2021 International Writing Program (IWP) Summer Institute by International Writing Program

Crosswalks

ALSO BY IWP’S SUMMER INSTITUTE

Multitudes (Class of 2019) Exodus (Class of 2020-21)

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Individual pieces copyright ©2021 by their respective authors. All rights reserved. Front cover art by Grace Shieh International Writing Program 430 North Clinton Street, Shambaugh House Iowa City, Iowa 52245 United States of America www.iwp.uiowa.edu/programs/summer-institute

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Table of Contents Foreword................................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................................................. 10 Contributors ......................................................................................................................................................................... 11 suthan .................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 ___Madhuri Lalwani ........................................................................................................................................................... 17 Sindhi Tongue ...................................................................................................................................................................... 19 ___Madhuri Lalwani ........................................................................................................................................................... 19 Upside Down......................................................................................................................................................................... 20 ___Shannon Clark ............................................................................................................................................................... 20 She Beckons Me To Go........................................................................................................................................................ 24 ___Junaid Lone .................................................................................................................................................................... 24 Contours ............................................................................................................................................................................... 27 ___Robin Bissett................................................................................................................................................................... 27 Mother Taught Me............................................................................................................................................................... 31 ___Rajeev Anand Kushwah ................................................................................................................................................ 31 Counting Cars ...................................................................................................................................................................... 43 ___Maumil Sheikh ............................................................................................................................................................... 43 Dorsal Astronomy ................................................................................................................................................................ 47 ___Amelia Evans .................................................................................................................................................................. 47 Diving Response ................................................................................................................................................................... 48 ___Amelia Evans .................................................................................................................................................................. 48 The City of Smoke................................................................................................................................................................ 49 ___Zoha Jan ......................................................................................................................................................................... 49 Leaving Home ...................................................................................................................................................................... 55 ___Susana Zazueta .............................................................................................................................................................. 55 Fragments ............................................................................................................................................................................. 59 ___Sana Humayun ............................................................................................................................................................... 59 The Remaining Half............................................................................................................................................................. 63 ___Maha Mahmood ............................................................................................................................................................. 63 Kissing Bugs ......................................................................................................................................................................... 69 ___Laila Barcenas Meade ................................................................................................................................................... 69 rinsing, bleeding, washing away ......................................................................................................................................... 76 ___Zarnab Tufail ................................................................................................................................................................. 76 evidence of absence .............................................................................................................................................................. 77

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___Srishti Uppal ................................................................................................................................................................... 77 The Tiara .............................................................................................................................................................................. 78 ___Khadija Rehman ............................................................................................................................................................ 78 After you are gone, I have no sense of time ....................................................................................................................... 84 ___Javeria Hasnain.............................................................................................................................................................. 84 Imagination........................................................................................................................................................................... 86 ___Javeria Hasnain.............................................................................................................................................................. 86 Bishorjon............................................................................................................................................................................... 88 ___Anushka Chatterjee ....................................................................................................................................................... 88 The Blue After the Rain ...................................................................................................................................................... 94 ___Ume Aimen Tariq .......................................................................................................................................................... 94 Love is Not Lust ................................................................................................................................................................. 100 ___Deepika Muniraja ........................................................................................................................................................ 100 A Profile of Bennett Sims .................................................................................................................................................. 102 ___Alia Myaner .................................................................................................................................................................. 102 Mother’s Land.................................................................................................................................................................... 107 ___Shahryar Hasnani ........................................................................................................................................................ 107 We Create Gods to Ruin us............................................................................................................................................... 113 ___Eleen Raja..................................................................................................................................................................... 113 That Eventful Night ........................................................................................................................................................... 115 ___Sharmila Senthil........................................................................................................................................................... 115 The Broken Mirror ............................................................................................................................................................ 122 ___Gulalay Behzal ............................................................................................................................................................. 122 His Language ...................................................................................................................................................................... 127 ___Amama Bashir.............................................................................................................................................................. 127 Saving Shirts....................................................................................................................................................................... 132 ___Ami Bhansali ................................................................................................................................................................ 132 A Wandering Way ............................................................................................................................................................. 139 ___Kassandra Kizlin.......................................................................................................................................................... 139 Cauliflower Wears a Hat ................................................................................................................................................... 143 ___Ayesha Musharaf Azeemi ........................................................................................................................................... 143 Love in a Midnight Call..................................................................................................................................................... 147 ___Isra Rahman ................................................................................................................................................................. 147 To the Heavens and the Box.............................................................................................................................................. 152 ___Grace Shieh .................................................................................................................................................................. 152

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Foreword Time often has a way of flying by and of feeling fleeting. During the global pandemic, time has felt something else, something harder to describe. Maybe, long. Uncertain, perhaps. So, I recall thinking in the lead up to the SI 2021 program, what would a two-week virtual program feel like amidst the pandemic, especially for students whose lives and senses of normalcy have been disrupted, changed for well over a year? Would Zooming in for a few hours each day feel insufficient? No, I very happily discovered, because of how the new cohort embraced the program. They did not let the two weeks fly by. Instead, they managed to slow time down! I repeatedly witnessed it—especially during writing workshops and the open mic. Participants put their full selves into time spent together and they offered so much to one another. Such intense active listening! Such generous feedback for their peers! Such repartee with their mentors! Such support and positivity through Zoom chat and reactions! They did the little things to make the very most of the two weeks—growing as writers and thinkers, making new friends across borders, and proving yet again that meaningful time spent in shared space and common cause makes the world a better place. ~~~ How did we get here? In 2017, the US Embassy in Islamabad extended a call for proposals for programs that would bring together young people from Pakistan, India, and the US. Drawing upon its five-decade history of cultural diplomacy through literature, and its human and cultural capital and know-how, the International Writing Program drew up a project for a Summer Institute, and had the good fortune to be chosen. A cultural exchange program, the Summer Institute selects, in an open application process, ten remarkable college-age writers from each of the three countries to convene and give special focus to creative writing and the power of narrative. Attendees take part in collaborative workshops focused on their creative work, in seminars to expand literary knowledge of diverse global literatures, in special seminars on the craft of writing, and in activities designed to forge new lines of understanding and shared purpose. More information can be found here: iwp.uiowa.edu/2021-summer-institute. Drawing on IWP’s five-decade experience, above all its Fall Residency—the host of several generations of distinguished Indian and Pakistani writers—but also the youth summer exchange program, Between the Lines, and several others, the Summer Institute aims to connect participants across national, linguistic, and cultural boundaries, promote social justice, and foreground diversity, empathy, and community. Each participant, we hope, will come to see their writing as a form of action—a personally-empowering skill that can also be employed for social change. The first of these groups came to the University of Iowa campus in 2019, where they engaged in an intensive fortnight session of writing and learning. In 2020, due to the global pandemic, the program was redesigned as a 10-month virtual experience, hosted again in Iowa City and finding home in cities spread not only throughout the mainland US, in Pakistan, and in India, but also in Puerto Rico, Canada, Nigeria, and the UK. In 2021, the latest iteration of the program was virtual once again yet returned to a 15-day schedule, harnessing the excitement and intensity of the original model. ~~~ 8

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For me, then, the two weeks this June was a fantabulous reminder about the need to appreciate time. Moments spent together with new (and, perhaps, unlikely) friends. Hours absorbed in learning about each other’s personalities and habits and about craft, love, travel, and views of Partition. Days relishing the excitement and the possibilities of exchanging cultures through creative writing. Making the most of the two weeks also meant investing considerable time towards a collaborative project: the anthology. Led by their mentors, the participants generously workshopped one another’s writing, openly discussed a range of applicable craft elements, and diligently edited the original pieces they submitted for inclusion in Crosswalks. Considering all the ways they traversed time-space to meet and to listen to each other, to enter new literal and figurative places together, and to build pathways to connect their unique voices and styles, it’s an aptly titled collection, I’d say. It is fitting, too, in how it conjures in my mind images of the many streets in Iowa City these fast friends and collaborators will journey together next summer— experiences, I have no doubt, to inspire the next anthology! Crosswalks offers readers stories about life amidst change, disruption, and newness. The collection’s fiction and poetry describe living through grief, searching for self while navigating complicated relationships with others, redefining love, and finding home again after migration. Writers in Crosswalks also experiment with style and format, artfully using spacing or footnotes or wordplay to give added depth to their pieces. In yet other pieces, authors in this anthology have taken to heart the Summer Institute’s charge to see writing as a form of action and to see themselves as engaged citizens and leaders in their communities whose words contribute to social change. They complicate and challenge gender and sexuality norms. They shine a bright and resistant light on injustice, violence, and patriarchy. They model vulnerability and strength in the face of the pandemic. They explore the complex and changing dynamics between themselves and their parents, often upending the expectations of the past. Indeed, they write on the topics that matter to their generation. Reading the work of these Summer Institute writers, I am sure you will agree, is time very well spent. Ever grateful to read their work, Peter Gerlach

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Acknowledgements Our deep gratitude to those whose time, belief, and work have made The International Writing Program’s (IWP) Summer Institute possible and fulfilling: the US Embassy in Islamabad; the US Embassy in New Delhi; Christopher Merrill, Director of the IWP; and the IWP staff at large. A special thanks to the mentors: Dini Parayitam, Chandrahas Choudhury, Anam Zakaria, and to the special seminar speakers: Shuja Uddin, Ibrahim Baloch, Sparsh Ahuja, Sam Dalrymple, Saadia Gardezi, Mohammed El Wahabi, and SI alumni: Qazi Akash Ahmad, Payal Nagpal, Yamini Krishna, Loretta Rodriguez, Martina Litty, Sheikh Saqib. We are grateful to Prairie Lights bookstore for organizing and hosting the SI mentors’ reading with care and enthusiasm. To all who have contributed to the success of the 2021 IWP Summer Institute, thank you. Peter Gerlach and Esther Okonkwo

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Contributors A Alia MNAYER (USA) is a creative nonfiction writer from Waterloo, Iowa. She studied English and Creative Writing, with minors in Arabic, Political science, and Psychology at the University of Iowa, where she worked in several literary publications and received the Iowa Chapbook prize for her story “Fruit of a Rootless Tree.” In the fall of 2021, she will begin a year of service as a community outreach coordinator at the Cedar Rapids Public Library through AmeriCorps. Amama BASHIR (Pakistan) is an aspiring writer from Azad Kashmir. She has a BA degree in English Literature and hopes to earn a doctorate in Literature. Her work has been published in various magazines. She is currently working on a novel. Amelia EVANS (USA) is a poet from Iowa City, Iowa. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa, where she majored in Philosophy and was an editor at the Philosophy magazine Labyrinth. Her work can be found in recycling bins and paper shredders everywhere. Ami BHANSALI (India) is a Mumbai-based writer and filmmaker. She is a Mithibai College Mass Media graduate who currently works as a freelance copywriter and director. Anushka CHATTERJEE (India) is an undergraduate student at the University of Calcutta. A resident of Kolkata, India, she is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Zoology. She writes short fiction, some of which have been published in anthologies like Beautiful Minds: An Anthology of Creative Writings (Levant Books, India) and Pause, Volume II (Notion Press Publishers). Ayesha Musharaf AZEEMI (Pakistan) is a fiction writer from Lahore, Pakistan. She is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Government College, Lahore. Her reviews and short stories have been featured in online magazines such as Gossip Ghar. D Deepika MUNIRAJ (India) is an aspiring fiction writer from Bengaluru, Karnataka. She studied Commerce, Accounting, English, Economics and Computer Science at Shanti Bhavan Residential School. She has a passion for creative writing and plans to pursue her undergraduate studies in Psychology, English literature and Journalism at Jyoti Nivas College in Bengaluru, Karnataka. E Eleen RAJA (Pakistan) is a writer from Lahore, Pakistan. She indulges in various genres of writing, chiefly philosophical and poetic. She is currently enrolled at Government College University, where she is majoring in English Literature and minoring in Philosophy and 11

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Psychology. Her major writing endeavor is being the assistant editor at her university's magazine titled The Gazette as she deems her work not worth the view of the public eye yet and hopes to change that with time. G

Grace SHIEH (USA) is a sophomore at NYU Abu Dhabi studying Economics and Creative Writing. She serves as the Features Editor of The Gazelle, and her works have appeared in Airport Road and on campus exhibitions. She was a Summer Scholar at NYUAD's Writing Center and was recently awarded the Undergraduate Summer Research Grant to work on a writing project. Gulalay BEHZAL (Pakistan) is pursuing her bachelor's degree in English Literature from Post Graduate Women College, Mardan. She’s a fan of Dan Brown’s thrillers and Elif Shafak. She loves research and her aim as a writer is to be constructive rather than entertaining. I Isra RAHMAN(USA) is a writer based in Chicago, IL. In the past she has been involved with organizing efforts in the community related to the U.S. justice system and is now coming to more creative writing work. She is interested in the ways intimate parts of our lives embody radical possibility, especially in marginalized communities. J Javeria HASNAIN (Pakistan) (she/her) is a writer and poet from Karachi, Pakistan. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Aleph Review, Anatolios Magazine, and elsewhere. She also performs street and commercial theatre. Javeria hopes to pursue a MFA in Poetry. Junaid Rashid LONE (India) is a young poet from Kashmir, India. He studied English at Aligarh Muslim University. His poetry mainly reflects the misery, trauma, and agony of conflict. His poems have appeared in local magazines and newspapers like Greater Kashmir, The Kashmir Life, etc. K Kassandra KIZLIN (USA) is a writer from Nebraska, who is in the process of obtaining a bachelor's degree in English, Creative Writing and Jewish Studies at the University of Kansas. She has been published in Fine Lines Literary Magazine for poetry in 2016 and for short fiction in 2018. Khadija REHMAN (India) is a first-year student at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, pursuing a master’s degree in English Literature. She is an alumnus of Delhi University, where she majored in English Literature. She writes fiction and has been featured in LSR College Magazine blog. 12

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Laila Bárcenas MEADE (USA) is a fiction writer currently majoring in Cognitive Science and minoring in English at Vassar College. She is originally from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. M Madhuri LALWANI (India) is an MA English student at Ashoka University, Sonipat. She completed her BA in English Literature at Stella Maris College, Chennai. Her poems have been published in Verse of Silence, Mirakee: World’s Largest Anthology and Literary Journal by Stella Maris College. Maha MAHAMOOD (Pakistan) is a third-year Psychology student and auto-fictional writer from Karachi, Pakistan. Currently enrolled in the Institute of Professional Psychology, she is studying Creative Writing, Deviant Behavior, and Positive Psychology. Her stories are auto fictional, and look at everyday interactions from a mystical, spiritual lens. Maumil MEHRAJ (India) is from Srinagar. She is a third-year undergraduate student of English literature at Delhi University. As a writer, she believes that the child protagonist gives her the license to say things that an adult voice would not allow, and critiques society and politics alike with a young voice. Besides this specific theme, her interests are Post-Colonial, Diaspora, and Children’s Literatures. Her identity as a Kashmiri extends into her writing, and it is as deliberate as it is subconscious. R Rajeev Anand KUSHWAH (India) is a poet from Guna, India. He is pursuing a master’s degree in Women’s Studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He is a writer at The Reclamation Project and Feminism in India. Kushwah majored in Political Science from Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi, where he won laurels for creative writing and performance poetry. He also worked as the Vice-President of Petrichor, The Creative Writing Society of Sri Venkateswara College. Kushwah's creative work can be found in Secret Verses: The Quill House Anthology, allears.org, and Gaysi Family. His research interests include gender studies, queer experiences, and pop culture. Robin BISSETT (USA) is a fiction writer, editor, and teaching artist from West Texas. She is an alumna of Trinity University, where she studied English and Creative Writing. She reads manuscripts for Split Lip Press and teaches for The Library Foundation and Austin Bat Cave. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions. S Sana HUMAYUN (Pakistan) is a junior year high-school student from Lahore, Pakistan. She studies at Kinnaird College for Women and has a deep-seated interest in the arts and languages. In the day, when she's not playing and singing along to her trusty guitar, she's painting. At night, 13 shrouded in mystery, she writes her prose. A well-versed debater with several accolades to her name, Sana is poised to make the most of this international experience.

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Shahryar HASNANI (USA) is a senior at Northwestern University majoring in Economics and minoring in Creative Writing (fiction). He was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Dallas, Houston, Karachi, and Dubai. He focuses on South Asian and diasporic fiction. His fiction and poetry have been published in Northwestern’s Helicon Magazine.

Shannon CLARK (USA) is a middle grade and young adult fiction writer from Cinnaminson, New Jersey. She is currently a freshman Psychological Science major at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she won first place in the essay/creative nonfiction division of the 2021 Mckinney Writing Contest. Sharmila SENTHIL (India) is an aspiring fiction writer from Bengaluru, Karnataka. She studied Commerce, Accounting, English, Economics and Computer Science at Shanti Bhavan Residential School. She received several awards for creative writing in school. She plans to pursue her undergraduate studies in Psychology, English literature and Journalism at Jyoti Nivas College in Bengaluru and hopes to be an author someday. Srishti UPPAL (India) is a twenty-year-old poet and essayist from New Delhi, India. They are currently pursuing a Bachelor’s in Psychology from Delhi University. Their work is inspired by art and music, and can be found in the Royal Rose, Crepe and Penn, Human/Kind Journal, among others. They are a Best of the Net nominee. Susana ZAZUETA (USA) is a playwright from Vista, California. She is currently attending California State University Fullerton where she is pursuing her bachelor’s degree in English and Theatre. U Ume Aimen TARIQ (Pakistan) is a fiction writer and a poet. She is an alumnus of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Women University, Peshawar, Pakistan. Her poetry is inspired by nature and imaginary events. Her poems have been published in the university magazine Lumiere. She loves to read and write young adult, sci-fi, and fantasy genres. She is working on a quadrilogy under the pen name of Hazel Andromeda Smith. The books are set on a magical property near Cork County, Ireland and they promise love, betrayal and heartbreak. Z Zarnab TUFAIL (Pakistan) is from Hafizabad, Pakistan. She is currently a first-year medical student at Gujranwala Medical college. She enjoys writing poetry but experiments with other genres as well. She is the co-founder of the The Walled City Journal. Her work has been published in or is forthcoming in Vagabond City Lit, Changing Womxn Collective, Coven Editions, Dreams Walking Magazine and elsewhere. She is a part of various literary magazines’ staff including The Lumiere Review, Tiny Molecules, and Wrongdoing Magazine. Zoha Jan TAGI (Pakistan) is a writer and an MPhil Scholar in English Literature from Islamabad. 14

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Her essays and musings have appeared in the local publications such as Daily Times and The News. She occasionally dabbles in spoken word poetry and was the national finalist for Pakistan Poetry Slam, 2017. Her research interests include transnational literatures, comparative literature, historical fiction and urban studies. Her fiction attempts to ask and answer the hard questions of socio-political identity and global co-existence. ~~~ Peter GERLACH received his BA and MA degrees in English from Ripon College and the University of Northern Colorado, respectively. After serving in the U.S. Peace Corps in Mongolia, he earned a PhD in Cultural Foundations of Education from Syracuse University. Since 2004, he has taught university students in subjects such as composition and literature, English as a foreign language, qualitative research, and international education. In addition to the IWP, where he has been since 2018, Peter is adjunct assistant professor in the International Studies Program at The University of Iowa. Esther Ifesinachi OKONKWO is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her works have appeared in Isele Magazine, Catapult, and Guernica. She is a 2021 recipient of the Elizabeth George Foundation Grant. She is an incoming doctoral student in the Department of English at Florida State University. ~~~ Chandrahas CHOUDHURY is the author of three novels: Clouds (2019), Days of My China Dragon (2019), and Arzee the Dwarf (2013), and the editor of India: A Traveler's Literary Companion (2010). He has written essays, reportage, and literary criticism for the Wall Street Journal, Condé Nast Traveler, The Washington Post, and Mint, and lectures widely on writing, and the Indian novel. Dini PARAYITAM has an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa’s Writers' Workshop. Her short fiction has been published in The Iowa Review, Boston Review and BOMB Magazine, among other places. She was an Emerging Writing Fellow at Yale-NUS College (Singapore) and a KALAKARS (NYC) Fellow for Scriptwriting. She is working on her debut novel in Austin, Texas. Anam ZAKARIA is the author of Between the Great Divide: A Journey into Pakistan-administered Kashmir and The Footprints of Partition: Narratives of Four Generations of Pakistanis and Indians, which won her the 2017 KLF-German Peace Prize. Anam has previously worked as a director at The Citizens Archive of Pakistan, collecting oral histories from the Partition generation and religious minorities of Pakistan, and connecting thousands of students in India and Pakistan through a cultural exchange program. She continues this line of work as an independent oral historian and cultural facilitator.

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We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. —Toni Morrison

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Muslim girl from Karachi, Sindh, in a suthan and blouse. c1870. Oriental and India Office Collection, British Library

suthan1 Madhuri Lalwani my culture is trending Sindhi women find it easier to purchase their tradition 1

Traditionally, Sindhis dressed in kurtas with suthans, now called Palazzo pants. 17

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in convenience—least walk unrestricted, in wide-legged trousers, in which they move unapologetically, keep themselves from shrinking— drying dead in the desert a tongue that couldn't exist breathes through her women, who having adjusted to slim-fit homes— don’t gasp for air this one time the equally crippling air celebrates you for her own polished reasons and you hope that Sindh doesn't die out in the sun, that she isn’t forgotten on balcony wires Yet

—

again

her self divided

a trend is an unheard cry, the last goodbye, and i refuse to let go of these faint traces of being

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Sindhi Tongue Madhuri Lalwani under my English tongue Sindhi suffocates my walls understand this pretentiousness, the moment i step out waiting for an auto or a bus Tamil rolls out of my throat, and when i buy chaat Hindi fetches me an extra puri but Sindhi, i have found no purpose. speaking Sindhi in Chennai is but a mass drill for no audience how do i speak to my mother— far removed from her children— in memory, in the past, across the border. scraping addresses off ancestors’ silent tongues, when speak to her, i wonder if she can even hear me?

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Upside Down Shannon Clark The sound of the phone was sharp, almost aggressive. The loud electronic ringing echoed through the crowded amusement park like it was begging for our attention. I knew something was wrong before Dad answered it. The twisted, heart-wrenching gut feeling that something bad had happened sat heavily inside of me. This was supposed to be a good day. Dad always told Skylar and I about the day my grandpa let him and his brother skip school to go to Six Flags, how they rode every roller coaster and drank big cups of soda with lunch and stayed until the theme park closed. I know Dad was excited to do the same thing now that both of his sons were in middle school. Skylar bailed this morning. I wasn’t the least bit surprised. He had always been scared of roller coasters. He hated going upside down. It was fun spending time alone with Dad, but I secretly spent all day missing my little brother. I felt empty and alone without him. “Hello?” Dad said into his cell phone. Standing beside him, I could hear muddled words hazily ringing from the cell phone’s speakers. I couldn’t hear very much. I only had a vague idea of who was calling and what they were saying. It sounded a little bit like my mom, trying to speak through loud, broken sobs. She might not have said the words out loud, even. Because how can you say those words out loud? But I knew enough to know it was worse than anything I could ever imagine. I could see Dad covering his mouth and I could hear his little whimper of helplessness and I could feel the wave of destruction flowing from the phone, telling me that my life was over, that nothing would ever be the same again. As Dad stood there like a ghost after hanging up, I ran to the nearest trash can and threw up and up and up, not because I was sick but because my body knew what was going on and refused to believe that the unthinkable was actually happening. The trash can already reeked of mustard and soda and sugary carnival food, and the scent of my regurgitated hot dogs only added to the disgusting carnival food smell. 20

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I could hear more whimpers coming from the area where Dad was standing. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him collapse to the ground as if life itself was sucked out of him. He stared forward with red eyes, not even glancing in my direction. They were welling with tears, too, and he was shaking like he was about to fall apart. His look was enough to tell me everything. But he said actual words, anyway. “We need to go home. Now.” I nodded, wiping my eyes. I didn’t realize I was crying until then, until my eyes had let out so many tears that they were dry and stinging. The hour-long drive home was almost entirely silent. The only noise was coming from the radio, the hushed pop songs sending a false sense of positivity into the air. The sour taste of vomit was still in my mouth, constantly reminding me of the phone call and just how horrific it was. Dad and I both cried for the entire car ride, silently and endlessly. I think we were both praying that we would get into a fatal car accident on the way there, knowing that it would be less painful than what we were about to face. At least, I was. The whole time, I kept wanting him to break the silence, to ask me how I felt or say that he felt the same way or even just to clue me in on what was happening. A pat on the shoulder would suffice, if words were too hard for Dad to handle right now. Anything to let me know that he was there for me, that I wouldn’t have to go through this alone. But that never happened. An hour passed, and we pulled into the driveway without having said any words to ease the tension that we were about to face. There were a couple police cars parked outside of our house, taking up most of the narrow street. Inside, three officers were standing in front of Mom, who was curled into a ball on the kitchen floor. She was making the same whimpering noises that Dad was making earlier, the same ones that made her sound like her insides were being ripped through her chest. Dad went to the ground and sat beside her, taking her into his arms and holding on tight. He never even thought to hold me like that. I stood by myself in the corner of the kitchen, the three police officers standing in front of me. Now that my parents had each other, the officers left them alone, needing to deal with me. The tallest police officer looked at me with sympathetic eyes. “We’re so sorry.” 21

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“We did everything we could do.” another one added. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight ponytail, and she was jotting something into a notebook without really noticing me. The third officer was short, bald, and tired-looking. He yawned, staring at the wall above my head. “You must be Davis.” the tallest one said. I nodded, folding my arms tightly across my chest. It wasn’t as good as a hug, but I decided that I didn’t want a hug anyway. The only person I wanted a hug from wasn’t here to give me one. “You weren’t at school today, were you?” He continued. I shook my head. The police officers exchanged a silent conversation over my head. “Do you know what happened?” The ponytail officer asked. I hesitated, eventually shaking my head once more. Even though I knew, there were still some things that I didn’t know. Like how it happened. Or why it had to happen. The trio of police officers looked at me, hesitant to tell me the truth. “Why don’t you sit down?” The tall police officer suggested. I followed his orders, sitting down on the bench against the kitchen wall. This was the bench that my parents used for time-outs when Skylar and I were little. Actually, it was more for me than it was for Skylar. He was the embodiment of a youngest child: never angry, never mean, never a troublemaker. He was perfect. I was the one who was placed in time out at least four times a day for throwing Legos at my dad or refusing to eat broccoli at dinner or stealing Oreos from the pantry. Somehow, sitting here now was scarier than any time I had ever sat on this bench when I was younger. When the police officers eventually spoke, they said everything in a whisper. Skylar would always whisper to me when we were in the car or at a restaurant. He was really insistent on making sure I was the only one who heard him most of the time, even though our conversations were usually about stupid things like how his most recent painting was selected for the school art show or how excited he was for the school’s roller skating night. These whispers were different. I used to love it when Skylar whispered to me. 22

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Now, I wished that they would speak louder. I didn’t want to be the only person to hear this. I couldn’t be the only person to hear this. “One of the high school students entered the middle school today,” the ponytail police officer said, “With a gun.” “The school went into lockdown immediately,” the tall officer added. “Our station was called right away, and the school staff dispersed to catch him. He went straight to the art room.” “It was a fatal gunshot.” the third officer added, shaking his head and speaking without remorse. “Straight to the heart.” The one thing they didn’t say was his name. It was like it was too much for them to mention without crying. Or they thought that it was too much for me to hear without crying. “It’s going to be okay,” the tallest police officer promised. He looked at me like he knew how I felt, like he could see the pain inside of me. But he was wrong. Nothing was going to be okay ever again. Even though I tried to stop my mind from wandering, it kept circling back to the thought of Skylar. I couldn’t stop thinking about how it felt when he hugged me or how he smiled bigger than ever when I came home from soccer practice or how he would cry into my shoulder if he had a bad day at school. I kept thinking about how he would come into my bedroom in the middle of the night when he had a nightmare, how I hated it at first but then grew to love how safe it felt to fall asleep with him by my side. My mind kept replaying all of the times I told other kids off because they were teasing him, how I would shove them only when Skylar wasn’t around because he hated the thought of me fighting someone. Even though thinking about that kind of stuff made my heart ache more than I ever thought was possible, I couldn’t stop reliving those moments. Those memories are all that I have now, now that Skylar is gone.

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She Beckons Me To Go Junaid Lone She beckons me to go Should I? I have a mother, a sister and a father long dead: he lies in some unknown ditch They killed him for peace, they say But who knows? I have a neighbor, a meek creature, whose abode was razed to fumes last night Through the broken glass of my ancestral home, I sniffed the smell of grains sizzling in the reckless flames She collected them one by one at everyone's threshold to save her infants from winter's ceaseless hunger I remember she did. I peeped and saw she was strangled by some monsters, begging for chastity No, stop! I could not name, who it was but they had long boots on They do it for peace 24

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“For peace,’’ they say And we don't deny.

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Art by Grace Shieh

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Contours Robin Bissett The sharp scent of vinegar pervaded the air of Oak Park Manor. There were dahlias, peonies, and tulips tastefully arranged throughout the front room. A few attendants and elders glided past me, and I could hear muffled grumbles and squeaks of walkers that echoed down the hall. I approached the young, dark-haired receptionist manning the front desk and explained that I had driven from Tulsa that morning to visit Denise, my late father’s aunt. “Oh!” the young woman said feverishly, while checking me in on the computer. I hesitated, fearing that something had happened. That Denise had been kidnapped by an unknown-to-me, nefarious cousin, or that she had passed away suddenly before I had arrived, rendering my journey futile. “Is everything okay?” I asked. “Yes,” the woman said. “There’s a note here in her file. She hasn’t received many guests over the past few years. We try to keep track of our patients who do not have many outside visitors, enroll them in pen pal programs and other activities to keep their spirits up.” She glanced up from her computer screen to smile at me. “We are very glad you are here.” The door to Denise’s room was open, but she did not shift as I approached the doorway. She sat in a brown and silver chair that was angled in front of cream curtained double-hung windows. Her room was sparse; much of what she possessed appeared to belong to the nursing facility. I knocked twice on the doorframe. When she turned to face me, I saw she was large and moley like overturned earth. She had a strikingly powerful nose, similar to my late father’s, and her square jaw was set forward determinedly. From her expression and the whispers I had heard of the tenacity my distant family members possessed, I imagined she had succeeded in standing her ground on many occasions. I moved closer inside her room, wanting to impress her, and consciously corrected my stooped posture by pulling back my shoulders. “Denise,” she proclaimed, offering me her right hand. I noticed a birthmark on the underside of her wrist, a dark and blurry rectangle, much like my father’s and my own. Her touch was firm. 27

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“Carina,” I replied. “Thank you for inviting me.” “Of course. I wanted to meet you, and I was sorry to read your father’s obituary. Pancreatic cancer is terrible. It has taken too many good people too soon.” “Thank you,” I said. She gestured for me to sit down in the lone floral print chair across from her, where a crumpled white blanket was draped across the top half of the seat. There was a brief beat of silence as neither of us knew how to begin. I fidgeted with the dangling tassel of my cloth shoulder bag, separating and rebraiding the threads. I observed Denise’s patience as her gnarled and calloused hands lay unbothered in her lap. Finally, she spoke. “Though it has been a long time since I last saw your father, I remember him,” she said, clicking her tongue. “He was always quiet, even as a young boy, but he was very smart.” I was unsurprised. My father had always maintained a penchant for education. “You can only ever scratch the surface of knowledge. There’s always more for us to learn,” he used to say. He maintained a stack of books on his bedside table which ranged from comics to historical narratives. Often, in the blue gray Midtown Tulsa evenings, we would sit outside together. Amid the coos of mourning doves, he would lean back, close his eyes, and ask me to read to him. I noticed Denise kept a reading collection of her own. On her desk lay a marked-up copy of today’s newspaper, a leather-bound notebook, and a stack of worn paperbacks, books by Toni Morrison and Virginia Woolf. “Towards the end of his life, my father began to regret our isolation and separation from his side of the family. I think he was scared to leave me alone,” I said. Denise nodded. “I’ve always understood why he kept to himself, and I believe he thought he was protecting you. Life was not easy for my older sister, his mother. She battled her alcoholism for years until it overcame her. But I know that she loved him.” I mulled this over for a moment, thinking of my absent paternal grandmother whom I had never met and of my own mother, who, too, struggled with addiction. She had nearly torn herself and our small family of three apart before she committed to a program. It was not a cure, by any means, but a way of maintaining her active resistance against the drink. 28

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I looked up and saw that Denise’s chin had begun to wobble, and she was blinking rapidly. I asked her a few more questions, attempting to steer the conversation in a more upbeat direction. I worried that my novel presence and our lengthy conversation might be exhausting her. I had learned from my job as the Animal and Macro Photographer for the Tulsa Zoo that many elderly zoo patrons were quick to tire, unable to recuperate as quickly as younger guests after walking the long concrete paths on muggy afternoons. As I stood up to leave and to thank Denise for the time she spent with me, the manners my father instilled in me prompted me to ask, “Is there anything I can do for you in return?” “Can you get me out of here?” she asked. ~~~ We sat outside at a table across from the Kansas City Zoo Helzberg Penguin Plaza, slurping and crunching on sno-cones. Denise had selected the Wedding Cake flavor, and I the Sherbet. I held both of our day passes in my bag. Denise had received the senior citizen discount, and after flashing my Tulsa Zoo employee ID, I was permitted free entry. The king penguins were peaceful. Many stood in large groups on the blocky ice and strips of rock, while others swam alone. Some slid back onto the ice after time in the water and preened their feathered chests with their long orange beaks. In one corner, I watched a fluffy brown chick crane its neck upward, eager to feed from its mother, who bent down to share regurgitated fish. Her long flipper stretched across its back, holding the chick in place. Denise and I had read on the exhibit sign that in the wild, king penguins laid one egg during breeding season, and parents alternated incubating and carrying it. Families worked together to ensure the safety of their offspring. Denise turned to me. “I never wanted to live in a nursing home,” she confessed. “But none of my children offered to move me in.” I began to fold the damp edges of my empty sno-cone wrapper, unsure of what to say or of what she wanted to hear. I decided to tell the truth. “It was difficult,” I said, “taking care of my father towards the end of his life. I loved him, and I am thankful I spent that time with him, but sometimes I wished there were other family members around to help out.” Denise looked at me, her eyes softening. “Of course.” 29

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“Family is hard,” I said. We sat in silence watching the penguins clumped together in secure colonies for a while longer. Before we left, I pulled my compact Nikon from my bag and snapped a shot of Denise. I sometimes look back at it to remember our brief day. With crinkled eyes and a set grin, she is lambent against the backdrop of the flightless but resilient birds. Those who had overcome difference and strife by way of threats of extinction and bouts of separation to dwell, if only for a short time, together.

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Mother Taught Me Rajeev Anand Kushwah mother taught me to love beyond boundaries. the funny thing is, she never taught me.

I almost picked up everything, by myself, everyday, step by step.

in this house marriage was just an alliance two people providing for children. she gave me everything, her parents could never.

mother taught me 31

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cooking the perfect meal, welcoming people in our home, and our heart. taking care, of the little inconveniences, for others’ comfort.

mother taught me growing, amidst the traumas. nourishing others, after the day’s over.

mother taught me being fierce, standing firm on your ground. facing the storm, the aftershocks.

but she did not teach me any of it,

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it was just for her daughters. and I, I just happened to pick it up.

I still remember the stories, her unfulfilled dreams. she expects me, to fulfil father’s dreams.

I still remember when no one read her mind, nor did she speak. the elders announced, the voices of men suffice.

I still remember as a little boy, my sisters as little girls 33

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watering the plants, never knowing where to stop.

as an adult, I keep loving people, still not knowing how to stop.

through her marriage mother taught me sometimes love fails us. as an adult, I don’t understand “what to do when we fail love?”

she always told me "Rajeev...always be a good man!" as an adult, I wonder 34

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“why do good people always make the worst mistakes?”

I still remember screams, silenced and otherwise. midnight fights in which she never fought for herself, but for us, our safety.

mother taught me to never give up. but then, she never did, because, I picked it up.

now I’m twenty-two, inferring life, hanging by a thread.

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“I feel like a woman, like my mother” I keep loving, everyone, I get along with filling absence. I'm her, in other ways like my love, for you unconditional. her condition loved others, never herself.

my lovers say “we love the way you love” and then, 36

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leave.

mother never left, neither us nor herself from whatever, the marriage made of her.

“I care the same way for you, the way she cared for me” hell! you even said once “you’re just like my mother”

by learning, what wasn’t meant for me, she's making a weak man. who’ll never love himself, 37

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she did make one.

but then, she did not, because, I picked it up.

I was never close to her, nor that I’m now. she’s just a mother who loves her son, unconditionally like all mothers.

I’m the son who’ll only be a disgrace. because, I’m queer.

I wish, 38

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she could have, loved herself. I wish, she could have, learned a man as a partner, isn’t everything.

I wish, she could have, known after loving everyone, she’d still be alone.

I wish, she could have been herself, a little more, been on her own.

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I wish, there was more happiness, than trade-offs, more care, than sacrifices, more love, than grief.

maybe, I would have loved myself, a little more.

maybe, I would have learned to be on my own.

maybe, 40

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I would not be over-loving everyone, making them, love me a little more.

maybe, I would know a companion, isn’t everything.

maybe, I wouldn’t be repenting from everything!

I wish mother loved herself, a little more.

I wish mother never taught her

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son that. I’d have picked that up.

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Art by Grace Shieh

Counting Cars Maumil Sheikh Every day at four o’clock in the winters and five-thirty in the summers, the man with the enormous spectacles would stand in front of his house to count cars. Always, he had on a grey Khan Suit in the summers and a grey Pheran in the winters—one would be tempted to think that all color, all life indeed, had left him, but I was never to discover that. As a child, I remember wondering if his eyes 43

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really were that big, like tennis balls. We would say to each other, my friends and I, whom did he borrow them from? We would laugh. Maybe it was an illusion conjured by those glasses, magnifying his world, noting the number plates for a secret adventure, cross-eyed in a two-way traffic. He would stand with his hands joined behind his back, one foot slightly in front of the other, as if in a war formation. His house stood proudly behind him, a grand affair with white bricks and a green roof, spread, as if with welcoming arms—welcoming whom? On the opposite side of the road is a graveyard turned into a playground by neighborhood boys, its fences high so the boys don’t run into the traffic, making the boys in the playground the bodies in the graveyard. But they are perfectly visible to anyone who would care to glance. The graveyard-playground is right next to Shabana’s Boutique which is right next to the massive community dumping bin that gets cleaned every morning by the municipality but keeps its stench and character intact, somehow. I also remember the CD-Store that was perhaps run out of business by the likes of my brother, who, in their cunning innocence would buy the CD for their computer games, install it on their device, and return the CD quoting defect; the proprietor sells ice cream now. The one beautiful thing about this road is that, right where this mini-junction ends, there is a Chinar tree grown into the road. Nobody knows how old it is, but it must have seen the birth and death of generations. Such is its presence that every car, every scooter, every passer-by, even, slows down a bit, curves their step, and then hurries past. A sublime breaker of pattern in the lives of the residents. For us, this part of Sanat Nagar was never the CD shop, or later, the ice cream shop where we would meet; not even Shabana’s boutique, the graveyard, or the Chinar. It was always where-theman-counts-cars. The man, whose name I never knew, had positioned himself very strategically. In my early childhood, he was right next to the ice creams; in my pre-teens, he was near Cottage Inn, a small restaurant that served our international tastebuds in small valley mouths; and then in my teens, next to the tuition centers that were all the rave back then. Not only was his location crucial, his timing, too, was impeccable—just the tip of the day where idle wandering is allowed. Feriha once joked about substituting him for the clock.

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I never saw him coming out of, or going back to his house. He was, to me, a monument that stood in its place—the Happy Prince. The Prince had been a big businessman in his better days, my father said to me while I was fidgeting with the AC vent in the car one summer. “What happened to him?” He shook his head, nobody knew. Soon, as the vent was in the correct position, I looked up to see the Prince nod at us, but really, he was making a mental note of the 3575 of my father’s car. Nor could I imagine him speak, I couldn’t imagine the tone of his voice. It might be true that he did not come out of his nest on some days, days of curfew and no cars, or days of a heavy snowfall. But I was never there to note his absence. One day, when Zulekha was sitting in the back seat of the school bus, munching on the hard grains of rice that she had fevicoled onto a piece of cardboard made into a flower for a school project, she wondered out loud if the Prince had a wife, a family, a love. But too soon, our bus stop had come, and in the strange joy that going home after school used to be, we forgot all about it. Months turned into years, and soon I was a college student at Delhi University. None of my days were spent thinking about him, he had a way of disappearing into shadows in life and memory alike. I did not go home for over a year, until one day, I had to. The road from the airport to my home is an easy five-minute drive. Most of these five minutes I spent frantically looking for my SIM card which was tucked into my wallet, and I replaced my Delhi life with my Kashmir life in the SIM card slot of my phone. I had retained, somehow, my habit of waking up at five o’clock in the morning, even on vacations. On one such morning, I decided I wanted an ice cream later, and although I cannot say it for sure, I did hope to see someone who had been a constant presence throughout so much that had changed in the bildungsroman of my life. While seated in the passenger side of the car—I don’t yet have a driver’s license nor can I drive—I looked out the window, a murmur of anxiety for a character I had not given a thought to in almost a year and a half. I also knew it was pointless to ask the others of his whereabouts because, like I said, he was a forgotten monument. I, too, went back home, not thinking much of his absence.

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Several days later, from the back seat of my father’s car, I harbor an inexplicable anxiety in my heart. I don’t quite know yet that I am worried for the Prince. I can see his house from afar; still, the glory shines, still, it boasts of hosting a hundred guests, and I wonder if he has a big oak table where he scratches the numbers he has seen during the day, or if he has a cedar chest in which he stores his Pheran. The many trees that outline the compound walls of his house stop me from peeking in, reminding me how I had abandoned this place and its feeling for a long time. I did not mention that we were on our way back home from a trip to the local 7/11 grocery store this instance, the fulfilment of the primal need of food rendering a deep happiness to our otherwise dull day. A bag of apples, which was left untied, spills off of the seat when we reach the Chinar. Hastily, I pick those up and tuck them back in, the corner of my eye catching the Happy Prince go inside his house at six thirtyfour p.m.

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The Escape Ladder (from the Constellation series) by Joan Miró (1940)

Dorsal Astronomy Amelia Evans Minute not minute but fraction over years on Earth. Spine no longer tolerating long floor-sitting periods though capable past when everything was long and still more fleeting. Never upright and constantly fetal. In the shower, in the rain, curled in bed when my hair was still wet. I knelt to the floor, the ceiling like stars. I could dig to hell in a sandbox and glimpse comets in water cracks. But direction and kindlier nature took chin from earth and firmament to horizon, the far line I will never reach but still marks my disappearance, the terrible event coming. I am twenty-two now, cold. In every normal day the sky is dark twice, having lost my nightlights years ago.

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Diving Response Amelia Evans At the precipice, my orbuculum divining names for desperation, peregrination, solutions to these so that I might keep my hermit card upright. I rifle through satchels and obscure blogs, but finding no glossary, no help to cross, my lantern plunges dark. Transformed, A water strider with no footprints, no proof of ground, a bug, I am not sad. Surface light reflects and warms my eyespot; I am tenderly massaged. My translucent body green, ancestral, single-celled, holds nucleus until water pulse rises, falls, rise, fall, and I give what I still but no longer want to have.

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The City of Smoke Zoha Jan The smoke combined with dust flared towards the sky, blurring his dreams, his life as it was. He couldn't see anything, but the screams and footsteps, he would never forget. The tractor picked up the rubbles as though they were only pieces of stones, not dreams, people’s lives carved in mud houses. The contractors trampled over the rubbles like a child runs over their old doll house to a new and bigger one. It blinded him, yet he couldn't let go of the chance to see the life his father had taught him to nurture, one last time. The songs of the cuckoos traversed through the air. The dark blue sky changed into pink and then the softest shade of orange until it turned into a bright orange. The sun rays fell on his face in the verandah and he woke up to the clanging of iron utensils. The place where Ali belonged to was one of the hottest places in the country and June was the hottest month, yet at night the cold winds of the desert would make it hard to sleep without a quilt. His father was tending to the plants. “The lemon flowers are sprouting,” his father said. “In a month, we will have lemons to sell. It will be good for the business, just the need of the hour.” His father touched the white flowers budding out of the small muddy patch. “Yes, father,” he replied, absentmindedly, he never cared for the plants as much as his father did. “I’m leaving for the day,” his father said, removing sweat from his forehead. “Don’t forget to water the palm trees in the empty plot.” Their home comprised two small rooms and the verandah, half of which was covered with plants. Ali and his father slept outside while the five girls slept inside one of the rooms. He was not wrong to assume that his father cared more for plants than his children. Ali never understood his father’s obsession with plants. His father had been trying to involve him in plant keeping so he could also experience the pleasure of nurturing a life, but he was always too busy running across the alleys.

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He got up and went towards his mother who was cooking breakfast in a corner stacked up with woods. “Ama, I am hungry,” he said. “Have you brought your breakfast with you?” she inquired, and upon hearing this, he ran towards the empty room and looked for their only hen. “I know you are here,” he said triumphantly, “and I am going to catch you.” He heard the hen come out of the other room. He ran towards the room where his sisters lay asleep and woke them up with the noise. “You naughty brat,” his eldest sister Sameera yelled at him. He stormed around the room. “Where’s the egg?” he asked. And then he found the white shell in the corner and screamed, "Here it is.” All five of his sisters woke up cursing him, but all he cared about in the world was his breakfast of the day. Not watering the plants, not the next meal, not his dreams of which he hadn't seen any yet. All he could hear was the sizzle of the egg his mother was turning over, not the fire alarms nor the ambulance sirens. "Take it," his mother handed him the fried egg rolled in paratha. She gave breakfast to everyone, starting from the youngest and her most loved child. The oil used for each of their meals lightened in the ascending order of their sequence. The sun just kept getting warmer and there was no escape from its rage in their mud-house. Ali did not bother much about the sun when his friends called him from the empty plot in their neighborhood. He ran through the door barefoot. All the boys were gathered around Hadi. Ali also wanted to get a look at the mesmerizing sight. It was a red and yellow kite that Hadi had brought from the city. Hadi clutched to the kite as though it was his most valuable possession. Everyone wanted to take turns at flying the kite but none of them knew how to fly one. Hadi ran through one house to the next while trying to throw it up in the air. Though they did not know how to fly a kite, they kept trying all day until the sky turned into an electric blue and the moon replaced the scorching sun. Ali also flew with the kite, until he fell down trying to get a hold of it. The village went into a quiet slumber right before the sky turned the darkest shade of blue. His father was coming back after wrapping up business for the day with his wooden trolley. “Come on you, it’s dark already,” he said upon spotting his son. Ali tagged along bidding farewell to his friends. 50

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When they entered, Sameera was studying under the light of the oil-lamp and rest of the ladies were busy preparing dinner or dressing up the doll that their mother made for them. His father placed the trolley outside and removed his shoes before entering. “Assalam-u-Alaikum,” he announced. All the girls chanted, “WalaykumAsalam.” In a house like this in which you do not have many commodities, dreams are the most treasured souvenirs. Their mother wiped her face with the dupatta after a long day of work and asked the girls to serve dinner to their father. Once their father was served, all of them gathered amid the verandah and started eating, except one of the girls who sat in a corner trying to figure out a math problem in the dark, under the light of the oil lamp. Her mother called for her again, and she got off the metallic chair and joined them. “Did you talk about selling the house?” their mother asked her husband anxiously. “Yes,” he answered looking over his plate. “We are leaving for the city in a week,” he announced and then walked towards the tap to perform wazu’u. Ali opened his mouth in awe. “Where are we going?” “To the city,” his mother said, while picking up the plates, looking in the shining steel of the jug, as though it reflected her uncertain future. The rest of the week was spent preparing, which mostly comprised answering unjustified questions from their relatives, collecting the daily income in a small tin box, and hasty goodbyes. Now it was time to say farewell to the house that they all grew up in, that Karim and Razia walked into after getting married and never thought of leaving, until now. Ali was the most excited for the long journey. When they got off the train, all except Ali realized that their life had now changed, that they did not have a house to return to anymore. Sameera had wrapped the chaddar around her head. The gazes would still follow, and with every step, the burden of the eyes around her became heavier than she could carry as she spread the chaddar around her desperately. Ali was looking for a kite and someone who could teach him how to fly one. They took a rickshaw and their father chatted with the driver throughout the drive, while the others were busy marveling at the sights of the city: the sellers and buyers at every corner, the honking, and the flashing cars. Everyone had a place to go to, a task to accomplish. If anyone stopped

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for a millisecond, the car would run over them. There was no time to stop in the city and all you had to do was run, as fast as you could. Time was all they had, and all that they never got enough of. They finally arrived at the place where their father’s friend lived. The rickshaw could not go inside as the path to their new dwelling was a plethora of half bricks. They walked about a mile before they reached the house which Karim had rented from his friend. It was a house among many others made of bricks, something they weren’t accustomed to. From a distance, the small houses were little bricks forming one great chaos to be trampled upon. The house was small, but it had fans and lights, what they came after from the village. They could only afford monthly rent for one room after paying Sameera’s college fees. All of them seemed to embrace the running and the misery wholeheartedly. His father had tried to plant palm trees here near the ravine, but it only grew two feet until it died again. First, their expectations from the city were withered by reality shocks with each passing day, until they died altogether. The palm tree too could not survive in a place it did not belong to. Unlike their expectations, it grew a few feet before it died, but their expectations were buried before they could see the light of the day. The room reeked of the smell from the ravine, and when it rained, the water would enter it and they tried to wipe it out. But they had no house to go back to and all their savings were spent in less than a month. Their father started selling corn on the trolley. Ali would accompany him to the big streets sometimes and tried reading from the newspaper scraps used to wrap the corn. His father was delighted to see his interest but could not afford his fees along with Sameera’s expenses and the necessities at home. Whenever Ali asked when he would go to school, he answered: “Next year.” One night, when there were no stars in the sky, they heard a thunder getting closer and closer. Their house was one of the houses at the forefront, so they were all on their toes. Ali and their parents headed out to see if it was raining, but it was not. Not even a hint of rain. A massive vehicle came into view and was heading towards them. The screeching of the huge tires was now accompanied by a man holding a loudspeaker warning them to leave the place or they will be trampled upon. His voice sounded exactly like the voice from the mosque when they announce the death of someone. It was indeed the death of all that they had brought with them, all that they had dreamed of.

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They went inside and gathered the handful of the items that they possessed and headed towards another catastrophe. Since they had spent enough time in the city to learn that you only stop when you no longer want to live, they left the souvenir of their dreams behind and ran for their lives. They managed to get a room in another slum behind one of the majestic buildings of the city. Stone faces walked in and out of the world they were desperate to escape. A couple of contractors were surveying the area and he overheard them: “This location is ideal for a mall. The demand is increasing.” Months of desolation passed and they settled into the mist of uncertainty, as they had nothing to lose, not even their dreams. Ali stood in front of the tall building, handing over a corn to his customer of about thirtyyears-old in office attire, an aspiration he had given up on their first evacuation. The people looked out from the windows like they were made of stone. A car stopped nearby, and echoed the words: “Rakht-e-dil baandh lo, dil figaaro chalo Phir hameen qatl ho jaayein, ao yaaro chalo!” The construction vehicles trampled over their dreams once again. Ali pushed his cart, which was heavier than he ever felt, and walked on. “Khak bar sar chalo, khoon badaman chalo” (go with dust on head and blood on garb).

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Photo by Susana Zazueta

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Leaving Home Susana Zazueta Freedom Safety Stability Trying to escape poverty Trying to escape violence Trying to survive Estrangement Low wages Hate In hopes of a better future In hopes of finding a home In hopes of succeeding Through the desert at night Where a dead man walks And the moon illuminates the way Who do you trust? Hunger Fear Thirst Running through the darkness 55

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Blending with the trees Afraid for my life Will I get through the night? Run Hide Don’t move In the eternal heat With only a gallon of water I wonder, Will I see tomorrow’s light?

Family Friends Home All left behind All alone on this journey All alone in a new country Where do I go? Who do I trust? Emptiness within me Death all around me Surrounded by strangers Do I call this my new home?

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Hello? It’s me. I made it. I miss you I love you I don’t know when I will see you Hopefully soon Job after job Sweating in the fields Below minimum wage When will it end? There is food on the table for once My hard work is paying off I can finally sleep in a home Where I can lock the door The language barrier Is my ruin Perhaps they don’t understand But they can at least try Go back to where you came from Illegal immigrants If only they knew The pain I have endured 57

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Hello? Dead… It can’t be! I’ll be home soon Whatever it takes I miss you I love you Immigration has found me I am afraid Why am I not wanted here? Thrown into an empty cell Waiting for my wife to answer Dreading to tell her I will not be going home How long has it been? Since I have last seen my kids? Too many years have gone by Too many birthdays missed I’m afraid they will resent me For something as unfair like this They took me away from my family And now they must pay for my sins

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Photo by Sana Humayun

Fragments Sana Humayun If I think about it, I am afraid of a lot of things. Whether it be cockroaches, grasshoppers or honeybees. Most insects terrify the life out of me. My father talks about how I need to get over my fear of them, that it is the only way I can “grow.” He means this the way the dictionary defines it: “a stage or condition in increasing, developing or maturing.” I define growth as “remember when your 59

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three-year older best friend graduated school and you were still stuck there, all alone? Yeah that was difficult.” The story goes that when I was in 6th grade, I became friends with a short haired 9th grader. She was everything I wanted to become: a lively, extroverted nerd. We became good friends soon and would spend our break-times together. In all honesty, I’ve always felt closer to my seniors than to class fellows. Maybe it’s because I have three older brothers. But just as how my brothers went to study abroad and left me as the only sibling in a dysfunctional desi household, she graduated school a year after our friendship blossomed. The consequence? A lifetime of longing. The result? A lesson on migration. This lesson began a cycle of firsts, whether it be my menstrual cycle or making new friends only to lose them. Losing friends is something I still haven’t come to terms with, but I suppose it is a special kind of migration that comes along with growing up.

you once told me that the sky is blue today, i didn’t understand. the sky is always blue, i said; sometimes in shades of azure and cobalt, and sometimes when the clouds are furious, in shades of indigo and violet. even if the sun is smiling, there is a tint: of sapphire, except today, because today the sun is not just smiling, It’s beaming with a grin unmatched. 60

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the clouds are jovial, and we are together.

it’s been years and i finally understand now; you were talking about the blue in your heart, not in the sky. we see things the way our brain perceives them to be, and yours painted the sky in the colors of your heart, a bright yellow sky turned into a midnight blue, with the lapis and lilacs appearing like shooting stars, and the troubled clouds releasing their sorrow, in hues of sadness.

that day, we were together, but your heart was still blue. today we are not, and mine is. Growing up comes with the heavy cost of losing your loved ones. People who’ve left their homelands often write about how they forgot pieces of themself in places they’ve left, but isn’t that somewhat similar to losing fragments of your heart in all the people you’ve loved and had to leave?

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The way I weave metaphors together is because of an online friend I made two years ago, my first love’s birthdate holds a special place in my heart and it’ll still hold that place, even if one day he doesn’t. The way I sit on the floor is how my nursery grade teacher used to while teaching us arts, and the way I am now is because of all the people I’ve loved and lost, and

chosen to love

regardless of having lost them somewhere. But this act of losing and letting go also brings a growth that can’t be brought any other way, so maybe Yann Martel was right when he said, “I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.” I am afraid of a lot of things but if I’ve somehow accepted the inevitable migrations of life, I think I can handle a cockroach or two.

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Image from online source selected by author

The Remaining Half Maha Mahmood I looked down at the cereal in my bowl, no longer crunchy, a soggy mess. Outside the window, the steady barrage of clouds signaled that it would rain. Karachi, while mostly predictable in terms of weather, was somewhat fickle when it came to rain. The roads, squatters, and slums weren’t made for the rain, but still rain came. And when it did, it rained a lot. My father bought a cake on his way home from his morning walk. I watched him move across the counter as he put it in the fridge. We didn’t exchange any words, except for what could be called a smile on his part. I didn’t bother returning the smile. I didn’t have the stomach for cake either, at least not this particular morning. It was my birthday. It was her birthday. It was our birthday. I looked 63

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up at my reflection, staring back at me from behind a frame, different but still the same. I murmured under my breath, “Happy birthday, sis.” Class would start in half an hour. I had enrolled in a local public university close to home. She had plans for Ivy League schools. After class, I would run straight home and shut myself in my room. Had she been around, she would spend hours after classes playing tennis and making plans with friends. We were cartoonishly distinct. Like an overused movie trope, it was easy to tell us apart. Now, she was no longer around. Not estranged, not a runaway, not off to college—she was gone. One morning, six years ago, my mother had called an ambulance after Maria didn’t wake up. She had gone to bed fifteen hours ago. By the time the paramedics arrived, she was cold to the bone. Gone. I was out of town, volunteering. My parents rushed me home for the funeral, where I said my final goodbyes. No one asked me how I was, and no one asked why my sister did such a thing. All that mattered was that my perfect sister had taken some pills, and now she was gone. She became the talk of the town. My father, though mostly silent, grew even quieter. My mother, once cheerful and upbeat, grew cold and distant. In the empty space where there was once another me, a better me, there was only silence. At the dinner table, in the car, and in the moments in between, my parents almost said something. I could see it, the regret, but I paid no heed. It didn’t matter anymore. They lost a source of pride, and I, a source of comfort. Today, we would have turned twenty-one. Together. But like the past half a decade, there will be no candles, there will be no presents, just a long, unending silence. In the summer of 2015, Maria and I got our summer internships and community service letters. Maria’s inbox counted seven acceptance letters congratulating her, while mine counted one automatically generated email saying I passed to volunteer at my school’s library. We applied to eight places together, a mistake on my part. We were two versions of one person, and Maria came with all the bells and whistles. The cream of the crop. Maria was shortlisted for a position in Islamabad, and my school library was willing to settle for me. I would stay in Karachi for the summer. Maria would go to visit the capital. Can you call it a disappointment if you had seen it coming? Night fell, and as per routine, we would climb up to the roof with a bottle of Sprite and some stale cigarettes after our parents went to sleep. Under the starless sky, hiding behind an old metal 64

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crate, I watched Maria’s silhouette blow out a cloud of cigarette smoke. As the smell cleared around me and entered my lungs, she turned towards me and asked, “Islamabad jaogi?” Later that night, as we climbed into bed, she asked me again: “Arey, just answer the question!” I stayed silent, waiting for her to elaborate. “Go instead of me.” The hidden message: become me. I was set to take an afternoon train with a group heading from another local school, and Maria would see me off. At the station, she introduced herself, in her most eloquent manner, as “Maria’s sister.” Then, she gave me what I remember as our last hug. ~~~ It started raining, so I ended up skipping class. The mush of cereal and despair that was churning in my stomach was an unpleasant combination, and it made me sick. The last thing I wanted was to make my way to campus, where some of my sister’s former classmates would wish us a happy birthday. I shut the door behind me and fell onto my bed. I turned to face her picture on the nightstand. When she was alive, she was a soundboard for my thoughts, listening, and reflecting. She was much more mature than I was and more emotionally stable, too, so her thoughts never left the confines of her mind. Regardless of our stark differences, we shared a few similarities, like our preference for old-school Disney films and pizza. But most importantly, we never opened up except for when we were on the roof. Perhaps the roof’s aura made us more candid to ourselves and each other. Or maybe it was just the midnight air that helped release the thoughts festering in our heads. I no longer go to the roof. After Maria’s funeral, I thought of going up there but gave up. I didn’t want to empty all that was in my mind. I looked back at the picture. “I wonder what you’d wear today,” I asked. Using all my strength to get off the bed, I walked towards the closet. I rummaged through old t-shirts and dresses that smelt of mold, courtesy of Karachi’s humidity. I wondered what she would wear. I settled for something of mine that she would have liked and put it on. In front of the mirror, I brushed my hair and parted it down the middle, as she often did. I giggled at the sight of me. I couldn’t pass off as Maria, but I made for an interesting hybrid. The word hybrid made me chuckle. I realized we never dressed the same. We weren’t interested in looking like each other because we were far too different to pick the same clothes. In the rare instances that we did, I felt like a con, selling 65

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myself as something I wasn’t. Now, I wish we tried it once. I glanced at the mirror and imagined two reflections instead of one. It wasn’t easy. Outside, the rain was slowing down. I opened the curtains. I decided my little birthday activity would need more work. I picked up the cheval mirror in the corner of my room and set it in front of the dresser mirror. I rushed downstairs to get myself a slice of birthday cake. When I came back, I stepped in front of the mirror on my dresser. Cake in hand, I stood next to the cheval mirror. Before me, I saw me, and what could only be described as Maria from my memories. I yelled my cheeriest “Happy Birthday” into the emptiness. As I went on with my foolishness, speaking to my reflection as if it was my dead twin sister, I could see the clouds starting to clear up through the window behind my dresser. A few minutes later, warm sunshine filled the expanse of my bedroom, painting the walls and illuminating the ceiling. In front of me, I could no longer see me, just sunlight bouncing from one surface to another. Later, as the clouds cast over the sun like a veil, the image returned. This time, the edges were softer and almost translucent. I leaned in to look closer but jumped back when it stayed, unmoving. My eyes widened till I could feel the strain on my temples. My pulse quickened. I was perspiring, but the hair on my arms stood on end as if there was a draft. I made eye contact with the girl in the reflection. “Happy Birthday,” she mouthed. I heard the sound was as if it was coming from underwater. It echoed moments later. Maria. I was frozen, scared at first. Then, I stared in awe. Of course, it was an illusion, but so lovely to look at. I moved closer, just to be sure. As I drew nearer, the reflection stayed still, not matching her movements with mine. Then, she saw me raise my hand and did the same. Her hand, much clearer now, was on the other side of the glass. I took a deep breath and placed my hand against it. Nothing. I sighed. A mix of relief and disappointment. Suddenly, I saw a hand emerge from the glass. I held my breath as its milky fingers intertwined with mine. My vision grew fuzzy. I closed my eyes. When my eyes opened, my vision had yet to return, but I was sure the shadowy figure standing above me was the girl from the reflection. I brought my surroundings into focus—it was impossible for my senses to grasp. The expanse around me didn’t feel empty, but when I looked too close, clarity vanished. It wasn’t silent, but when I listened carefully, I couldn’t tell if I heard anything. The girl, unlike me, seemed unfazed. 66

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“You opened a gateway to the spirit realm,” she exclaimed. “How’d you know what to do?” I didn’t. I could barely string words together as I came to realize that I was definitely somewhere else. I looked at her. Could she read the question on my mind? She could. “It’s me,” she answered. No name, but I knew who it was. The tears welled up but didn’t fall. No surprise. I was in a place beyond human comprehension. The laws of physics didn’t apply here. But feelings did, and I knew I missed her. I raised my hands and signaled to my surroundings so as to ask: where am I? She knew it was coming. “Oh, you’re still at home.” She pointed behind me to a tiny sphere. “But your soul is here with me.” The sphere looked like a keyhole. Through it, I could see my room. I was sprawled out on the floor. I walked towards it, then stopped. Sure enough, this was a vision. But even so, what was the harm in asking? I let the question enter my mind. “I can’t tell you,” she explained. “It will weigh down your soul.” I opened my voice to disagree, but I didn’t have any ideas. I wasn’t even sure what she meant. “And even if I did,” she continued, “I don’t think you’ll be able to carry it all back.” It was all so confusing. “Emotions and thoughts are heavier than mass here,” she said. “All around you, it’s a reflection of the chaos in your mind.” She pushed me towards what looked like a cloud of seafoam. “See,” she pointed out. “When you look at it closely, it disappears.” “But how will I know what happened?” “It’s all there,” she assured me. I saw the keyhole-like window to my room. I felt a push and then nothing. I woke up with darkness all around. It was well past evening. Was I perhaps still there? The throbbing headache meant that I was very much here. I shuffled through the room, moving along the walls and feeling for the light switch. I turned on the lights, half expecting to see her in my room. No one. My memories were growing fuzzier; I grabbed a pen off the nightstand and wrote on my palm. IT’S ALL THERE

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But where was I to look? Who knew Maria’s secrets? Or rather, where would she reveal them? I realized: the roof.

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Photo by Laila Barcenas Meade

Kissing Bugs Laila Barcenas Meade Our father dies and the whole town comes to the funeral. There is no other way to do things. Girls are packed into little dresses to match the boys in little suits. Men are wearing shirts ironed to crisp perfection. Ladies check each other’s lipstick and smile. The men look them over closely and grin, enjoying what they see. They all parade in front of each other, generations who had studied in 69

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the same school building, who worked the same cornfields, and were members of the same church. Now, there are new characters in the show: Eliza and Elena Muñoz, we the children of the dead man. The church barely fits us all. There is no room to move, not that any of them want to. The source of their interest is immobile. They settled in so they could see us from all angles. We don’t move away from the corpse. We can’t open our mouths, for fear that the critters inside us will escape. So silently, we watch the corpse of our father and hope no one notices the scatter of chinches, kissing bugs, that trail inside his coffin. One crawls across our hands, like the soft kiss goodnight from a loving Mother. Our worry is just a light concern, really. They all have their eyes on us, on our braids, our ironed dresses, and our held hands. They are not preoccupied by the body, the body of Roberto Muñoz, the body of our father, the body of the man they had professed to love. Questions pass around the room in the shrug of someone’s shoulders and the tilt of a neighbor’s chin. We try to keep our eyes on the coffin. We still hear them gossip. I don’t want to assume. You know that I don’t really like gossipers, but it just seems so strange to me that the twins were the only ones there when he died. I mean, Roberto was so young. I know he still worked in his shop, he was a strong man. A heart attack just seems so unlikely. I don’t want to assume, but do you think that perhaps the girls… I don’t know, perhaps they did something? There are tales around our family, around every family. Here we give you a few of the tales about my father, those that always linger around our house year round and creep into the backyard on hot days in May. Version A, titled “A Man Returns” is told by the townsfolk, always: Father came back from university with a disdain for the city and an almost completed degree. He’d met a stranger, a woman. She had skin like the wood from a mezquite and hair like dried husks of corn. She was beautiful. They married and had twins, one was beautiful and one was not. The children grew and the mother left. Father had no wife, but was still a Father. Version B, titled “The Other One” is told by father, when drunk: There was a woman Father didn’t marry. Father went to university, with an almost full scholarship. Father did not do well. Father had a woman, but he didn’t marry her. She gave him a baby he never wanted. He returned home with a child. She was beautiful. Then there was a new wife 70

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and a new child. The child grew not beautiful. The mother died. Father had two children, neither which he wanted, both with different mothers. Version C, titled “The Not Twins” is told by us, when alone: People want to forget that we’re not twins. They want Roberto Muñoz to build his twins matching bunk beds, to buy them their watercolors even when money is tight, and to lie about the death of their puppies after a cold winter night. People want us to be twins. They want to forget Roberto Muñoz complained about a daughter before his beautiful spring wedding was even planned, that there are pregnancy pictures of Mother with a babe already in hand, and that the infant our aunt held in the wedding portraits was his daughter and not his niece. They want story A, where the Muñoz girls are twins and there was only ever one woman. Without the wedlock child, Father is still the prodigal son. Do you remember him from years ago, when he married? Back when he’d barely just opened his carpentry shop and he still had some of that baby fat around his jaw. Roberto has always been handsome. No, no, he never did quite recover from his wife’s disappearing act. What a catch she’d caught and she just threw it away. There is, if you climb up the mountains behind our house, a forest of conifers. It’s a pretty place. Mother took us there to picnic once. We played in the creek, having a competition to see who could splash Mother the most. She always managed to scuttle away, just as we launched our attacks. Father told us to never go to that place. “There are seductresses who will bind you to their ways, with love in your heart and desire in your veins.” Father warned us to never follow the soft clicking sounds of insect legs on rocks. “There are beings there, more insect than animal, who will not hesitate to bite you, to kiss your face over and over again and infect your blood.” Father often said that our mother was the worst kind of vermin. “Una pinche chinche; that’s what she is. Just a bug, a kissing bug.” Father cautioned many things. We collected and curated a history of his comments as the years went by. With them we wrote a history about our family. It goes like this. Version D, titled “Dearest Mother” told by mother, when dead: A man goes to a forest and finds a woman. She has dark skin, the color of kissing bugs in the evening night and hair like corn husks in the golden sunset. He tries to take a kiss from her deep red 71

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lips. She bites his cheek instead. The man takes this creature home to wed, but the creature is creature and is not treated as a wife. Do you remember his wife? We always thought her so lovely, so kind, so beautiful. Then she left him. Do you remember he’d always be the earliest at school pick up? He always said he didn’t want the twins waiting for him too long or they’d find themselves another man. Roberto did his best for his twins and his wife. It’s not his fault the twins ended up a little odd. Without a mother, it’s no wonder. Father spilled blood before we did. It was a May evening, bathed in a sweltering heat that no creature could stand. Father shoved her too hard. He probably did not mean to. He did not care. We did. He dug, with the same shovel that she had fallen on, a shallow grave. He wiped his hands of dirt. “Come, I’ll take its arms. You take its legs. Between the three of us it should be no problem.” He wiped his hands of blood. We piled dirt on her and then the wood from one of his abandoned projects. He did not let us tie her favorite hair ribbon to one of the nails sticking out from a wood plank. (Here is a truth: we loved our mother dearly, most dear, dearest.) He told us to dump the remains of lunch on her too. We did. (We had to, we had to, we’re sorry, we’re sorry.) From the pile we saw little chinches, little kissing bugs scatter out and wind around our feet. Our Mother. They climbed us, toured us, and then trailed in a line towards the conifer forest. Our first blood came at the dawn of the next day. Back then two different bodies had been enough to separate us. One body, which father had named Eliza, bled first. The other body, that mother had named Elena, bled in sympathy. Little kissing bugs trailed into our room, clicking on the floor and climbing up our bloody thighs. They brought with them something from beyond. They crawled around the tips of our toes and on to the curves of our legs, they bit our soft stomachs, sucking out blood, and burrowed into the dip of our navel. They went up our necks and into the space between upper and lower lip. Into the gaps between teeth and tongue, down the dark passages of our throats. With tears in our eyes for a mother we would never see again and fear in our hearts from what our bodies were doing, we watched the bugs. We watched them bite at us and we let them climb us. That night we left behind the differences of Eliza and Elena. We left the distinction of our bodies

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and accepted the collective of the hive (the us, the we, the twins who are not twins became intertwined). Something happened that night, something reaching beyond our small town and their small minds. It reached out into the forest up the mountain, reaching for something more than human. We had sorrow in our hearts, and one of our bodies had magic in its veins. It could be used to call back the bugs, to call back the cinches from the forest and maybe trail into the mouth of another for us. Kissing bugs kissed us. Kissing bugs ate us. Kissing bugs made us. Roberto loved those girls, but they didn’t even try to help him. Oh, Eliza is pretty as a peach, a lovely girl. Elena is… smart, I suppose. You know how protective of them he was! Not even lovely Eliza was allowed out to meet her admirers. Fathers are sometimes like that. Oh, they’ve changed since they’ve come back to town. When was the last time that they stepped on this side of the dam? Five, six years ago, when they were still girls I guess. The funeral ends. We stand to pay our respects. Father looks better dead than we ever saw him alive. We stand beside him as he lays. The entire town and their aunts run past us, taking both of our hands. They’re more likely to talk if we smile at them, so we don’t. Every sweaty, clammy, dry, cold hand pass through ours and then up to make the sign of the cross. “Oh Roberto, always so handsome. The make-up is a little uneven there… a little too much blush. He hasn’t changed, has he? Even dead he’s a rouge.” We look at the body. There is a red mark on his cheek. It is not the sign of red powder but of the kissing bug’s bite. It’s been there longer than we have been alive. A physical sign of the disease that slowly enlarged his heart and beat it out of rhythm. Beneath his skin we can imagine little kissing bus crawling up and down the roads of his veins. Year by year, he grew more and more, until they filled him up and burst him apart. We swallow. “Yes. A rogue.” There are better names for what our father was in life, none of them pretty. Our mother gave us many, before she was set in the ground. Man, human, monster, man, man, man. We did not think to listen to her. Before the bugs we were not as wise. Before the bugs we were limited to our singular selves, bound apart from the body of our sister, set aside from the consciousness of the kissing bugs.

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There is a question on the lips of every adult in the church, even in some of the older children. It’s barely held back, hiding behind teeth and almost escaping through the cracks. Did they kill their father? We can say, with truth in our hearts, that we didn’t kill him. We can say, with pride in our bones, that our mother did.

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Art by Zarnab Tufail

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rinsing, bleeding, washing away Zarnab Tufail mother. we’re washing clothes inside your walled home. our fingers fringed, cheap soap quenching its thirst. you’re holding a wooden stick grandma sent from home beating dirt out of them but how do i beat dirt out of my body? our stigma stained shalwars hanging under giant shawls of honor frozen over oiled air, our shame carving holes, carefully stitched endometrium we’re mere women, you say rinsing away our ancestral pain, these dirty clothes they belong to our men anyway.

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evidence of absence Srishti Uppal I am too empowered for a uniform. Their monolingual case files are written in bruises, battery and contusions; I was brought in with a narrative. When you exist only to rescue, the legitimacy of pain is in its visibility; my violation is held but not seen. Who will tell me how I am wronged? The law that has no vocabulary for my rape? I am too free for them to bring me justice. I refuse reparations draped in the guise of mercy, consolations given only to the picture of my death.

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Image from online source selected by author

The Tiara Khadija Rehman I wanted her to know that her father had chosen her name; a name too river-like, a name that could not be contained in the mouth, a name that was a sigh and a release, an exhale just like mine: Nouri— our inordinate desire. ~~~ The air smelled of chemicals, rust, salt and dying lavender; it agitated my nostrils. 78

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My consciousness was disintegrating—white dandelion flowers in the west wind—the walls were too white, my hair stuck to my skin like tapeworms. The hour had shapeshifted into a continued fraction, making and unmaking itself endlessly. The multitude of voices around me were cracked with urgency and panic, greatly disarrayed—pomegranate seeds thrown toward the blue sky. My body felt like a broken vow, and my limbs had needles running through them, causing purple bruises as faint as a shadow under a new moon. My bloodstream was full of anesthesia and drugs, a flustered river of hot lime. I could feel myself drifting away from this delivery suite, entering my own body, trespassing. I inhaled sharply, the scent like burnt daffodils; the sequence of stigmata on my conscience crawled to find my anchor in him, in the misfortune that we were. I shut my eyes, the sea behind them rising, another lunar tide. I wanted to speak to my unborn daughter for one last time, suspend her within my embrace and tell her that she was to be born out of pure, black love. I wanted to ask her about how dark my blood had become. According to a legend, humans are born with white blood, and as we sin, our blood becomes redder and darker. I wanted her to believe that I had loved her father the way young hyenas take delight in the boundary lines of cities—to the point of my own annihilation, with teeth and claws and little deaths in between. I wanted to whisper to her that she was part surrender, part revolt, like burning sage and cannabis together, both holy and heinous. The pain splintered—outrageous, outrageous contractions—I clenched my jaws. His presence beside me was a delightful assault, exhausted with concern and cataclysm. How would I ever explain to our daughter that her father was not hers, not wholly? I wanted to press my lips against her tiny chest, and seek her forgiveness for riotously birthing her into a world that reeked of immorality and overwrought piety. I felt a sharp burning ache in my thighs, like a kerosene lamp exploding underwater. His grip around my wrist tightened, wary. Time had become an unfamiliar concept, too liquid to end, running, running, heaving. The air was moist—with blood, with rust, with love, with sins. I tried to drift away, my focal point shifted toward a dream of certain specificity. There was a decorated meadow, a vintage bridal tiara, an altar, spirit lamps, oaths, a traditional wedding. There was less agony, love was less violent. 79

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To break your body in devotion, in love for a man ten years older than yourself: “heart with its hundred mouths open, heart with its hundred eyes closed.” What do you do with a love that comes to you in the form of an executioner? A shepherd's love for a carnivorous lamb. Inside my head, it was the rites of ravens, circling, breaking the sky. Certain loves are intimate horrors; they kill you and die in your blood. When I held his wrist, and pressed my lips against it, I tried to leave the shape of my mouth on it. His veins thudded against my mouth like a minor earthquake. At that moment, I knew that I would break his wrists someday, offer them back to him, and walk away; I wanted him to be lost without me, to reattach the wrists on the wrong limbs, absentminded, awaiting my return— the loss of self is the essence of trauma. His fingers held my body with a force, like a gall stuck in a rosebud, rowing down my spine, rearranging me. I let my mouth hover over his left ankle, biting tenderly, suspending the marks of my existence in all the exotic places on his body. He stored water in his mouth, and then parted my lips with his elbow, letting columns of water plummet down my tongue, watching me gulp it down, our eyes full of hunger, full of war. I had put my finger in his mouth— trying to write my name with his saliva against his collarbone—gypsies planting roses. When he entered my body, and our mouths crashed into each other like warplanes, flowers erupted on my skin, full of ecstasy, full of anguish. Nouri was the most pious part of our sins, like a murder made holy. I did not know what we wanted from Nouri. A star to map the drifts of time and space for us? I was afraid that she was the consequence of our stubbornness, born less out of love, and more out of our mutiny against the ways of this world. It caused me great grief to wonder if our daughter was a mere meeting point for us, less in terms of quantum but gracious in terms of intimacy. How would I tell her that her father was separated from her by continents and shadow lines? How would I assure her that her father loved her too fiercely despite his plague-like absence? How would I ask her to love a non-parent? How do you explain the sadness of geography to a child? How would I watch her write letters to him with crayons and help her parcel the handmade cards to him when he would be a mere postal address for her, abjectly depersonalized? What stories would I tell her of him—misshapen hand-me-down sagas? How would she know the grace and love 80

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of her paternal family? Would she ever know the frail, weathered figure of her grandmother; a woman with another language in her tongue, a woman of the mountains with crescent moons in her eyes? Would she know her only aunt, her father’s first friend, her father’s secret-keeper? Would she have her grandfather rub off mud from her skinned knee, and take her on piggyback rides in his apple orchards? Would she know her great-grandfather, a man with wrinkles manifold, and a sea of anecdotes hidden beneath them, anecdotes that would carry her to the shore of her father’s childhood? Would she— My thoughts were shaken, the internal monologue interrupted. Every fault line in my consciousness erupted violently with an infant’s cry. I was pulled toward her with a superhuman velocity, my body responding involuntarily to the tender shriek. I fought to open my eyes, the bright lights against it like fumes of sulphur. I felt his lips press themselves against my temple, and with a swift, graceful movement, his right hand was behind my back, pushing my body upward, breaking the inertia. I saw her. I saw my daughter wrapped in a soft fuschia blanket, squirming gently, her tiny palm folded into a fragile fist with her thumb sticking out. The midwife placed her tenderly into my arms, and quietly moved away, as if afraid that any movement would break the solemnity of the moment. He sat beside me, unspeaking. I saw him from the corner of my eyes, his face looked like late August thunderstorms—a riot of awry, rushing sentiments. His arms pulled me in half-embrace, inhaling quietly as he pressed his face in the hollow of my neck. He did not cry, he wept. My attention snapped back to my daughter. I could feel a centrifugal force acting around us, building a sheath. As I held this tiny, vulnerable human in my arms, I knew I would patrol nights in circles for her, duty-free, teeth exposed, feet bared. I could uproot cities for her, justify bloodbaths for her, and watch this world rise up into flames, remorseless, as long as she remained safe. I pressed my lips against her forehead, too gently, as if I was holding a tropical butterfly with shifting colors. She yawned; a smile broke out on my face. She smelled of peaches and essential oils. She had his lips, thin and shapely, with an unmistakable cleft in her upper lip, just like a small, galloping wave. I watched her eyelids droop—wilting water lilies—and in a few scattered seconds, she was asleep in my arms. I lowered my head, ducking it to her ear, and pleaded with her not to

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have her father’s high-pitched, wounded, wolf-like laughter, and not to laugh at a joke for weeks like he did, to the point of its murder. He asked me in a hushed tone to let him hold her. I looked up at his face, at the man who would never meet me at the altar but whose hauntings were the mirror-image of mine, at the man who would not be allowed to father our newborn, but who would make landslides bleed coral for her. He scooped her up from my arms with care, pressing his lips to her tiny palms, his eyes liquid, glistening with teardrops. As I looked at him caressing her, I sighed. Nouri would never be an unneeded excess, never a consequence of our fears. She was part him, part me, a hybrid, forged out of a love that had rattled her father’s favor of the theory of black swan, a love that suspended itself in the distance between retrospective predictability to what must be loved for love’s sake. I shut my eyes briefly, and prayed that Nouri does not grow up to be like me, that she does not fall in love with things unbearable like I did. I prayed that she does not inherit my horrors, that she does not eat away at her own heart. My fingers lost themselves in his hair as I pulled him closer, pressing my mouth against his. I pulled away, inhaling hungrily. He smelled of a waterfall full of crushed herbs and pinecones. We kissed again as our infant daughter yawned and chuckled. The knock broke my trance. The midwife walked in, and stood beside me, silently. I looked up at her, confused. She smiled with practiced ease and said, “It’s time for the little one’s first feed.” He carefully separated Nouri from the blanket, and bent forward, his body in the shape of a bow as he traded her into my arms. “Umbilical cord,” he whispered, voice distraught with worry, as I struggled to hold her in my embrace. “I won’t crush my daughter,” I hissed back with seething annoyance. The midwife placed her on my chest, and Nouri began to wail, her shriek sharp enough to cut glass. I began to pat her back apprehensively. The tears in my eyes burnt like vinegar. He stroked her left cheek as he hummed her name. The shriek became calmer. She hiccupped and held his finger in her fist.

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The midwife helped me cup her head, and as Nouri struggled to learn how to place her mouth on my breast, his cellphone rang. Nouri was startled; she began to sob angrily. He looked at me, his eyes full of illegible helplessness. He got up with a sudden movement, face blank, and walked out of the delivery suite. Nouri’s fist remained—midway—in the air. 12:47 AM. The wife was at home, unsuspecting; he belonged in another marriage, to another woman. The tiara fell.

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Image from online source selected by author

After you are gone, I have no sense of time Javeria Hasnain People of the desert, and you—how have you wandered so far? You have walked out so far you can see the ocean now, and not just in your imagination. Your ancestor named you, this land— a necropolis for where you are going. All day, I sit amidst people telling them your stories. In turn, they tell me about theirs even though I never ask. Yesterday, my mother told me my uncle’s hiccups won’t stop. 84

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In turn, I told her you weren’t here. When are you coming, anyway? Most of all, I miss you. I miss your absence. I miss the pink-checkered t-shirt one does not wear underneath hoodies. I miss the olive-green pants that surprisingly fit. I miss the curve of your eyes and I miss the ghazal this poem is not going to be. Listen, I am not worried about today, it will still pass. I am worried about every future today that will still pass. All the things I will not want to, but will, do. All the times I will wish, looking up, it was you gobbling that mouthful. The raindrops under which it was your palms. There is a world beyond the desert, too, you know? Come here, come back— there is salt in my eyes, there is a small ladybug on that woman’s shoulder: fragile, fleeting—like twilight, like daybreak.

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Imagination Javeria Hasnain We are more apart than together. We have been more each other than ourselves. Am I imagining things? You are imagining things, bby. Maybe imagining is also creating more of what we find pleasing. You, who is covered in dusty moth smell, its voice at your guttural source, eviscerating only hard consonants. Your name does not have a vowel, I do not need to curve my mouth, curve my whole body against you: we have never needed intimacy & we feel sorry for those that do. You are your desert, watching jeeps slide down your alleys every day, honking louder than the trumpet that will one day blow. I am here, among the full sky, still under the perpetual sun, 86

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in darkness and in hell, thinking, it has been long since they trimmed the grass. Long since someone tended to someone else. At ease, soldier! when I curve my knees to make room for you—even

though I know nowhere is

open, nowhere is close. You are, you are, you are without a verb. A vermilion, a vertigo, a vertical illusion so to say.

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Bishorjon Anushka Chatterjee 1 Today is Doshomi, the day Maa Durga leaves her earthly abode for Kailash. The thrum of dhaak, mingled with carefree laughter from the nearby mandap at Kashi Bose Lane, has kept the strings of Aalo’s sitar from spreading its usual charm. However, the rhapsodies of festivity hasn’t snatched sleep away from Shobhita, who now sits confounded on her bed, blobs of sweat crawling down the strands of grey hair clinging to her neck. The escort of death, she knows, is breathing on her shoulders, awaiting her soul to desert its armour. Shobhita will struggle to conceal this ominous hint

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of end when her daughter greets her with a tuneful good morning. To lose hope is to die before death, she reminds herself, taking a deep breath. She will smile at Aalo, aspiring to return her love for the only time in her life. 2 A bargain was made about five decades ago: The bond Shobhita would share with her husband would bestow him with a boy a year into marriage, so whispered her mother-in-law before Shobhita was ushered into a room full of dizzying blossoms. But as fate would have it, Shobhita needed to amend the treaty she had acceded to with the perseverance and faith of a woman failing to be a mother. Countless barbs, curses and therapies later, a soundless baby slipped into the world at night, shrieking and revolting its arrival, with the first ray of the sun teasing its squinting little eyes. As cheeks as mild as cotton brushed against hers, Shobhita, dizzy with relief, watched her mother-in-law blur away from her, discontent written on her face. She named her daughter Aalo for the light she’d brought into her miserable life, but knew too well that the family had plunged into the darkness of their lost dignity. 3 “Was it a bad dream, Maa?” Aalo peers at her mother while mopping her sweaty forehead with a towel. The concern in her daughter’s brows doesn’t escape Shobhita’s eyes as they manage to exchange quick glances. The ability to lie always comes with the inability to mask it. “With dhaak playing around, I haven’t had my best sleep in the last few nights. They seem to bang on my eardrums!” She laughs as she attempts to even the grooves on Aalo’s temple. “But that’s not right for you,” Aalo sits by her mother. She lifts Shobhita’s hand and places it gently on her lap. “This bustle is not right for your health, Maa.” She traces her mother’s knobbly fingers with her thumb until it slips into the softness of her palm. Skin upon skin, a feeling so familiarly unfamiliar to Aalo, it calms her racing heart. “Let everyone cheer, quake their waists and eat phuchkas like there’s no tomorrow!” Shobhita clutches Aalo’s hand with renewed verve, her eyes glistening in child-like enthusiasm. “Will you take me to the mandap, babu? To Maa Durga before she leaves us?”

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Aalo, stupefied by the impulsive fancy of her ailing mother, flinches at the request. “You want me to set you in a whirlpool of chaos despite knowing everything, huh?” By everything she means the cupboard stuffed with expensive medicines, the chain of chemotherapies, the bouts of breathlessness, and the fragility of Shobhita’s life. Testaments of a pessimistic reality, which she wishes to hide from her mother every day, get encapsulated in a single word – everything. “We’re going nowhere, Maa,” Aalo releases her hand from her mother’s and abandons her seat. “I might never see a tomorrow, babu,” Shobhita interrupts, her voice edgy, prone to breaking. “Who knows what’s to come?” About to escape the maze of her mother’s incontestable reasoning, Aalo halts midway. What thunder does to a tree, truth, brutal and uninvited, does to her – it threatens to rip her apart. She turns, head hanging low, and sets her eyes on Shobhita’s beseeching face. Please babu, her deep-seated eyes seem to convey but don’t voice. Aalo smiles, knowing she needs to do what she’s been doing all her life: give in. 4 Aakash was born when Aalo was five. The family had labored through the tunnel, the end of which had finally brought the light his sister couldn’t spark. The ice between Shobhita and her mother-inlaw had visibly thawed. The latter, springing in joy as though she were a new grandma, happily sacrificed a pair of golden chandbali earrings to the mother who had, in the long run, brought fortune into the house. At a distance stood a little girl, her eyes scanning the family in boundless joy. She tried to remember if she’d ever noticed such glint in her Baba’s eyes before. She wondered if her grandma had embraced her with equal affection and planted a kiss on her cheeks when she was brought home for the first time. The news of her baby brother coming home had so delighted her that she went prancing about the garden, tripped over a nasty brick, and scraped her knees. Yet, entranced by the euphoria everyone was wallowing in, little Aalo had almost forgotten that her knees were bleeding. She stood frozen for a while, waiting to be attended, before creeping into her room, knowing too well that her wound would remain unnoticed. 5 90

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“Maa, why don’t you wear this?” Aalo picks a jamdani sari from a series of unused ones in her mother’s almirah. “You wore this to the airport when Bhai left for Montreal, nah?” she asks, dusting the yellow fabric with her palm. “Maybe,” Shobhita stares at the ceiling, feigning indifference despite remembering it all – how Aakash had left twenty-five years ago, how he’d promised to return in five years, how casually he’d broken that very pledge. “If you want,” she swallows a lump in her throat, “I can drape it.” Aalo’s face brightens. “But on one condition,” Shobhita raises a trembling finger to quantify. “A condition?” Aalo’s face loses shimmer as quickly as it’d attained it. “Bring that to me,” Shobhita trains her finger at a maroon benarasi, the bridal sari she’d stepped into this house in. Aalo marvels at the glimmer of the silk despite years of disuse. “Let me dress you in this, babu.” Aalo’s face blanches. “No!” she rebels, her ears singeing. The gravity of the words seems to thrust her away from Shobhita. “You can’t do this to me, Maa,” she says, shaking her head. Shobhita limps to Aalo, who’s been unsettled by her request. “Please give me a chance, babu,” she gasps for breath, folding her hands pleadingly. “To make amends for the love you never showered?” Aalo shrieks. She slackens her grip on the benarasi, letting it drop. “The sheen of silk is meant to adorn a bride. Even the stroke of my skin might put it to shame.” Shobhita stoops to rescue her asset. “Please listen to me, babu...” “I won’t, Maa!” Aalo cuts her short, a vein close to her neck throbbing precariously. “I can’t agree to everything I’m asked to do anymore!” The words resonate across the room before it plunges into silence. Shobhita, now in tears, shivers at the brutality of them. In their relationship, the law of give and take has always suffered imbalance. The absence of a son has always shadowed a daughter’s presence. What Aalo has said now must’ve been said years ago. Of all the thoughts trampling her mind, she asserts only one “Take it as my last wish, babu.” 6

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Aakash has excuses ready at the tip of his tongue. That he is too occupied for homecoming has been his favorite for the past ten years. Shobhita had the fortune of meeting her own granddaughter only once when the family of three, Aakash, Andrea and Amanda, flew in. She detested how blunt the alien names sounded (Aandreuh, Aamaanduh) when she pronounced them, but ascribed the fortuitous similarity of their initials to the will of God. When sneaky tentacles of cancer had entrapped Shobhita’s lungs, Aakash had flung his favourite excuse. However, when the remnants of his father’s savings wouldn’t sustain Shobhita’s treatment any longer, he did remit a considerable sum to his family. “I’m not doing well, babu,” Shobhita would whisper into the phone, longing to see her son bury his head into her lap. “I’m coming soon, Maa,” he’d say each time, relaying hope, only to dash it. 7 “How gorgeous you look!” Shobhita gawks at Aalo’s twin on the mirror, the benarasi clinging to her daughter’s body like a fabric of rose petals. For the first time, in years, she finds Aalo clad in a shade that isn’t white. Aalo glances at her reflection and adds a listless “hmm”. When Aakash left, his hasty feet yearning for foreign soil, she’d forsaken marriage to nurse her aging mother for the rest of her life. Also, when Aakash was craving for a life abroad, the coffers wouldn’t suffice. Knowing every father reserves much for a daughter’s wedding, Aalo had parted ways with her lover. But she’d promised herself she’d never wear anything but white. This, she’d observe as an enduring reminder of an unfulfilled desire, an unread chapter of her life. The world welcomes the former story, for humility, in its language, is more glorious than bravery. “A high bun goes best with sari,” Shobhita combs along the fine parting of Aalo’s hair, a meandering dry stream. The emptiness of the streak reminds her of how her daughter, a maiden, has lived like a widow, how a striking dash of vermillion could’ve altered the course of her insipid life had they insisted on her marriage. She grimaces and twists the hair into a bouncy dollop. “Something’s missing,” she says, primping the bun. Then, almost instantly, the spark in her eyes returns. “Wait!” she pats on Aalo’s shoulder, peers at the garden and totters out of the room.

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Aalo doesn’t stop her. The sound of dhaak fills the air with celebratory zest as colors tinge her monochromatic life. 8 Shobhita clutches a fistful of shiuli blossoms, the gift of Ashwin, from under a tree bursting in white. Most of them shall find abode, in all their divine glory, at the feet of Maa Durga, while some shall be studded into the waves of Aalo’s hair, like stars afloat in the night sky. As she walks to embellish her awaiting daughter, a sudden onset of nausea hollows Shobhita’s stomach. She slows down, measuring each step she puts forward. A familiar unease possesses her as she proceeds on wobbly feet, refusing to toil through the path ahead. When she arrives at the threshold, decimated and palpitating, Aalo darts her way to lend her shoulders. Shobhita gulps for breath like a fish on land, struggling to pour her soul out, unclasp the unspoken. And then they halt, her fluttering lips, her frenzied arms and the little mass pounding against her ribs. Aalo, wide-eyed in disbelief, watches her mother collapse close to her feet, releasing the confetti of blossoms on them. The sound of shankh aims for the sky, announcing bishorjon, the hour of departure. In paradise shall Shobhita live on, having offered the shiulis to her daughter, her own Durga, selfless yet never acknowledged.

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The Blue After the Rain Ume Aimen Tariq It all started on March 13th, 2020, when the pandemic officially struck. That day I stood on the balcony of my departmental building, taking selfies, cherishing the start of the last semester which was filled with promises. Promises of a proper goodbye. Promises of a better future. We were to have our last picnic of the year the next day. The very last picnic before we graduated, and our student life ended. Before everything became a very good dream. We stood there, bickering about what we’ll wear, where we’ll go (it was always Islamabad but where to go there?), things like that. Did you know then that everything was going to fall apart? That everything in our world was going to turn dark? I didn’t. 94

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I came home that day. I was all ready and excited for the next, pushing my mama to go shopping. I had to buy sneakers for my trip. We went out. Bought them, pink they were in color. We switched on the TV and there it was. Nationwide lockdown. No picnic, no trip. No goodbyes, no nothing. Just uncertainty and fear of the unknown. That was my first contact with disappointment and sadness, which would eventually become something permanent, at least for a year. I remember that the news endlessly reported people getting infected each day. We isolated ourselves even at home, not sitting close to one another. I yearned to hug my mother, to put my head in her lap. She was downstairs with Papa who used to go to work. While me and my little sister were upstairs in our room, having quiet lunches, breakfasts and dinners. Not daring to go downstairs. Not daring to have a glimpse of what was happening in the world. Time passed like a gush of wind. However, the uncertainty remained. Our final semester started. It lacked the usual riff raff, and hustle bustle. Instead of going to university, sitting in our classrooms with all the classmates, having discussions and jokes of all sorts, we shifted to the online way of education. It usually involved teachers droning on and on and the students just listening or falling back to sleep after joining the class. If a question was asked, someone would make an excuse about bad signals, others would just say that “their microphone was not working”. I remember taking every class, thinking: this is the last semester, if things kept on going this way, I might never be able to see my friends. Eventually, the day of finals came, which we had to take physically. We couldn’t experience the only picnic we are allowed at the end of the two years. Instead of a farewell, we exchanged cold inaudible goodbyes at the end of our online classes. Both teachers and students alike reminiscing about how it all used to be. How it all could be, if not for the pandemic. And just like that it was over even before we’d realized. I hugged every classmate I could find, hugging them tight, knowing it’d be the last time I could hold them unbothered by the social distancing rules. Some of them didn’t return the embrace in the same way. For them, this was just another day, just another end. I remember as I sat on the footpath wistfully, watching people around me head home, thinking that I would never see them again; that these buildings would never be the 95

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same without them, no matter how many times I returned to reclaim what this year stole from me. I remember on the last day of examination, I gathered a few friends and headed to a restaurant. I cherished each moment I spent there, having an out of body experience, thinking about the ways we might never see each other again. And I was right. That was the last day we all gathered as a family. The very next day, many of them started a job at some school as teachers. Some of them were getting ready for their upcoming nuptials. Some were busy convincing their boyfriends to send proposals. Having boyfriends is still pretty much taboo like same-sex relationships, extra martial affairs, going to brothels, drinking or drugs, losing virginity before wedding and the likes. They still happen under the wraps. As many things do. Virgil rightly says, “The descent into hell is easy.” My descent to hell was rather easy after graduation. I’d spend most of my time crying in my room where everyone would think that I was writing or having the time of my life. I had nothing. It was easy for many to move on with their lives, but I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that I was no longer a student. That I had to be mature, that I had to shed my skin and change into someone new. I was still struggling with the fact that I had grown up, that my innocence had been replaced with undeniable sadness, which for the life of me I could not get rid of. My novel was nothing but a coping mechanism. Something to keep myself busy with. I told my mama sometimes how I felt sad, incomplete somewhat, the loss of something I could not put a finger on. She told me to pray and to recite. Nothing helped. Deep in the clutches of depression. Crying myself to sleep almost every night. Hiding my tears from everyone but God. Thinking of the ways to get myself out of it all. Thinking of the ways I could run away or leave this world for good. There were good times when a gush of fresh air would help me breathe for a moment, but they too were discolored by the pandemic. I remember that other than writing, my coping mechanisms included cooking, grocery shopping and listening to Taylor Swift’s and Alec Benjamin’s new albums, building castles in my mind. Before my birthday on the 19th of June, I told everyone that I wanted a pizza from Jan’s Bakers, the special one with lots of cheese, olives, mushrooms, chicken and beef on top. My mother is not very keen on restaurant food because of its allegedly unhygienic nature and unnecessary expense. My 96

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brother suggested to make it at home and I almost started crying there and then on the dinner table. I wanted a day I could celebrate when I didn’t have to go through one of my coping mechanisms. When I could be just me. I tried communicating it in as little words as I could. They didn’t know what I was going through, that I had descended into the hell of my making, and it was taking all on me to get out of it. Most of the fall went in the same way. There was no improvement. The only good thing that did happen was that I was done with my novel. Other than that, it was all bad. My Uncle and Aunt got Covid-19. I took things lightly because everyone was getting Covid-19 and they were getting better. Until one night in December, I got a call from my brother saying that they had been shifted to the ICU. My heart sank but I had hope. They will recover, they had to. Things started to shift around a little in 2021 but the beginning was the worse. I lost my grandfather, which further pushed me downhill. And eventually I lost my Aunt. I remember my sister and I were at a wedding. My father came to pick me up. I kept chatting on and on about how the wedding was, how the bride looked, how the best men were showoffs. But I was met with an occasional “Hmm”. When we reached home, my brother took me and sister aside in the drawing room. He told us to sit down. I was expecting a lecture about how we didn’t care about social distancing or that we didn’t wear a mask to the wedding, which was not a custom, not at the weddings at least. Instead, he said, “Auntie has passed away.” My heart sank. It was as if someone had pierced it with a wooden splinter. The pain and the grief was like no other. I couldn’t stop myself from crying. My father kept saying that life has to come to an end one way or the other. Just be patient. My brother told me to stop crying and get a grip as we had to become strong for mama, like she’d always been for us. I hastily wiped my tears and went out in the lounge. Mama was sitting there in the shadows. She looked as if she had aged a hundred years in a single night. I checked her blood pressure; it was reaching the sky. We recommended her to go to the doctor, but she only asked for one thing. “Take me to her, I want to see her one last time.” It was eleven at night when they left home. Mama and papa wore N-95, my brother wore triple masks. My sister and I were left at home. At one in the morning they returned.

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We were not allowed to go to the funeral. Whenever mama asked to, my brother and father would only say one thing, “They went to the funeral and now it’s their funeral.” The story is that my Uncle’s brother died due to Covid-19. Whoever came to his funeral contracted the virus. Eleven people including my Uncle’s two other brothers and my aunt died. After two days, my Uncle followed suit. To say that their death and the death of my grandfather was a tipping point would not be wrong. Seeing my mother mourning her sister, my father mourning his father, me mourning the three of them, further pushed me downhill. We were all scared by the pandemic. Some scars were visible in people’s eyes, in their words, or deep within their hearts. Others remained invisible. Somewhere in between the deaths and the funerals, I applied for the Summer Institute. I applied half-heartedly knowing that the possibility of getting rejected was far high than getting accepted. I had applied previous years too, but I was rejected. This time, I decided to not think and talk about it to anyone. I already felt like a failure, and I didn’t want others to label me one. I had lost all hope. It was not only that—I missed them, I missed myself too. I had no idea who I was or where I belonged. In the shackles of life’s harsh realities, the only place I found solace was the world of my creation. My novel. I would lose myself in this other world, another version of myself who was much capable of handling the issues than I was at the moment. Who was strong, fierce, and knew the pain I was going through. Where I could go on adventures, fight demons, writing my way through Scotland without the need of a mask or a plane ticket. The world which had not only been a great source of escape but helped shaped me as a writer, gaining me a spot in the Summer Institute. I remember the day I got the email; I bowed my head in front of God and thanked Him for giving me the fruit of my patience. For helping me out from under the dark skies, from the storms that surrounded me all over. The rain finally stopped. It had to. Revealing the blue beneath. One I could recognize.

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The blue I was waiting for, for more than a year. The blue which helped me not only get through it all but paved the way for dazzling sunshine. Telling me that it might not be too late. That I might still have a chance. That I might just get through if I hold on a little longer. Just a little longer….

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Love is Not Lust Deepika Muniraja When your heart is running a marathon, and yearning for his touch, and the smell of his perfume awakens those butterflies, and your soul is held hostage by will, you cannot call it love. When his presence near you makes your scars beautiful, his smile assures your worth, and your quarrels turn you stronger, you know you are giving into love. He will take away your fears, Not spark them. He will keep his promises, Not break them. Every moment will be wise, Not wasted. Every choice will feel right, when love binds. You lose yourself to him, yet you are not lost. Lover and best friend He is both in one. When in pain he shares it with you 100

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When in trouble he solves it for you Yet he seems to build your independence. Love and lust Are different games. He does not seek your body, Instead, he desires the real you. A plastic and pretty face is not what he awaits, But the “one” his eyes searches for in the crowd, Though you are broken, bleeding and unadorned.

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A Profile of Bennett Sims Alia Myaner In the 7th grade, Bennett Sims made the transition from Goosebumps and Star Wars: Expanded Universe to Beowulf and never looked back.2 Specifically, it was Grendel, by John Gardner, that did it. Reading the retelling of an Old English classic from the perspective of the villain allowed him to experience, for the first time, an author that sounded like no one else but themselves. It blew him away. He could not understand why people would write in any other way, if they could write in one that’s uniquely theirs. 3 Time and experience have produced a new Bennett, adult and accomplished, never-the-same-river-ing through pieces of well-crafted, experimental writing. The joy at recognizing human consciousness in a turn of a phrase has yet to dim. Bennett Sims is an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa, teaching undergraduate and graduate writing.4,5 In his undergraduate degree at Pomona College, he studied English, and he got his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. This past semester he taught a seminar in the Nonfiction Writing Program about writing and imagining nonhuman consciousnesses, as well as an honors creative writing seminar for undergraduates. He enjoyed writing very early in his life. He liked connecting to interiorities and reading and writing good sentences.6 He decided he was going to apply for MFA programs because it would allow him to lead a life where he could continue to do the things he found pleasurable. Additionally, though he clarified he might be misremembering himself, he said he had also always wanted to teach.

Full-naming him feels odd. I am usually far more casual.

He phrased this differently.

Bennett and I talk over Zoom, and I am immediately thrown off—I asked if he was comfortable being recorded mostly as a courtesy, so I was not prepared when he said he’d rather I didn’t. I was worried about missing things this way, but I found myself more engaged than I had been in other, recorded interviews. 5

This is how I know him; I took three semesters of his classes in a row, and, to my initial surprise, grew attached.

Much of what is written here is directly taken from my notebook, which is directly taken from my subject, insofar as my pen could move and my mind could remember. 102

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Though his path was fairly direct, there were a few diversions—following his BA he applied to several publishing internships, all to no avail.7 Instead, he found work as a travelling parking attendant, which allowed him to devote about two years of mental energy to reading, writing, and applying for programs. He hopes to teach things that excite him, so that students, too, can see why a sentence works, and what makes it engaging or beautiful. In turn, teaching begets new forms of excitement that inform his writing: he teaches a seminar on writing nonhuman consciousnesses because when reading he finds “pleasure” in accessing how another human sees the world. In the same way, his current work is rooted in dual consciousnesses, as he endeavors to write a complete work by two separate authors, sending between them an ever-changing piece of writing. Demonstrably, the word Bennett uses to describe his connection to writing is “pleasure,” and what pleasure means, to him, is always changing. His earliest memories of finding pleasure in language were those moments when he noticed a metaphor or simile in normal life, novel descriptions of a sofa or a rug,8 that allowed him to see common items in a different light. Taste, he says, is everything. It is all subjective, and, at its core, what is pleasurable is simply what suits his taste. 9 The chronology of influence may be hazy, but the connections are clear as spiders’ silk. Afterall, influence is in itself a complex web, and yet another aspect of writing that is central to Bennett’s philosophy; he mentions Charles D’Ambrosio, Viktor Shklovsky, Louisa Hall, George Saunders, Thomas Bernhard…. It is unsurprising that years of his life have been dedicated to reading; his mind is seemingly encyclopedic, endlessly pulling references off of shelves. 10 Transitioning into a discussion informed by critical thought, characteristic of his teaching, he contextualizes his perception of literary pleasure; Russian formalist critic Viktor Shklovsky discusses estrangement or defamiliarization as a way to refresh life, arguing that routine phenomena become prepackaged, so one becomes blinded by habit 7

It is incredibly calming to know that someone like Bennett was rejected, too.

He mentioned only a sofa, but ending the sentence there felt unpretty.

There’s an endless, unsatisfying circle of questions to be had here, an ouroboros of inclinations.

On the second-to-last day of the first class I took with Bennett, Foundations of Creative Writing, I asked if we could bring snacks to the final day. His response began with, “You know, there’s a Kafka story….” 103

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and no longer recognizes the wonder of their daily life. Literary estrangement, therefore, gives us back our ability to truly see. As Shklovsky first put it, and Bennett oft repeats, “art makes the stone stony again.”11 It does not go unnoticed that one of the ironies of his talking about Shklovsky often is that, in doing so, his thoughts have become prepackaged. 12 As he puts it, his “thoughts about liveliness are in a sense dead.” He describes his current mode of writing as one which emphasizes process rather than progress, finding himself attracted to writers who write as a practice of mindfulness on a daily basis, rather than flailing into it. 13 Critical to this practice, as well, are his past selves, who are in turn crucial to how he perceives meaning in his work.14 Even a text by a single author is composed by different minds; every time a writer encounters their work, they’re a different consciousness. When asked if he views himself as a multiplicity of Bennetts, he answered, “I do.” The more he writes and revises, the more he says it feels like a collaboration with a future or different self. There is trust there, in that future Bennett, that he will figure out the words that are needed but not found in the present.15 He is “very conscious of [his] elder-ness to [himself]” when writing, though he clarifies that this is only when drafting a piece of work—he does not stop in the aisles of the New Pi Co-op, puzzling at the Bennett-past who authored his grocery list. 11

I began these interviews because I am entering the world amorphously, and it is here that I first felt a piece of comprehension form in my chest. 12

Bennett is remarkably well spoken, to the extent that I asked him how many of these responses he had given before—though he did not prepare soundbites for this interview, these are common conversations he has as a writer and professor, and I am of the impression that he naturally hones any phrase used more than once, “like a wave polishing a beach,” as he said George Saunders said. 13

I am not sure whether he said ‘flailing’ or ‘falling’ here. Whatever the answer, I am not yet the type of writer he admires. 14

There is no place like the footnotes of a feature on finding meaning in the practice of writing to emphasize that word choice matters, and so I would like to note that the verb I use to describe meaning is “construct,” which certainly affected the way I interviewed, the questions I asked, the words I recorded, and the narrative I assemble now. 15

It was at this point in the interview, now dissected and reassembled in new but aesthetically focused chronology, that I realized that inextricable to this piece and this writing process is the continual construction and reconstruction of not only my subject, but myself against them. I do not shy away from that. I am interested in footnotes, designating myself to this space. I have done it in a work before, and I feel comfortable here. 104

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It is perhaps more accurate to describe Bennet’s referential practice as selecting files from a computer than books from a shelf. One of the ways he describes the craft of writing is that “literature is the technology of transmitting consciousness.” Part of what he finds fascinating and beautiful about reading fiction is that in doing so, other consciousnesses become software within his mind: reading the work of another allows him to see through their eyes, their perspective becoming a filter for his own thoughts, alive in the mind.16 This recognition of other consciousnesses is also what makes literary criticism pleasurable to him: it defamiliarizes the primary document, presenting the work as seen through the critic’s mind. Teaching, too, adds satisfying complexity to framework. A creative writing classroom produces a marvelously unique setting, the discussion of a single text generating a complex fractal of consciousnesses; every thought, question, or critique uncovers pieces, minds of readers perceiving the mind of a writer, recognizing the minds of other readers doing the same. 17 Bennett becomes one point of conjunction in a lineage of minds—authors, students, critics—he comes into contact with. Before he had published any of his work, his conception of meaning in writing was different—“very existentialist,” he says, writing to preserve his consciousness, specifically his relationship to text, against death. He is not so existentialist now that he’s published, less because his relationship has changed and more because the fear is resolved18: enclosed in White Dialogues and A Questionable Shape are versions of Bennett that will themselves never change, though they certainly create novel relationships between the current and the preserved past selves. There is discomfort in discussing whether one has conquered an aspect of their fear of death. He clarifies that there are still “corners of [his] mind” that he wants to share before he dies. 19

Someone who has a better understanding of how computers work might say something about Computer Processing Power. 17

In my ‘Bennett-is-a-genius’-aligned mind’s eye, he’s adding hovering, holographic consciousnesses to his literary lockbox of a brain, eyes flittering in faint blue, intellectual genius on the fourth floor of the English Philosophy Building. 18

Following up on this idea felt like I was pushing, like I believed there was something ignoble in resolving a fear through achievement rather than intellectualizing yourself out of having it at all. 19

Share, here, seems pivotal; unlike words like “memorialize” or “preserve,” embedded in “share” is an act of communion. 105

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Though his concept of literary pleasure is, by necessity, fluid, one definitive facet is his affinity to form.20 As evidenced by his current dual-authored project, as well as his previous work, he is very interested in formal experimentation. In the past he has written entirely in block paragraphs, referential (of course) to Thomas Bernhard. Form is inseparable from content, because the paragraph style emulates the panic of the narrator. In this way, he explains, form can be viewed as a reflection of consciousness, 21 whether it be the narrator’s, the character’s, or the author’s. Further, this understanding of consciousness in literature as embedded in form can transform what at first appeared to be a paradox of taste into a gem of comprehension; of course Bennett Sims does not “understand people who prioritize content over form,” is in fact indifferent to content entirely! 22 Unlike form, content does not and cannot contain the human, at once unfamiliar and immediately recognizable, a puzzle with no final form.

I worry my question was leading. I, too, am most interested in form.

I don’t know how to express how transformative this idea was to me personally.

The gem I think of, specifically, is Fordite. Made by accident, only fit to be cut and polished after layer and layer of paint—artifice—form around one errant piece of matter. I learned about Fordite, once, as a child, and since then it has been the framework through which I understand how a person, and all their eccentricities, is formed. 106

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Photo by Robert Lemler. Incense

Mother’s Land Shahryar Hasnani Moving into a new house invites, among other things, many changes into one’s life. Most of these changes, however, are so small that they only become apparent after the fact. I had not realized, for example, that I would spend weeks trying to memorize my new address. I tried writing it all out. “Thirteen-oh-five Schuylkill Court, Redmond, Pennsylvania, Seventeen-one-oh-three.” I labored

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over the word Schuylkill. My thick tongue wasn’t yet used to the idiosyncrasies of this new patchwork language. I was still trying to hide the footprint of my own. I also discovered how easily things are lost in a new house. It is difficult to find objects when they too are still becoming acquainted with a nascent space. One late afternoon, I wandered near the end of a shelf that was usually occupied by an old incense holder—only that on this day, it was no longer there. I wouldn’t normally spend time looking for a misplaced ornament, but this specific one was a gift from my mother, one amongst the handful I chose as keepsakes from home. It was a thin gold pot with fine engravings embedded along the sides. In the center sat thin sticks of agarbatti. Once lit, they would flood the room with their prickly, sweet aroma. I never enjoyed the smell as much as I tolerated it, but my mother’s dogmatism demanded it. Like chai, the agarbatti starts with some semblance of purpose, but quickly devolves into routine, merely marking a certain point in time. Throughout my childhood, my mother indulged in both for no other reason than to delineate the end of the day and consume time. She would wake from her nap in the evening, wrap a scarf over her head, and start closing all the screen doors in the house to keep out the bugs. Satisfied with this self-assigned task, she could rest easy with her tea and the fragrance of incense. When I would step out of my room after finishing homework, there was a specific image I associated with this smell: my mother, legs folded, sitting on her plastic chair, sipping her tea while the television blared on beside her, eyes fixed nowhere exactly. I wish I could say that this began to occur after my father passed, but I knew truthfully that she had been following this procedure for many years before that. The exceptions to this pattern were events when guests came over. Then the agarbatti became a veil, a bulwark between what our family was and what it seemed like. Aunties and uncles would stroll through the house, internally making note of the discrepancies between fiction and our reality. My mother, when asked, would feign interest in my hobbies and would describe a livelier rendition of our daily activities. She’d look to me and I’d smile, and maybe we’d exchange a few vacant words in front of the guests. The aroma in the air was the most crucial piece of the decor. It was a sign that said yes, we have our shit together. Can’t you see? We don’t need your pity. I now paced around the kitchen in my apartment and looked through the cabinets to see if I had misplaced the holder. It didn't appear there either. Perhaps it had gotten lodged somewhere and 108

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I didn’t notice. I returned to the hallway and checked the shelf again, blindly sweeping my hands around. As I felt the familiar form in my hands, I breathed a sigh of relief. But when I pulled it out to examine it, there was nothing in my hands at all. I paused for a moment. Peeking my head back up to the shelf was useless—nothing there. Then I looked down to find my hand still heavy, still gripped around the contours of the object I knew so well. The incense holder was there, always had been, right there on the shelf and right here in my hand, but I wasn’t able to see it. It was simply no longer visible. I carefully placed it back and tried to stare at it for a moment, but there truly was no way to see it. At first it was easy enough to ignore, since it obviously was not visible to me. But soon I began to feel a tension in my spine, an inkling that everything was going to start disappearing. I started to meticulously check every part of my house, looking through every cabinet and cupboard, and noting down any occurrences. Most of my house remained intact, save for several loose items. Several days later, a few books vanished, as well as some small spice jars, and even the kettle started to slowly lose its opacity. I tried to let some months pass without thinking about it, but it pestered me, reminded me of home. I started to question what brought me here in the first place. It was not the pursuit of a dream, certainly. Neither was it a particular professional aspiration. I doubt that working in software at an insurance company was part of my high-school career plan. But working here was merely a means to an end anyway—a vessel to push me out of the world where my mother and I sat in stillness while waiting for the afternoon prayer before continuing our day, where my mother’s day entailed buying fruit, then looking at clothes, then passing by any number of relatives’ houses before resting at home to do it all again the next morning, the world where I spent time with friends whose lives were slowly decomposing into their own parents’ as well. These invisible objects pushed my doubt into certainty; I needed to bring my mother here. That world gripped her, pulled her down. Her touch, her words, her presence deserved a chance to fill this space instead. She lived just fine back home with the rest of her family, but she wasn’t with me. ~~~

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After onerous conversations and extensive paperwork, I was finally able to bring her here, starting out with a few months, and in all likelihood indefinitely. As I greeted her at the airport, she smiled and hugged me and kissed me and asked questions, real ones that weren’t prepared for spectators. While we drove back, she stared out of the window and absorbed the scenery. I supposed that it was a view she had only had once or twice in her life. When I looked at her, the grooves in her face had sunk deeper than I remembered. Her skin hung lower and it looked fleshier. Time passed faster when she was away. I settled my mother into my room, then moved my important belongings outside and prepared to get comfortable with my couch, at least until I could find a larger apartment. Occasionally I checked on the loose disappearing items to see if they were still there (they were). One or two more things around the house steadily lost their way to the invisible void, but for the most part, it seemed as though the process had reached its terminal point. I wondered if my mother could see them, but I never mustered the courage to ask. Sometimes when I came home from school as a child, I found the furniture and objects in my bedroom rearranged, merely because my mother wanted to make a change. This was how it felt to live with my mother again now—the pieces were all there, but had shifted ever so slightly, and I couldn’t pinpoint what position to move them back to. It was pleasant but it was a stage play, an imperfect recreation of our movements in the years before, as our responsibilities and positions had now shifted. I was no longer woken by my mother; rather, I found her awake for fajr prayer at sunrise when I would go for a run. She couldn’t tell me when to come home or when to leave; I was no longer at the behest of her arbitrary schedule. When we left the house, I led the way around; these streets were not the same ones at home imprinted on her skin and her memory. During her sacred evenings, I found my mother in the kitchen near the radiator, cupping her tea while huddled in her chair. There were no screen doors to close, nor were there any bloodsucking insects to keep out in this part of the world. I sat with her some nights when I wasn’t tired and told her about my day. I had far more to say than she did, but she also listened more than I ever did. Other nights after dinner we wouldn’t say much at all. I would just be there with her and that was it. I watched patiently and cautiously as my mother treaded the waters I had been wading in for some time now. She fumbled over words like I did, refrained from talking with strangers like I did, 110

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and seldom left the house just like I did. Those were trivialities for me to overcome, but they were tribulations for her to endure. Conversations became too daunting, so she’d shy away from speaking in public at all. Leaving the house had been part of her life’s rhythm, but without anyone to see or anything to get, she didn’t have much reason to step out. More and more, I could hear her breath quicken, her joints ache, her eyes wilt. As weeks came to pass and even months trawled by, I started to see friends from work and even friends of those friends more often. My schedule in the evenings became even more sporadic. Eventually I even decided to bring some of them to my own home, and I introduced them to my mother. She only spoke with them briefly, but I was gratified that she spoke regardless. My friends mentioned a nearby state park that I hadn’t yet been to, and insisted I take my mother there. The next weekend, spring’s warmth had just begun trickling into the air as we drove into the park. We walked up a trail that cut deeply into a forest, running beside a winding stream. The path slowly made its way upwards towards the crest of a hill, and as we scaled it, my mother leaned on me for support. Trees cleared out of the way at the top, leading to a clear view of the lake at the bottom of the park and a swath of green pushing up against the horizon. I sat down and caught my breath, but my mother stayed up for a few seconds, surveying everything around her. The sunlight was at its peak, flowing down through to us. She muttered words under her breath, cupped her hands and tilted her head to the sky with her eyes closed. In this instant, I wondered if I had thought of her too harshly before. Her motions were unknown to me, but then again, sometimes that world was too. Night was coming upon us once we reached home. I stood in the shower, closed my eyes, and tilted my head upwards. When I came out and changed, there were faint whispers of some familiar fragrance lingering around. Downstairs in the kitchen was my mother, facing away towards the window, gazing outside with a cup in her hand. I took a deep breath and engraved this image in my mind, then came up behind my mother and embraced her. She said nothing, but held my arm. We scheduled a flight back for her the next week. The night before she left, I gathered all of the disappeared items I could find and wrapped them in a shawl before placing it in one of her suitcases. We parted as we had first united, with a few words, some hugs and kisses, and a sense of indefiniteness. I was upset that she left to go back there because I wouldn’t be able to see her, but then again, it would be better than having her here and not being able to see her. 111

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Art by Eleen Raja

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We Create Gods to Ruin us Eleen Raja ‫ایسےنصیبکاتصور ہینہیںکیاتھا‬ ‫جب راویکیلہروں میںاپنوںکالہونظر آۓگا‬ (Such a fate was never considered When the blood of our loved ones would be seen mixed with the waves of the Ravi) Tread lightly upon the eggshells of history and what it presumes you to be A burden, a nuisance, or a collateral for the hopes of their children and the worship of mortals immortalized through a blood that reeks of a stench survived by those who share your blood. To be interwoven with a conscience eternal to a skin that taints an era, with the living earthed beneath a debris more fertile than the soil they sowed with a brotherhood that reaps a betrayal more earnest than the tongues that learnt each other’s pleasantries. ‫لکہ مرکر آۓ ہیں‬ ‫موتکے منہلگتےلگتےنہیںب‬ ‫تھ�یں ہیں‬ ‫آزاد ہوکربھی آزادیکیتمناسا‬ (We did not just graze the mouth of death, but we emerged after dying Still, we utter our desire for freedom after being declared free.) Our Gods may differ, but they create all that belongs, And what belongs creates; Hollowed wombs birthing sunken hearts, 113

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sunken heads in hands coarse with denting graves in a land bathed by the urns shattered at your shrines. Fateful is the other, who makes homes out of ruin and lives to see their ruin. Devanagari or Urdu, we confess through each other’s words on parchments drenched with tears more than ink. In due time our roads and monuments will speak of names burnt on a land mapped by a pale flesh we deemed more holy than your father’s corpse which sheltered their sons. ‫ای ک ایسا زوال جسکو عروجکیکوئی خبرنہتھی‬ ‫ای ک ایسیتاریکی جسےصبحکی روشنیکیکوئی امیدنہتھی‬ (A fall that knew of no such thing as a surge A darkness that had no hope for the dawn’s light) Your saints hailed an Omnipotent who exhaled you from the crevices of his light, But swore to veil the shadows of your atrocities he had to inhale. Your dignity willed a fire for blistering Manto’s profanities, but the pages were doused in a liquid courage which seared through your vile hypocrisies. His perseverance was his demise, the gore of glory will be yours. And now you’ll see why we create Gods to ruin us; in a world that runs on draining liquors all but to appease a sober guilt.

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Image from online source selected by author

That Eventful Night Sharmila Senthil I was pacing like a mad man, walking up and down the hallway. I glanced at the grandfather clock —it was five o'clock in the evening. I had only an hour and a half left to get ready. I made a couple of phone calls before I jumped into the shower. Tonight, there was no room for messing up. It must be perfect. Speaking about perfect, I tried out every outfit in my closet to find the right one for the occasion, and after a few hours, I settled for a new blue suit. I also decided to shave and get myself a new haircut from Bessel and Bunkers. I was all ready. I had half an hour to go and I had no idea what to do. I picked up a Vogue magazine, skimmed through the pages I had seen a dozen times by now. It was the only thing I could do to kill time. 115

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Finally, I made my way to the porch. I knew that this was a huge step in my life and that a little bit of peace would be of some good. I watched the scene before me, as I counted the rise and fall of the tide. A few couples lingered on the beach, either playing in the teasing blue waters or simply watching the rise and fall of the tide. The sun dipped low, kissing the horizon. I knew there would be more days like this, full of peace and eternal beauty. When I came back to the hall, I noticed that it was six-twenty p.m. I had to get going. I grabbed my car keys and hopped into my car. Crystal's house was only a few minutes away. Every turn came naturally. I have travelled these roads a million times and I knew them by heart. I pressed the doorbell and waited patiently. I watched the moths flutter near the light, trying to concentrate on anything but the nervous feeling in my stomach. The door opened and Mr. Hutchinson looked at me like I was here for the first time. Mr. Hutchinson is Crystal's father. He is a bald, patriotic man and would rather watch President Trump on TV than talk to an outsider. But when he does he talks about his love for the nation and what a wonderful man John F. Kennedy was. He would often tell me, "Get into politics, it would do you good." Otherwise, he remained silent and once in a while questioned me about how things worked, like the coffee machine. "Evening, sir," I said, though he did not look pleased to see me. "It is going to be a hell of an evening," he said, his voice lower than usual. "So you are taking Crystal out...huh?" he continued. "Yes, sir, I am," I replied, ignoring his tone as a mere reflection of his character. "So...I want you to know that…." He started his usual advice but this time I was not listening. I looked past him at Crystal. She was making her way down the stairs. She was in a low-cut red dress, which showed off her breasts. The slit along her thighs revealed the clear glow of her caramel thighs. Her untamed curls waved down her shoulders the way I always liked it. She smiled at me before she kissed her dad goodbye. "So you are ready?" she asked, like she knew what was going to happen already. I nodded and led her to the car. The drive was long but the silence was longer. But it was not the awkward kind. I sort of liked it.

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We were hours away from the city. The buildings running along the roads were now replaced with trees and forests. I breathed in the fresh air the town offered and when I exhaled, I said, "I am going to stop here." She just smiled at me and nodded. I love the way she went along with whatever I did. I knew she trusted me enough to do so. I parked the car near the eucalyptus forest. We stood there holding each other for a couple of minutes. "I am nervous," she said finally. "Don't be. I am sure they will love you." "I hope so," she said, her arms tightening around me. I pressed a kiss on her head. I was nervous too. Not that my family was mean to strangers, but the fact that Crystal was new made me unsure of how they would treat her. I held her hand and walked into the forest. She did all the speaking. She spoke about how her brother was doing at Northwestern University and how she had to go to the veterinarian five times this week to get some vaccines for her Golden Retriever. She was nervous, I could tell. She was constantly pulling at the strings on her purse and was biting her lower lip when I responded to her stories. I raced my palm along the wall that bordered the forest. This place reminded me of the times when my sister and I made it our secret hideout spot. It was our only way to escape house responsibilities. The wall was an important part of our relationship. It was something we discovered ourselves. It was covered with ivy. Now, Crystal was talking about her new neighbor when suddenly I was swallowed by the wall. "Dylan…Dylan are you okay?" she cried, her voice of full panic. "Crystal, do you trust me?" I asked, smiling from the other side, aware of the fact that Crystal did not know that there was a human size hole in the wall and that it was covered with ivy. "I do...but." I stuck my hand out through the ivy and the hole in the wall. She grabbed it and before she knew it, I pulled her through, and into my arms. "Keep your eyes closed," I said, my voice almost a lost whisper in the wind. "Is something wrong?" she asked, concerned. 117

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I pressed a kiss on her shoulder, her neck, and finally her ear before I whispered, "No, darling. We are here. We are home." She opened her eyes. And I was content with her reaction. This was all I was waiting for. "Is this your family?" "Well, you said you wanted to meet my family. These are the people I consider as family." I pointed to the large crowd near the towering bonfire. She stood there in my arms and did not make a move, clearly in shock. "You will be just fine,” I said, pulling her toward my family. “They are going to love you." ~~~ The event was set up exactly the way I imagined. Mom had the steaks going with a couple of my aunts. Dad was talking to my friends about the basketball game from the night before. Brian and Cassie, my siblings, handed out drinks. And Brian's partner Conner was the DJ for the night. I wanted Crystal to meet everyone. Cassie was the super extrovert out of the three of us. She loved having people over and was always making friends. It would be a surprise to know that someone in town was unaware of her whereabouts. She was the first to notice that we’d arrived. She ran across the huge lawn and into my arms. She pulled away, scanned my face and said, "Don't tell me you took the short cut and brought her through the wall." I don't know how she found out, but I nodded sheepishly. "I would be lying if I said no," I said, a shameless smile across my face. "Stop it, Cassie!" Mom's voice came from behind Cassie. Cassie stepped back, her arms up like she was standing in front of a cop. Mom embraced me. "Darling I am so happy that you planned this." I hugged her, facing Cassie. She made a vulgar gesture I chose to ignore before she acknowledged Crystal's presence. Mom pulled Crystal away. "Leave Crystal to me. I will show her around. Don't you worry. She will be okay."

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She pointed at my father before leading Crystal towards the girls' group. Crystal turned around, my Mom's hand still firm on her arm. I gave her an apologetic look and waved until she looked away. "Man…what’s up?" Drake asked, pulling me towards his chest. Drake was my best friend from high school. He was the playmaker of The Royal Crown (our basketball team in high school). I high fived the others, grabbing a Coke as I joined the group in a casual conversation. "So, is she here?" Dad asked, placing his hand over my shoulder. He was a casual man that knew very little about being a dad. He talked to me like we were classmates in Kindergarten. He was different from all the fathers I knew. But I guess that just made it easier for me in many ways. "Nice suit, Dylan," one of my friends said. I murmured a thank you. I usually do not get compliments, so I was trying to find something to say in return. But before I could come up with something, Dad broke the unnoticed silence. "He has a better style since Crystal," he said. "For prom, he showed me a shirt that said Vampires Rule and thought that it would go well with khaki pants." I looked down trying to hide my embarrassment. "My partner liked me in khaki," I replied. "Sure, she would have liked a bald and naked guy," my father joked. "Doesn't mean you lose your sense of dressing." He smirked. Everyone laughed and I bowed, taking a good minute to look at myself. Indeed, my fashion had upgraded since Crystal happened. Reminded of Crystal I looked around and caught her eye. She smiled at me and waved. I waved back, but before I could get her response, my sister pulled her aside to introduce her to another one of her friends. In the next few hours, I met my classmates and a couple of family members. They had all flown in from Canada to attend this event. I only mentioned it a couple of times and they insisted that they come. It was important for them to meet the woman that will potentially become my wife. Hours later, we all gathered around the fire. Our s'mores were ready and mom joined in as we sat around the circle sharing our "talents". Conner had an unbelievable talent for beatboxing. I knew that I should have not expected anything less from a DJ. Cassie was excellent at the guitar and sang a few songs. She urged Crystal to sing along. Crystal was enjoying herself, her face bright and attentive 119

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as she listened to Cassie rattle about the club down the street. She looked so beautiful and I knew that we would have many more nights like this, just me and her. She tucked a few strands of stray hair behind her ear. I smiled to myself, imagining myself doing that, imagining myself running my hands through her hair. She looked my way. I froze, my heart beating fast. I looked away and tried to join a conversation but failed. Everyone was talking to one person or the other and I had no choice but to look back. And when I did, she raised an eyebrow, silently asking "What?" I nodded simply, signaling "nothing". She smiled, her rich, red lips curving upwards. I cursed under my breath. She loved it when I admired her secretly and enjoyed teasing me when she caught me doing it. "You are no less than a teenager," she would say. I didn’t take it as a compliment. The evening was closing in. A few stars were already insight. The group was still singing and sharing stories. Little did I know that they were going in a certain order. When Cassie said, "So, Dylan, I guess it is your turn now," I stared at the audience. Me! I knew nothing about talent. Well, I could play the piano, but there was no piano available. "Me! No! I will pass," I said. "Come on, Dylan, show us something!" Conner yelled, the rest of the group cheering in unison. I looked at Crystal. She tilted her head slightly, urging me to please the crowd. "Show us something," she said, echoing Cassie's words. I waited for something…but nothing came. I had nothing to share. I leaned back against the tree. I ran my hands through my hair trying to come up with something. It was a low indecipherable whisper at first, but the words became clearer as everyone chanted. It took a while before I registered them. "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" I opened my mouth in shock and glared at Cassie. This must have been her idea. She shrugged and chanted a little louder. "No, come on guys. That is no talent." The chanting became softer as Cassie exclaimed, "It sure is a talent, isn't it?" The crowd agreed in a roaring cheer. I looked at Crystal as she walked towards me.

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I would kiss her every minute, every hour, and every day, but not with these people watching. Crystal and I had never been so public as a couple. When Crystal was a few inches away, the crowd watched in delight as she pulled me by the shirt, wrapping her hands around my neck. In response, I held her hips. She pulled me close, her lips hard on mine at first, and then, with much more passion and love. I ran my hands through her hair as I imagined. The crowd gasped at the sight. I did not give them more than a few minutes to feast their eyes. I shifted Crystal, pinning her to the tree trunk, blocking the view as I kissed her back. The crowd sighed in disappointment. I remained there as long as the kiss lasted.

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The Broken Mirror Gulalay Behzal She was born in Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, the combination of two rich bloods enriching her in many ways. Her mother an intelligent, beautiful young lady, in her early twenties, and her father a multi-talented, self-made and God gifted personality. It was a blessing and a curse at the same time being born in such a family. Her father in his late thirties was a man of thoughts and actions; in his life, there was no scope for feelings and emotions to such an extent that even unknowingly he deprived a lot of people surrounding him, who greatly longed for his love, attention, and compassion. It was ten p.m. when Sarah’s father entered the room, kissed her on the forehead, and gave a short glance to her mother who was having Sarah lean on her arm. Tayyeba wanted to stop him and tell him something, but couldn’t bring up the courage to talk to him. Ahmad had spent his entire life after the age of seventeen abroad enjoying his wealth and privilege, even after marriage, to the extent that he forgot his limits. Tayyeba was very beautiful and social. She was haunted by the mixed feelings of grief and fear. How would she spend her life with such a wayward person, how could God do something like that to her. On her wedding night Tayyeba waited for three hours. Ahmad, intoxicated, entered the room, not giving a second glance to his bride, changed his clothes and fell asleep. This was the first time in her life that she was ignored by someone. The one she had to spend her whole life with. Time passed. Tayyeba convinced herself that it was her duty to compromise. She did everything to change Ahmad by her love, but every attempt resulted in worsening his attitude. Now, it had been one year and two months since he left. He’d left the room confident and determined and didn’t look back. Ten years passed and nobody saw this face again. He was gone. Tayyeba used to fill her emptiness and the silence of the room with the cackles of her baby. By caressing Sarah, playing with her, time passed. When Sarah was about seven years old, her mother, stroking her brown silky curls, used to tell her, "My love! I will give you all happiness which I have lacked. I’ll never let a tear come in your eyes. 122

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I’ll let you take the decisions of your life yourself unlike my parents who handed me over to your father like they were getting rid of a burden." Sarah was silent. She didn’t know how to respond because a part of her was so empty and so discontented, it seemed as if none of her mother’s words consoled her. Anyway, she let it go. From her childhood Sarah had a strong intuitive sense. The older she grew the more rebellious and stubborn she became. Being a single child, she got everything a person would long for. In the presence of so many things she was feeling the absence of a very important thing that was like water and sunshine to a plant, the absence of love and attention. One day she met the love of her life. First she admired, loved, and then obsessed over him. Then his absence started gnawing at her. She was restless and couldn’t decide what to do. One day, stirred by the feeling of loss, she felt a stream of tears flowing down her cheeks. She did not want to cry but her heart overflowed. How helpless she was today. It was only her creator who could hear and answer without misunderstanding and judging her. She ensured hundred percent attendance throughout the school session. It seemed impossible for her to stay at home when he was in college. Though she couldn’t see him, the feeling of his presence in the same building was enough to console her. Two years passed. The session was over. They did their Inter and parted. Now she would never see him again before her eyes. It was the only place where they met and she couldn’t accept the reality. She had strange dreams of going to college and visiting each and every place that had some connection to him. She visited his Facebook profile several times a day, scrolled through his posts and every memory of him made her so nostalgic. She was getting mad. Months passed, but she got no news of him. One day she made up her mind to contact one of his friends, whom she had talked to once in her life. At first her heart was beating crazily. She was overcome by nervousness and fear of talking to someone, a boy, his friend. But the idea of knowing about his well-being overclouded all her fears and apprehensions.

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She was making the greatest mistake of her life. Before this, she had encountered many boys welcoming her warmly but she accepted none. But today she texted his friend Ali, for the sake of her love. The first time she talked to him she felt a bit nervous. "Assalamualaikum, I’m Sarah, do you know me?” she texted. To her amazement, she got a prompt reply, "Walaikum Salam, yes I do know you. How are you doing Sarah?" She was amazed to see a first male interaction that had been such a good encounter for her, as she had a very cold experience with males, be it her father or her beloved. They started talking on a daily basis, formal conversations slowly becoming personal. Now she became more confident and determined than before. She lost all her fears, all her senses in fact. Now his words felt good, even better than the presence of the person she had loved crazily. These feelings were so strange; a girl who had always seen the aversion and hate of her beloved was being treated so warmly, so gently. His words started healing her. One day, realizing how much seducing and deviating he was for her, she made up her mind to give up. She gave a final try to her beloved, in the hope that he would understand. This time he was even ruder than before. He didn’t only hurt her ego, her feelings, but gave her such a blow that she couldn’t get up again until she got support. She opened her messenger and suddenly received a message. It was Ali. From one side broken so badly and from other side being treated so warmly, she found her feelings drifting towards Ali. She was like a wounded sparrow that he had picked and healed by his warmth and words so magical. Women prefer to stay in the dark because they cannot bear the direct light. She spent every day flirting with him, crossing all the limits and boundaries of civility and morality. Now the girl who got nervous by looking at the picture of her beloved, the one who had never stopped for any guy standing in her way, the girl who used to be the symbol of innocence and morality, lost her shame, her fears. Now nothing was like before, neither her, nor the situations. A lot of times she cursed herself, crying in front of her creator for how and when she underwent such a negative transformation. Now she stopped praying, started listening to music. Now talking to any boy wasn’t a big deal; now it was customary for her. Her mother had once scolded her, when she told her about going out with her friends after pack-up time from college, which was a great deal for girls in Pakhtunkhwa covering distances without any elder or a male. Her mother had told her, "It’s hard to 124

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take the first step out of home, once it’s taken then no fear, no shame is left." She realized she had taken the first step and now everything was over. She had to become the way Ali was because she couldn’t lose a second love. Why didn’t God save her from such filthy people? Why didn’t she get someone who accepted her with her innocence? Why did everybody play with her feelings? She became the way he wanted her. Suffocated by such an immoral and filthy relation, one day she decided to have some distance from him. She made up her mind not to text him until he did himself, to restore her dignity, her honor and her lost self-worth. Days passed, no message came from him. His absence was so annoying and so hurtful that she used to get infuriated by silly things. Everything seemed so worthless, so meaningless like her own existence, without him. She wanted to scream and shed all her heartache in tears. She couldn’t sleep for the whole night and wept for hours. It was three o’clock at night. She jumped to her feet, had ablution and prayers. She cried before her creator to change the reality, or grant her the strength to face the reality. She picked up her phone to switch on the flashlight, suddenly she got a message from Ali. She cried with gratitude as if God had answered her prayers. After so many hours and days of unrest, she slept peacefully that night, with the feeling that he valued her somehow and that was enough. The story doesn’t end here…. One day, all of a sudden, she asked him a question, a question that brought an end to the battle she was fighting within and out since their encounter on Facebook. "Is our union impossible?" she asked him. He took a long pause and then replied reluctantly. "Yes, due to some reasons, we cannot have future." “What reason?” she said as if still hoping for something. “So what! You can own me. We’ll keep our love a secret. I shall live my life alone with your love in my heart. I won’t disturb your life. I just want the sense of your existence and that’s enough!” “You can live like this, but I can’t. Do you understand! You are only a friend of mine, and that’s enough! Never talk about marriage again,” he shot back. "I’m committed to someone and I can’t cheat on her because I love her," he said.

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She was shocked by hearing the word "LOVE" from a person like him. How could he claim to love someone, when he had already been in relation with several girls and have been dating so many of them. "Love doesn’t only mean owning someone. Sometimes for the sake of one, you have to forsake many. Loving many people at the same time is shirk, bringing a third in the circle of love." "Some hearts are like a mosque, holy, and sacred. They host only one love, love of God, and some hearts are like a temple, filthy, hosting numerous idols, idols of wealth, idols of temptations, and some worship human idols. You can never build a mosque on a temple. You have to tumble all the idols to host God in it. That’s how a broken heart connects you to God. Once Moses asked God, ‘Oh God where do you reside?’ The answer came, ‘Oh Moses! I’m so mighty that, it’s not the Arsh or Farsh that occupies me. I live in the broken heart of a human.’” "I was a mirror spotless and vulnerable. I gave a very beautiful reflection of you, and you broke me into pieces. Never try to pick them because they will only hurt you, no matter how much you try to join my pieces, you will always find cracks in it." These were her last words to him. She blocked his number, switched her phone off, and broke into tears.

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His Language Amama Bashir She, from what my semi-child brain guessed: mid-twenties, stood at Pont Alexandre III, constantly shaking her head as if disagreeing to something. To everything. To life. Exactly like it happens in Bollywood movies; right before the main character has a revelation that changes everything for them, resolves the big conflict and ta-da, happy ending! The only difference was she seemed to be rejecting every thought, every idea. I…. I felt stuck there, sick of my parents arguing over my future, trying to find a distraction so their voices would stop making sense and sort of just blend in the background. I was fascinated. I took a few steps forward, had a quick glance at her; her dark, straight hair, her tear-stained face, her red nose, her black outfit, brown boots, her vulnerability; the chaos, the confusion. She seemed so composed yet she seemed like the definition of helpless. In both Karachi and Lucknow, it would have been completely normal to walk up to her and ask, “Everything okay, didi? Kheriyat?” In Paris, I did not know what to do, just what not to do: Exactly that. What happened to you? I thought. Never act like you don’t understand what it’s about. Don’t act like you don’t know. That’s how you learn, dad says. “You should be at Pont des Arts, doing that lock thing, you know?” I took a wild guess. She laughed, still weeping. “Says a 13 year-old boy,”she said, examining me, head to toe; stopping to stare at my Morphology notes, adding: “Who is being forced to study linguistics because of a linguist parent.” “Woah! ‘You’re good,” I said, staring at the water below. “I know.” For a smol woman like her, the look in her eyes was piercing. You would expect someone fragile-looking to be more…gentle. “You were about to jump?” I joked, mentally preparing a speech on how it would not kill her and how embarrassing that would be, in case she said yes. She nodded; her head turned away from me this time. “You are so predictable,” I said. We both laughed. “What did you love about him?” I hoped I wasn't crossing a line. 127

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“There was so much,” she replied, after a long sigh, after shaking her head. “One thing?” “His language.” Her eyes were even more teary yet she was smiling for the first time. “He…” she began to say only to suddenly stop and look away to weep like a baby. I thought she would not be able to. Not that soon. “He…his full stops would annoy me so much,” she said, laughing, as if she could relive the moment she was talking about. Whatever moment it was. I did not know, but she did. “There was this one time when I cried, thinking how stubborn he was. He says what he says and there’s no way you can change his mind, I thought. Nothing can be changed in what he has said. Nothing can be added when a sentence has a full stop. There were way too many full stops.” She stopped again, just to sigh. “I was wrong,” she said, not looking away this time, shaking her head. She seemed even smaller in that moment. Even more helpless. “He was just…” she stopped. “He just knew what he was talking about.” “Precise,” I tried to sum it up. “Hopeless,” she corrected me, laughing this time. She looked so happy… and sad. I did not know what to make of it. “He never used maximizers. There was no very, so, really in his speech. He said what he said.” “I know what maximizers are.” She smirked. “Aren’t they important though? How do you know the intensity of what someone feels unless they use maximizers?” She shook her head again. For someone who disagreed as often, her humility was surprising. She was very humble. “When you say the night was so long, you imply that it was something else too. Like it was long and sad and painful. When you say the night was long, you imply its length was all there was to it. We use maximizers so often that they have in a way become minimizers. Words lose their meanings…the way we use them.” “So his were not empty is what you are saying? That he meant what he said?”

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She shook her head, laughing again. She inhaled as much air as her lungs could allow. It seemed like she was in pain. But she did not seem sad about it now. “Yes,” she said. “And no. Sometimes his sentences would end at ‘magar’. Sometimes ‘magar’ would be the entire sentence.” “When you add but, the first half of the sentence is canceled out,” I said, too excited for someone whose parents' only concern is that they do not want to study linguistics. “So it’s like there were no sentences at all?” I said. “Yet they meant everything. He did not know how to sugarcoat things…. He rarely used big words. He used the word ‘perfect’ just twice the entire time we were together. And ‘pure’ just once. But when he did say them…haaye. When he did say them, they would leave their print. I would relive that one moment God knows how many times. He did not say it often and that was how I knew that I could trust it, completely.” While the rest of us worshipped language, thought it was the only way to save a moment, to convey meaning, he believed ‘words can be manipulated easily’.” She quoted him dramatically, suddenly sad again. “Language is arbitrary,” I agreed, hoping she wouldn’t laugh at my interpretation again. She did not. “And subjective,” she continued. “He never said obviously.” There was a lightness in her smile this time. She closed her eyes and inhaled again. “Of course,” we said together, both laughing. “Sometimes when I told him to say a particular thing nicely, he'd act like everything meant what it meant even with multiple layers of sugar coating. So he'd just say tomayto tomahto.” “Because he knew it made no difference?” “No. He could be a bitch sometimes,” she said, lovingly. As if she loved that he could be a bitch sometimes. I look at her and she was still laughing. Nostalgic. “He once told me I was acting a particular thing. I didn't know if it was a bad thing or a good thing. I got quiet.... “In the good way,” he added then. “He said the; not a.” “What's the difference?” “The implies there was just one right way of doing it. I felt so relieved I was doing it the good way.” “It’s not bad, you realize?” she said. “Your situation?” 129

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“No, that is as bad as it can be,” she laughed, giving me a look that reminded me I was just fourteen. “Your dad wanting you to study linguistics.” Before I could ask how could she tell, she began to say: “The way you looked exhausted rather than fascinated. For someone who knows Hindi, English, and French, all three, you did not seem the least bit interested. Your parents, however, in the background…their vocab is so rich. So cool.” “How do you know?” “Well Hindi…actually no, that's racist. English…well, you are speaking English right now. French, I know because your parents keep switching from French to English and French, but I'd have figured out anyway.” “How?” “Hey, I know all about rich desis, okay?” she joked. “Your shoes. A small but expensive store. Not a chain, a single store; they don't have a single English-speaking salesman there. Remember this while studying someone: Even the air around someone is part of the language they speak.” She sounded like my dad. And she sounded so different. “How do desis find other desis in such big crowds?” I was not expecting an answer. “Oh, boy.” “Where did you meet him?” “Sasta Paris.” We both started laughing. I shook my head for the first time. How can someone so sad be so full of life…of life and hope. “So how did he—” I stopped, unable to find a word. A softer word. “How did he die?” I finally asked her. She froze there, not just her face turned towards me but her entire body. Her hands were no longer gripping the bridge. She stared at my face, not blinking as if I had given her something. Or taken something away from her. She…it felt as if…I don’t know. She took a step forward and hugged me with all the strength in her body. “Thank you.” She kissed my cheek. Her shadow disappeared in the crowd. Behind me, my parents had stopped arguing. “I am ready,” I said, walking up to them. “Take me to Lahore.” My voice was obviously impatient. 130

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Dad smiled at me. The kind that I had stopped hoping for: he was proud of me. “For the subject or the observer?” he asked me. “I don’t know. I don't even know the difference anymore.”

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Image from online source selected by author

Saving Shirts Ami Bhansali

It is almost mid-June in Mumbai. It’s mid-June everywhere in the world, technically. I know how time works (not really) but it means something else here, in Mumbai. Four different news channels warn of cyclones, but we make plans anyway. In a middle class home, the monsoon game is: “Save the shirts.” We hang our clothes to dry on our windows and balconies and terraces, and then, as soon as it starts to rain, we run to take everything down; we hang all the damp clothes indoors then. The house smells of monsoon. It’s not as though we aren't prepared. 132

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We know it is going to rain; we just think it will happen a little later. Just maybe, on one monsoon day, the science of precipitation will pause on its path and let the clothes of Mumbai’s middle class dry. It’s the season of anticipating the obvious. After one such chase, my mother declared that it’s the perfect weather for some piping hot tea. Typical. I said I’d love that too. Of course, if I’d love that, I’d have to make it. To refuse to make tea for your family is a brown daughter sin. So I’m in the kitchen watching the tea boil. When I’m watching the tea boil, I like to think about the fact that nobody loves me and maybe nobody ever will and I will die alone and I won’t even be able to get cats either because I’m allergic. The tea boils and spills onto the stove. This would’ve been a well-placed metaphor of milk and my mind’s contents spilling out but here, right now it only means that my mother might kill me. Never think of your infinite loneliness when your tea is boiling. Now, I’m unloved and cleaning the stove. From the living room, my mother yelled, “You spilled tea, didn’t you?” How did she know and why did she have to yell so much? “You know, the other day I saw this person put Old monk in his tea,” my mother yelled. I came out with two cups of steaming hot tea. “Why are you watching old Buzzfeed videos? And what are you suggesting?” I said. “I know you have some in your cupboard.” “What?” “Rum.” “Rum? Who? Me?” 133

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“Don’t lie to me. I saw it the other day.” “Why did you open my cupboard?” “Because you never put your clothes inside.” My mother believes in at least twenty-one million out of our thirty-three million gods. And in animal reincarnations of said twenty-one million gods. But she doesn’t believe in privacy. Do I lie to her face now? Or do I just accept the fact that I hide cheap alcohol in my underwear drawer? “Okay first of all, it’s not rum. It’s whiskey in a rum bottle.” “Why do you have whiskey in a rum bottle?” “Why did you marry your husband?” “You make such bad tea. You don’t even let the water boil. What’s the hurry? Why can’t you wait for the leaves to take color?” “So what now? Do you want to put Old monk in it?” “Go get it,” my mother said, sounding way more serious than I was ready to believe. “What? Really?” Okay, then. It was really happening “Get it baba, go.” “But it’s raining and papa might come back home.” “He just left so it might take a while and how long does it take to drink?” My mother clearly didn’t know how alcohol works. It was just the two of us, that gloomy afternoon. It’s mostly just the two of us on any afternoon. In the afternoons, she likes to laze around in the living room and play forwarded videos on full volume. Or take a nap on the couch. Or call and catch up with some random friend from college, where she was apparently cool and had friends. Or on rare days, she’d watch something about one of her twenty-one million gods. She doesn’t have to know their names to believe in them. She is not religious; she is just scared. 134

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She takes up more space that afternoon. Could drinking whiskey be her new afternoon activity? I was curious about my mother’s sudden interest in alcohol. Also, I lied. I’m not allergic to cats, I just don’t want any animals in my house. The fewer the number of living beings dependent on me, the better I will live, I think. “We don’t really have any mixers. How will you drink?” I asked my mother. “How do you drink?” I pour some of my cheap whiskey in a steel glass. Some water and some ice. As far as I know, my mother had drank only once before in her life, wine at my cousin’s Christian wedding when my grandmother turned the other way, probably to talk to the nearest old person about how kids today were marrying outside not just caste but the entire religion. “It might be bitter.” Before I could completely warn her about how much the whiskey was going to burn her throat, she had chugged the entire thing. For the longest time I had dreaded becoming like my mother. She lived in the same city her entire life. Stayed in the same house with the same man her entire married life. The man she loved, in the same caste, class and city. What is the point of loving if it’s not bold? I bet no grandmother gossiped with the nearest old person about my mother at her wedding. And now, watching her day drink, I wondered, is she becoming like me? “I need to tell you something,” my mother said. “I just needed some courage to tell you that, I guess? I think now I am drunk. I can tell.” It was twenty milliliters. With water. She bit on ice. “So, I’m meeting someone tomorrow,” my mother said. 135

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“Are you meeting Preeti aunty?” I asked “A man.” “A wo-man?” “He is an old school friend of mine.” “Oh, you should meet your friends more often.” “He proposed,'' my mother spat out. "He wants to marry me." “What? Now? Does he know you have a twenty-two-year-old daughter? Is he rich? See, you can say yes and we can go if he will pay for my tuition and get me—” “No silly. Before your father.” “HE IS YOUR EX?” “He is a writer.” “Okay so he is poor. Does he need money? But you don’t have any?” “His publisher wants to print my work.” “What work?” “My poems.” “I thought you showed your diary only to me?” “He reached out on Facebook a while ago and he knew me when I had just started writing.” “So are you going to publish your poems then?” The doorbell rang. My mother glared at me. The bell rang again and again. There was only one impatient man we could tolerate. And he was at the door. I picked up the rum bottle and ran towards my room. I went to pick up the glasses only to see she had already kept them inside and had spilled some of my watered whiskey. She opened the door for him and was in the kitchen bringing him water.

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My father looked like a wet crow. A crow who couldn’t find a rickshaw and flew back to his nest. His light blue shirt now dark blue and sticking to his pot belly. “We have umbrellas at home, you know?” I said to my father. “How will I look with a lady’s umbrella?” he said, irritated and dripping wet. “DRY?” “It has flowers!” “You have a cold!” “Don’t argue, go get me another shirt and tea” Typical.

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Art by Kassandra Kizlin

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A Wandering Way Kassandra Kizlin I’ve been wandering for so long, too long. On this side, everything is hazy and graying. I lost my shoes, but luckily, I still kept my tiechel. Most of the time, things in my sight bleed together. I can only vaguely know what is happening outside myself. I don’t try to know what is happening very often. I come upon a girl. She is frightened and flattens herself against the wall, with her shiny hair sticking to it. “Are you a dybbuk?” she asks. Her papers are laying over her sprawled out and bare legs. “I am not a dybbuk. What is your name?” I ask. I don’t move closer. “Miriam, what's your name?” she asks. Miriam’s shoulders relax back into herself. “I am an ibbur. I’m not here to hurt,” I say. “Where are your shoes?” Miriam asks, leaning in. “I can’t find them,” I say. I think it’s time to go. I step forward, reaching to the top of her head. Miriam just looks at me. I make it so she can’t remember this, for now. ~~~ I can only barely control where I go. It takes a while before we meet again and know it. This time, her hair is shorter than before. Miriam can’t see me as I walk down the street with her. I feel her anxiety and, unfortunately, we feed into each other’s. I watch as everything takes on a blue tint for me, knowing that she doesn’t see that either. After some time, she does see me again and turns to look at me. “You’re the ibbur?” Miriam asks. “Yes,” I say. My skirt trails on the ground here, but I don’t care about that either. Miriam is quiet, thinking. “Why are you here?” she asks. “Because I am,” I say. She nods silently, as we keep walking to where she is going. I do feel the smooth stone beneath me now, and remember when I wandered over jagged ground. I am happy to see the girl again, and see how she’s taller now. “Where are we going?” I ask. 139

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“To my school. I’m the only one there,” Miriam says, looking down and not meeting my eyes. “It always seems that way, doesn’t it?” I say. We keep walking, and I keep watching her. I won’t be leaving myself in her memory for a while now. .~~~ “You’re an ibbur, so you’re dead,” Miriam says, sitting in her white dress in this small room of her synagogue. “Yes,” I respond. She looks beautiful. “How did you die?” she asks. I don’t need to answer. “Oh, it looks like you’re bleeding now,” Miriam says. I nod. A vision of blood blooms from my chest. It’s hard to forget that. I touch Miriam’s cheek. I don’t want her to forget me anymore even if I can’t make that decision any longer. She is a beautiful bride. ~~~ Miriam wasn’t always happy with me, and we no longer seemed to meet in order. She's sitting on a bench, waiting for something. I’m not sure what. Miriam is little again, but not the smallest I've seen her. After visiting her wedding, Miriam seems unfinished now. I walk over harsh broken grayness and sand with no desire to flinch. Intimately, I touch the little one’s head, which leads her eyes up to mine again. With my own sad heart, she falls back at my sight, not being able to bring out a word from her own mouth. I crouch down, wishing to meet her at her eyes. I know this young girl sees me, but she is silent, with eyes forward, refusing to look at me. At least I know this cannot stay. I allow her, as she is younger, to forget my existence for now, as she wishes. ~~~ “It feels wrong,” Miriam says in a small voice, fingering the frayed edge of her braided hair, sitting alone on her bed. She knows the conversation she must have with the new man in her life. I was afraid I wouldn’t see her again, so afraid. We did meet again, however, and still before her wedding. The new couple’s conversations had just begun, but Miriam felt different about this man, this time. I wait for her to speak again.

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“I feel guilty, like I owe it to the children I don’t have, to have them. And I don’t want to cover my hair after marriage, at least not always. What kind of Jew does that even make me?” Miriam asks, crumbling into herself in that old familiar way. I reflect on when I was once alive, for the first time in a long time: I lived the life that was expected for me. I remember the joy I felt wrapping my hair for the first time, the pride in keeping parts of myself private to my family, the squealing baby in my arms, and the many more afterwards showing me a love I could never have imagined. I break into a smile as I meet Miriam’s eyes and caress the girl’s shoulder. “I can promise that not doing either will not affect your soul in the ways you’re afraid of,” I say. Instead of into herself, she collapses into me now, and I stroke her hair as she sobs. The memory of her as a bride comes back, and I’m so happy. ~~~ Her husband does not see me, and I’m not sure if he ever will. Miriam still does after all her years. I silently walk with them together through a crowded street, slightly behind. My eyes are focused on them, but Miriam doesn’t focus on me at the moment. I came upon her, and as I still don’t know how to find her, I want to make the most of it. Coming up on the right of us, I see them. I know Miriam and her husband do as well. Men sitting at a booth at the side of the street, hoping to get the attention of others just like them, if not openly so yet. Some have their heads shaved, some don’t. They don’t look just how I remember them or use the same exact symbols, but we all know who they are. Swastikas adorn their jackets. Most of the people near us only look away, rushing past. Farther back, the black man who was walking in the same direction moved across the street from them, and tried his best to disappear from their sight. This happened before we noticed the men. Miriam quickly tucks in her star necklace before they can see, and her husband pulls her close as they quicken their pace while attempting to seem calm. My chest aches once again. It’s like a ghost haunting a ghost. Even the vision of blood doesn't appear for my fear of catching the attention of those unable to see me. My couple turn a corner, and out of sight of the men, let out a sigh of relief but do not stop walking away nor slow down. “They can’t see who you are,” I say to Miriam, who nods, looking down to her feet. 141

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~~~ It’s not really the end of much. Everything happens in circles. It’s easy to see when you’ve been waiting and wandering as long as I have. But there are things that do end. Miriam has grown older than I ever got to be. She keeps her hair short now, and it’s turned gray. Our relationship hasn’t changed. Her husband is gone, and she misses him every day. Miriam volunteers at the Synagogue, and is now on various committees. She still forces her way into her kitchen when her nieces and nephews come to visit. We still talk sometimes, and we’re all waiting together. I trust that we’ll keep seeing each other.

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Cauliflower Wears a Hat Ayesha Musharaf Azeemi “I don’t know what to write,” she wrote in the journal that she had asked Akram Baba to sneak out from Haider’s home office. She was resting her elbow on stained upholstery. Kitchen had music of jittery cooker which resisted bursting, like her. Wall beside pantry supported pile of Albert Camus and Woolf’s works with untied inked pages paper weighted by a pickle jar. Cooker was whistling, steaming and uttering rhythmic yet mercurial noises. Music was reminding her of train station she often complained about being too close to her home. Yet, she used to walk along the train tracks and make squares on the tiles beside with a chalk. She used to number them while jumping from one to other for which her father used to call her squirrel, my tiny squirrel. “Falak!” A distant voice called her out from memory lane to boiling kitchen of July. It was her husband. She hurried to make Rotis and looked towards clock eclipsed behind giant refrigerator. She spooned out meat curry from cooker, garnished the red with contrasting basil leaves and mint Akram Baba picked up from the orchard she groomed. She washed her hands, arranged the food in the tray and walked beside the staircase in house of six children bustling around. They were skateboarding in verandah although she asked them to complete their school tasks first. But for the least, their presence shunned the sharp echo of silence sitting between couple. Falak said she doesn’t miss him but felt a grey knot in her stomach. She didn’t know what that was. She wanted to say a word or two to Haider but fury curled in eyelids of husband added friction and made it unattainable. Maybe it wasn’t just fury. Haider wanted to study Petrology but his father for the sake of “finding a profitable livelihood after partition” tied his foot around East and West Steamship Company. The proposal of job at shipping company came with the package of marriage and who knew, six children. After heading back from work to home, he used to lock himself in office with sedimentary rocks. They were yellow, green, blue with diverse shapes and names hard to spell. For Falak, the door was never even partially unbarred. She grew her routine around his absence too. She instead folded her time around the kitchen. Zucchini and cabbage soup for her bedridden mother-in-law, cereals and never-ending demands of her kids for french fries, and his husband’s 143

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regime with long list. List mentioned a lot, particularly about food but above all, it must be slid in from the tiny space between the door and floor, thanks to the kind service of termites. Before, it was “tie a rope around basket and deliver food through half-jammed window” situation. Nevertheless, “he must not be interrupted during work” In between, Falak stole time for herself too. She used to wake up at four a.m. and silently walk towards the room bedazzled with dim orange light spreading the mood to write in the kitchen. Why? Well, that’s the only nook she owns. It was the only place that she dire to translate her memories in sentences, the moments she lived for herself. Those few hours of writing, snatching imagery from past scurried down fast adjoined with heavy time blobs of rest of the day. Running, cooking, boiling, foiling, frying, packing, unpacking, sending kids to school and looking at strangers gulping down food which made her queasy. Comes another, yet same day. Orchard was there but more yellow since it is October. There rang a bell with a newspaper and in the tiny square column, there was an advertisement to participate in a play. It was Othello, but in Lahore. Her instinct on left whispered to pack a suitcase but responsibilities were confronting on right. She looked for the picture album that was buried down in pyramid of books, just like the memory that album carried. She skimmed through pages to find that one picture that captured her dream. She was wearing a hat while performing in school theatre. She couldn’t see what little Falak dreamt about. The cooker did burst this time. She added ingredients, tied the lid up over enraged flame which later broke down on kitchen tiles. She lied down over agony of moments she wished to fold out reversely. She didn’t want to settle in Karachi and marry a man devoid of words let alone sweet, assuring words. She wanted to stay in Bombay to study, write, and perform. She felt the tragedy of not knowing when she grew complacent over musing on charred walls, being cut off from inspiriting voices. She couldn’t find the line when she ended up handing hats and scripts to cauliflowers, staging them in curtains.” There is where it was to end up? Those are not people, inanimate objects after all! Haider is not people. No one is.” Adjourning her train of thoughts, she camouflaged in chaddar. After tying the suitcase, she picked some cash from plastic silver canister labeled “groceries”. In the dawn of day, she silently

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rekindled the laaltain and stepped out from the space she had to limit herself for years. Receiving a lighter, cigarette and a frown from shopkeeper, she headed to the train station. She lighted up the smoke to fade conflict in ash, although she knew that doesn’t work. “What if I talk to Haider about this? What if for once he understands? I cannot leave kids and mom alone unless he cooperates.” With her nose running to the ground and tears in puddle, she negated the presence of the crowd but the man beside felt someone like her. He was wearing a pink waistcoat and polished shoes which reflected his face and she stared, repulsed. They both were habitually repulsed and skidded to the farthest corner of the bench but that solidarity of living in feeble yet lucid hour dominated over obstinate reflexes. Haider, with his furious yet blue face was wearing desperation for rocks. He noticed a diary and a newspaper tightly held in Falak’s hand. As a matter of fact, he saw Falak for the first time. They talked, she shared, and he didn’t question. They talked for the first time, not as agitated other halves tied together in doomed circumstances but as Falak and Haider. “I will manage till you come back,” he said.

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Image from online source selected by author

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Love in a Midnight Call Healing is an act of communion bell hooks

Isra Rahman The house carries her voice, as she carries the house by day. It is the echo of her laughter and spilling the latest, juiciest family tea that brings me downstairs. The quietness of the suburb echoes against our chipped pastel walls. I walk downstairs just at the right time to find a glimmering kitchen. The smell of chemicals and dove soap in the air and a reflection of the TV’s blue light bouncing off the glass table. I find my mother, on the couch, her legs resting on the footrest. Finished, or far, or somehow finally removed from her domestic responsibilities, she’s engaging in what has become her nightly ritual these days: international phone calls with her sisters. “Fauzia baji apko pata hain.” And my khala goes on about some minute, expected, inconsequential thing her husband did. “Haan sadia, admi to aise hi hotein hein” I imagine my khala also sitting on her couch, her responsibilities of the day momentarily paused by her morning cup of chai. My mother on the phone at night is a different person from who she is during the day. She no longer moves rapidly, thinking of everyone else’s feelings, teaching remotely on zoom while simultaneously maintaining a spotless house. No, at night, she travels back in time to a person she denies she still is, one of four sisters just catching up on sisterly news. It’s as if in this moment, her whole body is telling her to finally let herself feel everything and take up as much space as she wants in the empty living room. If I linger for too long in the room, my mom will shoo me out. Sometimes their rants border on therapy sessions, both releasing what feels like immense daily stress and finding ways to remind one another of joy. “Sadia tujhe yaaad hein jab.…” When I first started paying attention to these phone calls, I was coming out of a long-term relationship. She would spend nights on the phone; hours spent recounting her day, and the domestic responsibilities with it. It reminded me of the many nights I spent on the phone with my partner 147

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sharing what I could about my chaotic days at home. From my mother, I saw that the intimacy of nightly phone calls isn’t limited to romantic partners or marriage. Instead of sharing this with the person she shared her bed with, she chose to share it with her sisters. I have heard her share deep trauma with her sisters over the years: complicated marriages, sons thinking they are the sun, and the struggles of living almost entirely without a patriarch for the past fifteen years. My image of their relationship was so clearly defined after the passing of my Nana. All of them so readily assumed a role of equal sister in their near unanimous voting sisterhood council. Borders and time differences didn’t waive the sisters voting power or stop their meetings. There was something peculiar about this patriarch-less sisterhood. Rarely were their conflicts of sister-in laws or brothers being useless. Or the hidden dynamics that exist when having to explain womanhood to a man. Instead, over the years, it had become a safe space of sorts. Marriage was never the place for this. Yes, I saw it as compromise and commitment for sure, but love was reserved for something else, and the only images that came to mind were those of these sisters. ~~~ During nights growing up, I’d be deep asleep, dreaming about my days as an angsty middle schooler, about getting my period, and hopefully catching the attention of white boys. A sound would wake me up, the hushed voice of my mother on the phone whispering in one of the bedrooms. At two, maybe three o’clock in the morning, I would hear my mother’s panic. On the one hand, she was trying to manage my twenty-something year old sister’s emotions, and on the other, her two worlds were colliding as her American-born child was left in the hotbed of her entire family. My sister attended dental school in Lahore and lived in my Nani and Nana’s chaotic house with other American-born cousins who were all exported for schooling. My mother moved from Pakistan to the U.S when she married my father and had my sister a couple years after that. In between my sister going to Pakistan for dental school and my mother leaving Pakistan twenty years ago, she only visited her home a handful of times. On the phone, she was always attempting to keep this conflict under wraps from my father, who she primarily shared my sister’s school and exam updates with. I could do little to help. Her first child was tumbling deep into her pre-marriage world, and all she could do was watch from afar in her twelve-year-old daughter’s room. 148

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To call family in other countries, we had to get scratch phone cards. You could acquire these flimsy meaningful cards at any number of the local desi stores. While approaching the register with a cart full of masalas, some vegetables, tomatoes, cilantro, onions, things I never saw her pick up when we went to Walmart or Jewel, something about them being cheaper, maybe even better, at stores owned by “our own”, she would do a mental calculation of what type of calling card she had money for. Or really, how she could get the most minutes in for the least amount of money. The bright purple of the calling cards always stuck out. It wasn’t the colors that drew me in; it was the numbers. Small scratch-off cards with big font and “20¢/min” or “15¢/min” written across them. I would admire them, wonder which one she would decide to buy. They were all decorated with catchy slogans about home trying to convince us that thirty minutes would be enough time to capture a week’s worth of stress and a life full of marital trauma. The best part was getting home, rushing inside with the calling card, grabbing a butter knife, and scratching away. The numbers always amazed me, how I could scratch and reveal something important. I was connecting my mother to whoever she would call, whoever would help her through her stress. I was the worker behind the scenes, on the switchboard, dialing in the numbers. The carrier pigeon between my khalas and my mom. ~~~ A few years later, when I was in middle school, I remember us getting a subscription to an international calling service called raza.com. Instead of buying calling cards, we would load this plan every month over the phone to allocate a certain number of minutes. Instead of having to call some switchboard, my mother would call her family directly from our phone. Who Raza was exactly I wasn’t sure, but his advertisements blared every three seconds between Pakistani soap operas— a constant reminder for desis abroad that Raza knew their struggle and had the solution. After we acquired this deal, the international phone calls became more frequent. Inflation, economic shifts, globalization, had made it cheaper to call for longer. Or maybe Raza just had some really good connections. Once we switched to Raza’s services it made life much easier for my mom to parent her second child, my brother, who was attending medical school in Karachi. Throughout this time, I was in high school, busy with the trials and tribulations of being unable to live my indie American teen 149

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dream. I have forgotten the content of much of those phone calls, but the stress, the need for her to be an intermediary between my father and fatherhood, was a constant theme. For part of his time abroad, bhaiya was under the attempted supervision of my khala, another satellite mother. I remember these phone calls being riddled with a lot of money talk. “Acha, itne paise us ko de do, aglay maheenay ka sochti hoon.” “Us ko bus parhain par dehaan dena hain” “Farooq ko kitna main samjhaoon, un ko udhar ki zindagi ka ab nahin patha” These calls were often translations of my father’s attempts at parenting, which to him meant giving and restricting money through my mother and khalas to my brother. My mother’s stress was frequently instigated by my father and his demands. I remember, circling my mind, the constant bickering between my parents. “uske imtihan kab hain? acha tum apne bete ko bata de na ke main itne paise de sakta hoon” “agar vo acha score nahi le raha tho mere paise kahan ja rahein hain??” “is parhain mein kya mushkil hain? sab kuch tho hain uske paas!” Every line of questioning would either be before or after a call with my brother. In comes raza.com to the rescue. The sound of my brother not answering the phone echoed equally as loud as the distance between my parents and him. My mother’s phone calls these days remind me of those nights, waking in to my mother’s hushed voice on the phone. The difference is that in place of limited calling card connections, there are infinitesimal WhatsApp calls dependent on a working Wifi connection. Instead of talking about the difficulties of long-distance mothering or the stress of having two of her three children studying in Pakistan, there has somehow become time for joy. ~~~ The times my mother is most vulnerable, the house feels like it is breathing deeply. Deep inhales, bright exhales, the windows open. The lines of public and private life blurring as the wind carries in the whirring of lawnmowers and the chirping of birds. ~~~ During quarantine this past year, conversations with my mother had grown to be more intimate, I had recently gotten out of a breakup of sorts and was redefining the ways I saw 150

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relationships within the binary of romantic and platonic. The glass kitchen table reflects my morning pajamas and my mother in her morning shalwar. She would met me as soon as her responsibilities finished and would begin with recounting a story about her childhood. Bachpan mein hum and she would start by telling me about her summers in her Nani’s house with all her khalas and cousins and the trouble she would get into. Rarely ever would we delve into moments from her earlier time in the states. I feared asking about it, and she feared sharing. Maybe something about repressed memories or however she has come to heal from those moments. The stories often became lessons about how she observed different relationships growing up. Ghar valo ki baat ghar mein rehti thi lekin jab jhagra hota tha to sab log baat karte thein. There were no decades long conflicts, continents tearing siblings apart, or fights over land inheritance. I saw the breeding ground for how her relationships would continue for the rest of her life. WhatsApp calls were only a tool for something she learned long ago: that love was never restricted to just your partner. From that, she frequently segues into something she says to me all the time. Behan Bhaiyon kein rishtein kaim rakhna. She describes all the times she has seen siblings fall apart and urges me to be cautious of these “mamoolee see baatein.”. She has recounted this lesson many times, but I never really understood her obsession with sibling relationships. I don’t know if it was the timing in my life, but when we had this conversation, I was reminded so clearly of the language around calling people in versus calling them out—and creating relationships of hard but necessary accountability. In the moment, as followed in many moments, I saw that I didn't have to look far to find traces of radical theory. Here was my mother, showing me that while bell hooks could teach me that love wasn’t conditional, but expansive, so could these kitchen table conversations and her nighttime phone calls.

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Art by Grace Shieh

To the Heavens and the Box Grace Shieh “I can’t sleep. Can I come in, mommy?” “Of course. Come.” Virginia walked into the room and sat between my yet-to-be-folded clothes and half-packed luggage. I hung up the international call I was trying to make; he wasn’t picking up anyways. In Virginia’s hand, grabbing tightly, was her favorite stuffed animal Mr. Rabbit. It was a gift her daddy sent her last year from where I will be flying to tomorrow. In silence, her sleepy eyes squinted at the 152

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lights, the ears of Mr. Rabbit dangling down her shoulder. I sometimes wonder what thoughts must have been going on in her little head. What does she understand about what we’ve told her? Perhaps we were placing too much burden onto the shoulders of a four-year-old. But it’s all for her, for us. There was an uncertainty lingering in the air. Virginia stared at me with unblinking eyes—she wanted to tell me something. I hope that her words won't make it impossible to push back the tears I’ve been holding at the brink of my eyes before our temporal separation. “When you arrive, can you send me another Mr. Rabbit? Just like the one daddy sent me. I…I think Mr. Rabbit would like to have a friend.” Virginia asked in her shy little voice. I continued packing, pretending to be untouched by the innocence of the question. “Oh yes, of course, darling. Mommy promises you. We’ll send Mr. Rabbit a friend as soon as we move into our new home. When everything is settled, we will pick you up. Mr. Rabbit and his friend, too.” I stole a glance at her chubby face. “Now, it’s getting late. Why don’t you go to bed, and mommy will kiss you goodnight? Virginia replied in an obedient nod. But she didn’t move. “Mommy, I want you to keep Mr. Rabbit.” Hurrying, she pushed away her favorite stuffed animal from her chest and stood up. “I want you to take Mr. Rabbit with you and talk to him every night. Mr. Rabbit promised that he’ll find me in my dreams, and we’ll play together in grandma’s house…” she sobbed. “Grandma said telephone calls are expensive. But I want to talk to you every night. Mr. Rabbit said he will tell me everything you told him.” She ran back to the room. Carefully, I sat Mr. Rabbit on my carry-on and followed Virginia into the room to kiss her goodnight. It is the last night I’ll be able to do this in a long while, the first night she’ll be sleeping without Mr. Rabbit, and the night before she’ll be sleeping at Grandma’s alone. I left early the next morning. The streets were still lingering in the memory of last night, the darkness not yet dimmed despite the rising of the sun. Dragging my luggage down the stairs of the five-floor apartment, I checked my grocery bag now turned into a travel bag. Passport and instructions to guide me into a foreign border. New rules and opportunities for Virginia and us.

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I closed the rusted metal door, which chimed like a church bell on a crisp winter morning, one that sent its listeners into shivers. I stepped onto the street. Every step felt like a betrayal, a voluntary movement into the arms of someone who didn’t want me. But there was no time to mourn. Fifteen minutes later and soaked in sweat and humidity, I climbed into the backseat of a cab that stopped with a high pitch and took off with a low growling. I didn’t dare look back at the apartment, didn’t dare look at Virginia’s sleeping face. I feared that turning my head would pull me back into the turbulence of this space, that if I look back, I would turn into a pillar like the wife of Lot. Where was I heading to? What was I leaving behind? I told Virginia I was traveling. Mommy’s going to be traveling. What does that mean? I sense no forward motion. More like a constant replay of leaving and entering. Departing from my current life and entering into a new unknown. Leaving my daughter so she could enter a better life later. Leaving behind my language and friends and entering upon something one called hope. Little people dotted across the globe, identical and symmetrical in the first glimpse, but different individually, each carrying their own burdens and hopes and dreams. The airport was lifeless. It felt like a city of its own, a place with rules I didn’t know. I rushed from counter 1 to 40 and back to 1. I tried to call Virginia’s dad from the telephone booth again. Still, no one picked up. I hope he knew that I was flying today and he was to pick me up at the airport. Of course, he remembered that. I was getting too paranoid. I stood by the window, looking at the sky. Soon I would be up there, for the first time. I held onto Mr. Rabbit. I’m going to whisper everything on the flight to him so that he would pass it to Virginia tonight. “Excuse me, you cannot sit here.” “You have to check in your luggage first.” Wallet check. Yes, it was still here. “How can I help you?” “Sorry, this is not your check-in counter.” Passport check. Yes, it was right in my hand. “Hello, please take off your shoes. Your watch too. And walk through this way.” “Where are you flying to? Why are you going there? How long are you staying?” “Gate 47, gate 48, gate 50. Where is gate 49?” 154

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Flight ticket check. Where was it? Where did it go? Ah, it was in the passport. “Is the flight delayed, is it on time? Is it going to leave without me?” “Where am I? What should I do?” The floor started to crumble. The ceiling too. The airplanes are flying on the ground. I tried to open my mouth, but no sound would come. People were looking. And they were without faces. Just huge, unblinking eyes staring at me. A guy was approaching. His face was one big mouth moving in slow motion, chewing. Another person was coming, but he was growing bigger and taller every step he took. The airport was spinning. My bag and carry-on were spinning. My head was spinning. I was spinning. “Ma’am?” Someone touched me. “Ma’am, ma’am” “Can you fasten your seatbelt?” “Excuse me, can you hear me?” I opened my eyes. I was sitting in my seat by the window. The plane was almost full, and I heard a kid crying in the back. The sound of the world came back. The sense of touch also came back. Mr. Rabbit was wet, soaked by my sweaty hand grabbing it. I looked out of the window. Still here, I’m still here. Soon the flight took off. The earth was first slanted as if the plane was going down a slide. Then the houses, trees, streets — all became but little markings, lines casually drawn on the surface of the world. And humans disappeared. The plane turned, and the world became parallel to the window like we were climbing up a waterfall of clouds. The sky was bright, the clouds were bright, the plane was white. I thought I was heading to heaven. This must be what it’s like to look at earth from upon the heavens. What if the plane was heading to heaven, a place of no return? I wonder if the memories I’ve had all my life would be grounded to the land I was flying away from, and I would arrive as one without a past. Nine and a half more hours to go. Away from all I’d ever known and loved. My eyes felt heavy. No, I cannot sleep. I fought to open my eyes. 155

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The light on the plane had dimmed. I heard passengers snoring, and the baby behind me seemed to have fallen asleep as well. It must be getting late. It was so hard bending my back. I had been sitting for too long. My body was getting stiff. Suddenly, a strong, bright light came from the window. I looked outside, gasping. It was so bright. All I saw were Virginia and Mr. Rabbit descending from the clouds, playing. Virginia extended her arms, and I reached out my hands. “Ma’am?” “Ma’am, excuse me, can you hear me?” “Could you fasten your seat belt? We’re about to land.” Someone was calling me. I opened my eyes. It was just a dream. But the flight attendant wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to the lady next to me. I looked down at my body to see if my seat belt was fastened. My neck was stiff. I couldn’t move my body at all. I rotated my eyeballs to look at my body. Wait, what? I opened my mouth, but all that came was a silent scream. Of course, no sound would come. I was no longer myself. I was still sitting in my seat, but my body had changed. No, we couldn’t call it a body anymore. It was plain, man-made, rough, brown, bent at sides, and angular on its edges. I was taped too, to hold the shape together. I felt heavy, and stern, but mostly stiff. My hair, my hands, my body, they had all disappeared. I had turned into a box. A cardboard box the size of an airplane seat. Buckled up by the seat belt, sitting where I was, I was now but a box. The flight attendant looked at me. “Excuse me? Excuse me, anybody?” I tried to speak. She stared at me closely for a second. “Ah, a package to be delivered. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re descending,” she proceeded to make the announcement. When we landed, I was thrown off the plane, carried to the shipment area, and delivered to the address of my husband’s lodging. It was the address he gave me two months ago when he first arrived, where he promised we would be staying and building our three-person kingdom. The delivery men knocked on the door of the little six-person apartment. But no one responded. Just when he was about to leave, a guy in his early thirties who smelled of drugs came. “What do you want?” he asked. “Hi, I have a delivery for Jack.” the driver responded. 156

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“Who’s that? Ah, you mean Zack? He moved away more than a month ago. His wife came, and they moved across the country. Said he was gonna go live a better life. Bro was having a sweet time with his wife or girlfriend or whatever. A cute little red hair you know?” The neighbor gossiped on, no longer angry but excited by the surprise. “I’ll take the package for him, don’t worry. If he comes back, I’ll give it to him.” Delighted to be finishing his job, the delivery man threw me off the truck and into the weedfilled room. “It’s a weird package. Didn’t say where it came from.” And the delivery man took off. “Ah, Zack, let’s see what you got me,” the neighbor said with a sly voice, cutting the tape that was holding me together. He opened me with huge, anticipating eyes, and found but a singular item. “Just one old rabbit? Garbage.” He proceeded to toss me and Mr. Rabbit down the stairs into the garbage pile. And I traveled all the way to be abandoned as a cardboard box on foreign land. One of the many little boxes no one cared or remembered, rotting by the side of the streets.

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THE END

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2021 International Writing Program (IWP) Summer Institute

Articles inside

Acknowledgements

Contributors

Foreword