’t see his face anymore. “I promise.”
I knew this was a buffer.
Forgive me, for I always assigned your skin a significance unasked for; for loving you in the only way I knew how. The same love I spit out, from the mother who spoon-fed it into my mouth. Spoon-fed until I felt suffocated. Forgive me, for I never let you be just blood, just skin.
Mommy, last night, I heard you crying in the living room.
I know you thought I was asleep—I wasn’t. And our walls are far too thin to absorb any noise. I have a growing suspicion that they have become weaker over time.
I want to tell you that my heart breaks over and over again for you all the time. That last night, I wished to come out and console you, but my body freezes every time I try to step into the role of you. The feeling I can only best describe as a wishful heart confined within the frame of a paralyzed figure.
Perhaps it’s because I just miss being the child in our relationship—even in moments of sorrow, you’ve managed to create a romantic sort of comfort for me.
I don’t know how to tell you this without selfishly breaking my own heart, but I’m older now, and sometimes I wish you would stop loving so hard.
Instead, I remain silent in my room.
I remember your love in its youngest form.
Shhh. It’s okay. I’m here. Mommy is here.
I wonder when I grew too old to be just a recipient of your love.
I wonder if it was easier then,
Before I emerged into your world. When I still found shelter within the space you carved for me.
Belly to breath—
Blood to belonging.
I cried back to you tonight. I hope you didn’t hear me.
I ask myself, what is language without lineage? What does it mean to love without knowing the warmth of a mother who showed us love before we could understand the phrase “I love you.” “我愛你.”
You must learn sound before you can mimic others, before you can begin and try to create your own.
I spend all my time drawing lines from corner to corner, side to side, within this frame I call my body. Until everything triangulated between sound, sight, and feeling translates back into the same language. The language that still beats in the flesh of my heart—the language I learned first, from my mother.
A mother says I love you
A daughter splits her heart in three.
The Other Side of the Smokescreen:
Ruminations After a House Fire
By Ishaan Rajiv Rajabali
“If your house was on fire and you could only grab one item, what would you save?”
Since the dawn of first encounters, this question has remained a cornerstone of the oft-dreaded icebreaker. At pre-orientation, club meetings, and the occasional first-day-of-class get-to-know-you activity, my answers have ranged from sentimental photos to a favorite book. On the 11th of November, at precisely 10:58 a.m., I found my actual answer. Except I technically cheated, having run out with two objects: my laptop and a towel. The rest of my stuff belongs to the burned house.
“Ashes to ashes, funk to funky,” David Bowie sings in the eponymous song; I think of it a day after my poster of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars has almost definitely disintegrated. The fourth track of this album, “Starman,” is an all-time favorite of mine, never failing to give me 4 minutes and 16
seconds of unabashed encouragement to really live, to “lose it.”
The American Red Cross states that you have two minutes to escape a fire; I’d have up till the halfway mark of “Starman” to hightail it. It would have been over once Bowie crooned, “Look out your window, you can see his light.” Incidentally, this is how I found out my house was about to go up in flames.
When in doubt, listen to Bowie, I guess. Ashes to ashes… yes. Funk to funky? Perhaps the loss of my old wardrobe will finally fulfill my friends’ repeated suggestions of a style switch-up. It’s time to reinvent my look (although let’s not aim for Funky; its second cousin, Reluctantly Funky and Not Proud Of It, will do). And if there is indeed a Starman waiting in the sky, I hope he’s enjoying the souls of some of my most treasured possessions: my books, my signed pre-o t-shirt, a charm I bought at the Kinka-kuji temple in Kyoto.
I’m going to ignore the overdue tangle of laundry I had planned to do that morning (that has surely found its way to a place hotter than any dryer).
Of course, the space left by the fire has been quickly filled up by the open doors, open kitchens, and open hearts of friends; these relationships are far more valuable to me than what I lost. In fact, the concern of well-wishers is superseded only by those in search of a subletter for Spring 2025. Rarely before was “I know you’re probably overwhelmed,” juxtaposed with “but, in case you’re looking, my house is available for next semester.” I know the saying goes that art imitates life, but in this case, I’d direct these hopeful tenants straight to Margaret Atwood.
In Morning in the Burned House, Atwood reflects on grief and loss, writing: In the burned house I am eating breakfast. You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast
Yet here I am
Truthfully, I don’t think the Somerville Fire Department would be too keen on me taking my Hot Karl and Butter Rum muffin in what used to be our kitchen. Perhaps someone cheekier could pitch their sublet to me in the vein of:
In my intact house I won’t be eating breakfast.
You understand: I am going abroad, there is no tenant
And here you are
Atwood’s Burned House is a gateway to what once was, a definitive elegy lingering in its verses. For two weeks following the incident, however, we didn’t know what could be salvaged. Until one rainy Thursday morning, when the firemen finally ventured into the house. I looked forward to and dreaded the spiritual funeral this occasion presented, knowing that there was no point in pondering. In my head, my possessions still await rediscovery, patient in a limbo woven from darkest night, a zone only I have access to.
VantaBlack first came into the public eye in 2014 through Anish Kapoor, the British-Indian artist best known for creating the Chicago Bean. Seemingly drawn from the pit of Tartarus, the deepest part of the Greek mythological underworld, this material can absorb up to 99.8% of light and has mired its pioneer in a shadow. Kapoor holds exclusive artistic license to the material, which has given rise to controversy over ownership and production, drawing criticism regarding the exclusion of other artists.
I thought about ownership quite often after the fire: while standing on a smoky Raymond Ave as passersby clicked selfies with the house, while scrolling through Sidechat posts debating the fire’s possible causes, while writing this piece. Who has the right to capture someone’s worst moments, such as this incident or my high school’s production of Les Misérables (god forbid anyone see me spitting with rage in my imitation of a 19th-century French factory foreman)? My feelings of control seemed to ebb and flow with who expressed what opinion.
Why didn’t you grab your documents on your way out? / thank god you’re ok.
Why did you go back for your laptop? / oh, I would’ve grabbed more stuff.
4/5 for presence of mind and survival skills / I’ll dock you a point because nobody’s perfect.
But where suggestions were analytical, the experience itself was instinctual. These well-intentioned speakers don’t calculate the quickest path to the exit in a crowded classroom; the selfie-clickers don’t jump every time they hear a sudden beeping. A week after the incident, I was told, in a most courteous tone of voice, that I’d been using it as an excuse rather liberally. Personally, I’d prefer to use it exclusively when I play Two Truths and a Lie.
A poster of one of my favorite movies of all time, the Bollywood blockbuster Om Shanti Om (2007), signed with a personal note from the director, was rolled up in a canister, waiting to adorn my wall. In addition to its star-studded cast and its quotable characters, fire is an important motif in the film. One of the most memorable scenes of this movie features the protagonist, Om, banging on a door as his ladylove, Shanti, is trapped inside in a deadly blaze by her evil fiancé, whose ill-intentions are instantly given away by his mustache-twirling tendencies. Nevertheless, our two heroes reincarnate and avenge themselves through some crafty schemes, an elaborately choreographed song, and of course, a couple of well-placed flames. Their rebirth fulfills the cycle, allowing their past selves to move on, living up to the title of the film.
Om Shanti. An invoking of peace. I’ve fervently muttered it on roller coasters, during turbulent plane rides, and once when the Dowling Hall elevator seemed like it would finally give in. The utterance can convey a spectrum of feelings, ranging from fear to hope. The texts that I received, the ones that poured in even before the flames were completely extinguished, encompassed this spectrum exactly:
“Call when easily possible, I need to hear your voice.”
“How are you, brave bachcha (child)?”
“Stay Strong!”
Ping after ping held worry, support, and gratitude in its green WhatsApp bubbles. “Am not going to tell you to focus on getting away with life,” read one. “I am going to tell you that we will rewrite that blank slate, with associations and memories and bits and bobs given new meaning by this traumatic experience.”
A rewrite requires a reference point, a preliminary draft that serves as the base for improvement. The first lesson we tackled in my Western Political Thought II class, almost three semesters ago, was on
a commitment to ideals. In The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche encourages us to evaluate the way we bind ourselves to our values, using the allegory of a boat adrift on an unpredictable sea, as those on board have “destroyed the land.” The passage, entitled “In the horizon of the infinite,” came back to me in a daze after the fire. For me, my land was still intact. I did feel adrift, without some of the essential components of my identity. But my references weren’t things; they were people, standing on a shore in sight, their waves and welcomes ferried through a hodgepodge of notifications.
Save for two damp books, my treasured bookshelf is gone. One of the survivors is Russia-Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States—a fact I proudly told my professor (and one of the co-authors) for my class War and Peace in Ukraine. The other is a signed copy of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, of which I can make out “With great expectations” from the inscription. Who am I to disagree with that?
I lied when I said I escaped with two things: I had my phone too. But I also ran through that hallway with thoughts, ideas, fears, and some excellently curated Spotify playlists that no flames can take away from me. The hints on how to move on are hidden in the memories of my old room. Rebirth, reinvent, restart. The process of rewriting that blank state has only just begun, but the chapters ahead look exciting. I’m reminded of an iconic dialogue from Om Shanti Om as I trudge through this new draft. The ever-charming Shah Rukh beams as he accepts an award and says “Iss baat ka bhi yakeen ho gaya ki hamari filmo ki tarah, hamari zindagi bhi, end mein, sab theek ho jaata hain… aur agar theek na ho… picture abhi baaki hain.”
I am now convinced of this fact that, just like in our films, everything is okay in the end … and if it is not… well then the film is not over yet.
I am grateful for the warmth of all our friends and family, the bravery of the Somerville Fire Department, the support of the Tufts Community, and the fortitude of my housemates: Kaashvi Ahuja, Khue Edwards, Leisha Bhandari, Zoe Chao, and Hannah Urisman.
