Fiction

Mother has always been excruciatingly devoted to God and my imperfections, in that order. Saturday nights I stumble back home seventeen minutes-thirty minutes-an hour past curfew, and there she’ll be standing, statuesque in our kitchen, worry lines flooded by the fluorescent light, arms crossed under her chest. She rakes her eyes over the half-hidden bruise on my collarbone, the rumpled chaos of my skirt, the soft smudging of my bubblegum-pink lipstick, but says nothing.

In my hand, my phone is still open to a video I just took: untitled boy’s lips on my cheek, lips on my lips, hand possessive on my left thigh. I tilt the moving screen away from my mother’s dissection.

***

Mother had once been a good girl, in the suffocating Stepford wife sense. Her skirts probably never dared to ride up past the dimples of her knees. When I picture it, her mouth is always stretched into an almost grotesque eager-to-please smile and her hair is always neatly brushed into mahogany quietude. A girl with respect for authority in abundance.

Mother had once been young & unaware that a man would burden her with not only a lifetime of guilt and a yearning to inflict purple-blue-banana-yellow bruises on the pale expanses of her thighs, but also a child: a shrill baby girl loudly resistant to being controlled.

Philomena, she reluctantly named me, a woman once martyred, newly forgotten.

***

My mother, now, is relentlessly pious: knees bruised in homage to the ground, face strained with conviction as tendrils of moonlight filter through our window. Baptism by nature’s incandescent rays. She’d surely crucify herself on the browning grass of our front lawn under the heavy dominion of both God and a late summer afternoon sun if only for capital-s Salvation.

My faith is irreverent, unhallowed, in comparison. I worship the simple act of being known: soft gaze on soft skin on soft sheets, a passing nod, an acknowledging half-smile. Loving scrutiny, no matter how brief. Unadorned appreciation in the neat squares of my Instagram page: made-up, painted-on face, body contorted. Red lips drawn up like a puppet’s, back curled like a dancer. Immortality in the bleached-white glare of my phone, lust from the fingertips of strangers. I keep my real name far away like a taboo, replace it instead with something weightless.

She who stares coyly from my screen reminds me of the characters my classmates and I used to conjure up in the fifth grade, one-dimensional and grossly perfect. I use her to search for my own absolution: Fingers soft and assured around my wrists, hot breaths on my neck, eyes dark in my gaze. Releasing me from my mother’s relentless expectations, forgiving my existence.

***

I am sixteen and my mother dreams of life before me and as me. Instead of her usual examination, she looks through my body, through taut youthful skin, through bright hopeful eyes, like I am a vessel to her. Her own dreams inflate me, set me afloat, and I fight to keep above the water.

Philomena, she reprimands, voice harsh and insistent. The way she says my name is always the same, tinged with a little bit of violence, dressed up in grievance. The list of complaints is long: put down your phone. Straighten your skirt. Cross your legs. Have faith for once. Pay attention when I’m speaking to you.

It’s a sharp contrast to the way boys whisper my name: a little bit unsteady, a little bit like a prayer when my mouth is on theirs. Sometimes I feel like I’m sucking their soul away, filling my own vacancies with their generous affection. Their words vary yet are always really the same: you’re so hot. I love you. Let’s go see a movie sometime. Here is my heart, let me have yours.

***

In seventh grade I learned about how some families used to drown newborn babies for the sin of being born female. Blue limbs thrashing in the cold. Hands closed around a tiny neck, a snap. Wails bubbling up from a scalding coffin. Wasting away into a husk.

I’ve never stopped thinking about how easily that could’ve been me or you. A different kind of immortality, and not the kind I yearned for: instead, the permanence of death without remembrance. If a girl dies alone in the woods and no one is there to see it, did she actually ever exist? We pay the shared price for our original sin, an eternal punishment. Eve plucks an apple from the tree: disobedience.

***

Mother looks at me like I am not enough, but I look away. My gaze slips unharmed from hers when the world sits in the palm of my hand, when a boy, hard/soft, blond/brunet, whispers like poetry/like commands, sings prayers to me as I do to him. Meaningless nothings, reverent in their delivery. His pulsing heart warm in my hands as mine is in his.

For I know the real truth to immortality: even as I leave my sanitized portraits floating untethered to reality, it is in memoriam that I plan to live forever. Philomena branded on countless tongues; bronze hair diffused in collective memory.

 

Isabel Su is a junior at the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. She is an editor for her school’s literary magazine, and her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Short Vine Journal, Hypernova Lit, and Cathartic Youth Lit.

I learned how to play the organ two days before your funeral. It was the most last-minute of arrangements: Dad wanted me to play something at the service but apparently there was only an organ available. It made no sense. Nothing made sense anymore. What happened?

It was thirty minutes until my six-p.m. flight to Burlington. I vomited my lunch in the airport bathroom and then swallowed a whole Ativan to calm my nerves. There were two green boxes of laxatives in my carry-on. You never wanted me on medication; you said it would cloud my greatness. What greatness, I always wanted to ask, but never did. In hindsight I wished I had; it was always a desire of mine to get inside your head, to pick at your brains with my piano fingers, to figure out what it was exactly that kept you so meticulous and wired and always so impersonal. But I had robbed myself of the opportunity. I would never know.

You signed me up for piano lessons when I was five years old. Eighteen years later I stopped returning your calls. You left voicemail after voicemail—asking how was I doing? and where had I gone? and why didn’t I tell you I was going to Europe? You discovered I was in Paris from my cousin, who showed you a picture of me: standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, wrapped in two coats and a gingham scarf, holding a postcard from the Louvre. Mona Lisa smiling at the camera like she knew something you didn’t.  You saw that I was dead-eyed, and clearly flirting with the possibility of never returning home. I remember the picture well because I had zoomed in on every detail, searching for signs of weakness—and I had done this for days, even, after Julie sent it to me. When I was very young, you taught me the art of self-surveillance.

I liked Paris, but also felt that the whole concept of the trip was lost on me somehow; first I wished you had been there with me, and then I grew unbelievably happy with the idea that you were unable to spoil it. The problem was that I was thinking of you either way.

The organ at the service was a five-octave chamber organ. I played the piece I’d learned two days prior, with the sheet music in front of me because I couldn’t remember what to do with the pedals.

No one clapped. That was strange for me, in spite of the fact that I knew it wouldn’t have been right if they had. I always guessed that I was, inherently, a performer—or rather, the thing that you raised me to be.

The reception was a groaning affair, but you would’ve loved the attention. Would’ve eaten it up like that. You know what I mean. There were sandwiches on the table and a cocktail maker, alongside everybody you ever knew. My cousins sat neatly in a row on the red sofa, dabbing gently at their eyes with tissues crushed into needlepoints, and in front of them were Dad’s parents, who couldn’t believe you were dead. “So sudden,” they said over and over again. “So sudden.” Eventually my old piano teacher came to me to ask when I had learned to play the organ.

“Just last month,” I said. “I wanted to explore.” It felt good to lie. She gripped my arm, tight as death, and waited for me to burst into tears—like I was some unstable widow, drowning my sorrows in red wine, and not your daughter.

I drank four plastic cupfuls of Diet Coke and thought about you, flipping through old memories like worn, delicate photographs: how you would sit me down at the piano bench when I was little and look over my shoulder as I played; how you threw a lampshade at my head; how you apologized afterward, and asked about my day; how there had been a school project when I was in the second grade where I had to pick a hero, a person in real life that I looked up to—and you screamed at me because I hadn’t thought to pick you, the immigrant, the self-sacrifice. I regarded the memories with an indifferent, albeit gentle touch, careful as not to provoke them. After all, you were already dead. In other words, you had managed to escape the last of my vitriol. What could I do now? What would change anything? You had a heart attack during your morning commute to work. Your car went, screeching, into the intersection. They say you died on impact, but that’s just what they say.

After several hours, the reception had shrunk considerably; the only ones left were the cousins and the in-laws, and in my pocket a shiny bottle of Ativan. I swallowed one in the guest bathroom—your candles were still there, lined-up by the sink, vanilla and sea salt, and I wondered, strangely, if Dad would ever replace them—and then I returned to the main room, hands in my pockets, eyes absentmindedly wandering across the picture frames hung on the wall. Family portrait: me, smiling like a girl; you, about to sneeze.

Meanwhile, Dad was entertaining the last of our guests with the tired story of how you two had met: on a ferry boat. Then he found me.

“Come and play something for us, Lou,” Dad said.

“I’m fine.”

“Marylou.” His smile said please.

“OK.” I slowly made my way toward the piano. Cracking my knuckles, I sat down at the bench, placed my fingers on the keys, and tapped out an unenthusiastic Chopin etude. Then your voice in my head, as if your ghost were there to inform the audience: They call this one the “Wrong Note.” Isn’t it perfectly imperfect? I heard my father sigh behind me and wondered what I had done wrong. Not just to him, but in general.

It could have been that I hated you. Or, it could have been that I missed you like a little kid misses summer vacation—that naïve longing that felt brand new, and heavier, with each passing year. Either way, I took two Dulcolax and an Ativan and, straight after the reception, went to sleep in my old bedroom, still decorated with polaroids and Martha Argerich; and I dreamt of the train ride from New York to Vermont. It should have been winter, I thought, but everything was green and shining. Fresh and easy. I looked out the window and saw trees of many colors.

When I woke up the next morning, I felt the effects of the laxatives. I shuffled into the bathroom, sat down on the toilet, and stared at my toenails. For a moment I thought I might talk to you—out loud, like they do in movies when someone is feeling particularly sad, or lost, or alone—but decided against it. I didn’t feel any of those things. For a long time, sitting there, I didn’t feel a thing at all.

It was nearly January when I returned to Manhattan. Everything was just as I had left it. What you’d like about New York City is that you don’t need a car. I walked to my favorite bakery on Seventy-eighth Street and ordered my cakes: Black Forest gâteau, tiramisu, strawberries and cream. I bought a slice of each and carried them back to my apartment on the Upper West Side. You don’t know where, and I can’t show you. That’s it.

 

 

 

Ida Mobini is a junior in high school living in the flat suburbs of San Diego, California. They have been writing since they could pick up a crayon. Currently, they work on their school newspaper and literary magazine.

The biggest ironies about funerals were the fucking hats, honestly. The floppy-brimmed one dangling in front of me had this massive agglutination of black netting and feathers on top that reminded me vaguely of roadkill. While the minister with worm-on-a-string eyebrows went on about “death begets life” and “blessed are the living,” the birds who sacrificed their plumage and lives to make that hat were probably throwing a riot in bird heaven.

I wondered what Jay would think of all these huffy men choking on their ascots or the minister whose mouth gaped like a fish every time he said ‘Thessalonians.’ I imagined him in his clean-pressed suit and polished shoes, fighting to keep a straight face. He happened to be really good at that—“years of practice with the Exeter profs,” he said—but I could tell when he was laughing inside. His jaw would set and his chin would jut out, as if the laugh were a bullfrog in his throat which he was trying to contain. I glanced inside the casket to look at his white face. Not even a twitch.

The last time I saw Jay, he was packing for a charity mission to Mozambique.

“You know, just because you’re an Ivy graduate,” I said, taking a drag of my cigarette, “you don’t have to fill the shoes of some old white philanthropist just yet.”

He didn’t reply. Jay had this brilliant way of talking through his silences. A quirk of his mouth, a pause, and you’d understand exactly what he meant. This one felt like a tether, drinking up your words and gently tugging on you for more. I took the cue.

“It’s like, sure mom and grandma and, heck, this entire town thinks you’re America’s biggest darling since Shirley fucking Temple, but—” he raised his eyebrows at that, and I went on hurriedly. “—but the point is, are you trying to make yourself into a walking stereotype with this ‘helping orphans in Africa?’”

He put down the shirt he was folding and looked at me. “That’s the point, Reed. Everyone makes this about me, but it’s not. It’s about the orphans.”

“So, the Catholic prep school valedictorian has been soul-searching.”

“Maybe I’m a hippie after all.”

“Tell that to your monogram,” I said, jabbing my cigarette where his initials lay embroidered on his shirt collar, and I took satisfaction in the scraggly ash circle it left behind.

Jay’s following silence was rare and resigned and final. We hugged good-bye and he set out half a world away to feed the starving of children of Africa while I discovered the wonders of rolled marijuana. Two weeks later, we got a call that he had been killed by four of the teenagers for whom he had just built a school.

“It’s truly tragic, but not uncommon,” the doctor had said. “A lot of the kids here have a lot of, ah, resent, for the white people who come here and interfere with their lives.”

“He had a whole life in front of him,” my dad kept saying in disbelief, while my mom shuddered silently. She graciously took a handkerchief from the doctor and blew her nose twice, crying louder. I just shook my head in amazement. If I could by chance make it into heaven, I’d have to give the bastard a dollar for being right again.

 

Another month later and my mom was still crying next to me, at the funeral paid for by Jay’s remaining mission funds. The minister had finished his speech and people were walking around, making an ocean of those godforsaken hats. I made my way to the side exit and almost got away with lighting a cigarette, before my dad clamped his hand on my shoulder.

“Seriously, Reed? You’re at Jay’s goddamn funeral. The trash can’s by the other exit.”

I rolled my eyes and walked across the room. When I got to the casket, I stopped. There were dozens of roses wreathing Jay’s body. Nearby was a lady I didn’t recognize handing them out, and she gave me one when I walked up.

“Oh, you must be Reed. I’m so, so sorry for your loss. If there’s anything I can do… ”

I turned the rose. It was black. “I didn’t know black roses existed,” I said stupidly.

“Oh, yes, beautiful, aren’t they? They’re very rare, only grow on the Euphrates, but all of us were so touched by your brother’s story that we thought he deserved them.”

“His story?”
“Yes, the one about the thugs in that town—oh, when I heard it, I just—”

“Beira,” I said dully.

“What?”

“The town’s name was Beira. In Mozambique.”

She frowned at me like I was an afterthought. “Yes, anyways, he was so kind, your brother. Aren’t those kids horrible—well, all of them are, those not raised by our Lord. Anyways, we were all so moved and set up a fund to import them from Euphrates. And, oh… ”

For the first time, I looked at her face. She was smiling thoughtfully behind about seven layers of black mesh, as if she actually found the whole ordeal beautiful. “Yeah,” I said flatly, looking straight at her. “They sound really horrible.”

She sniffed sympathetically and patted my back. “Anyways, honey, I’ll be headed back to my seat. Your dad’s eulogy should be starting soon. But you take your time with him, alright?”

She drifted back, still with that affectionate smile plastered across her face. Her hat was one of the tiny stiff ones, but no less horrendous than the carnage of feathers I had been staring at for the past two hours. I wondered what reason she had to hide behind all that mesh, as if she were too modest to show her face, while there was a literal corpse, sprawling mesh-less and visibly face-up in front of her.

“What a fucking spectacle,” I said, turning to Jay. With exaggerated care, I tucked my rose underneath his elbow. “But you saw all this coming, didn’t you?”

I wanted to say more, but my dad was mounting the stage, and my shoulder was still sore from where he grabbed it. Instead, I turned to head back to my seat, where my mom was still crying. Her eyes hardened when I approached, though, so quickly that I had to wonder if she was only crying for show.

“Your dad said you were smoking just now.”

I shrugged helplessly. “I wasn’t. Well, I was going to, but then he stopped me.”

“God, Reed,” she said after a hard moment, “What is wrong with you today?”

I never got to answer. In that moment, the lady two seats down began screaming. My dad doubled over coughing onstage. I smelled smoke.

“Everyone out! Fire!” a man shouted from the back.

I didn’t need a second signal. I jumped up and ran, pushing past wizened professors and hunched old ladies to the exit. A couple yards away, smoke was pouring in great black gusts. The mahogany casket—Jay had always despised mahogany—had finally found a less mundane purpose and fueled the flaming mass that was now engulfing the front stage. While I watched the stack of ungiven Euphrates roses wither and catch fire, I breathed in the summer air, almost giddy with excitement. It was over. Even the old men were hobbling safely out of the building now, everyone well and intact except for Jay’s body. That would have already disintegrated to ash, and the fire department would never find the cigarette stub tucked under its elbow.

What was that for? Jay would’ve asked.

For you, bastard, I would say. For the kids in Beira.

Then he would give me a sad smile and watch in resignation as a woman desperately fanned her hat at the flames, only for it to ignite a moment later. God, funerals were hilarious.

 

 

 

Samantha Liu is a fifteen-year-old aspiring writer in New Jersey with a penchant for all things Voltaire. She thinks optimistic nihilism is underrated.

The teacher introducing me to the class did little to bring me out of my reverie. My head was preoccupied with anxiety. Not to mention, my new name was unfamiliar. Before, they just called me chotu[1]. At least, the nice ones did. I shuddered remembering the other things I had been called.

“Ramesh, would you like to share something with the class?” The teacher spoke again.

I silently shook my head and moved towards the backbench.

“Ramesh, why don’t you sit in the front. Here.” She gestured to the seat right in the middle of the front row.

I looked around at my classmates. All eyes were on me, but none held the contempt and disgust I was used to. No one seemed to have a problem with me sitting front and center in the class.

For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt safe. Here, they didn’t know me. They didn’t know where I came from. They didn’t know the name I was given at birth. They didn’t know who, or what I was. I almost felt like one of those undercover agents in a Hollywood movie. Yes, I had watched a Hollywood movie. More accurately, I had watched half of one while working in my previous landlord’s house.

When the final bell rang, all students rushed through the doors. One even brushed past me. I winced, instinctively thinking that he would start screaming and cursing as the others had always done. Then his mother would sprinkle some holy water on him before letting him enter the house. Embarrassment flooded my cheeks. When I raised my eyes from the floor, I saw that the boy had already gone ahead, unconcerned that he had brushed past me. They don’t know the old me. I reminded myself. All they know is what I let them know.

The next day, when the teacher asked everyone to line up and proceed, everybody did so without a question; all seeming to know what was going on. After a few minutes of moving along in the line, I realized everyone was going to the temple, touching the statue’s foot and returning.

“Ramesh, move along.” A teacher said. “What’s wrong?” She asked when she saw me hesitating. “Go in. It’s Saraswati Puja[2].” She prompted me to step in.

I remembered what my father had told me before changing our religion. We are Hindus, but they will not let us enter temples. Do not misunderstand, my son, for we are not against the religion. We are simply against certain people who relish in making us feel vulnerable. Those people deny us our basic human rights. In Buddhism, we can get the equality and liberty that we deserve. 

“Ma’am, I’m Buddhist.” I told her.

“That’s alright. Just go in and join your hands. Your religion doesn’t matter.” She told me, and I wondered if she would tell me my caste didn’t matter either.

During lunch, I sat on an empty table at the corner, the same as I had done the day before. I looked up in surprise when I heard the rustle of another person sitting across from me. It was a boy who had introduced himself to me in one of the classes.

“Aloo Paratha[3]!” His eyes were fixed on my food, clearly in delight. “Do you mind if I have some?” He asked, but dived in without waiting for my response.

I kept staring at him in shock. He was eating my food.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was being rude.” He said nervously, assuming that I was angry at him for eating my lunch. He offered his sandwich in exchange.

If my thoughts weren’t stuck elsewhere, I would’ve found it funny that he wanted my Aloo Paratha in exchange for his sandwich.

“No. No, it’s not that.” I cleared my throat, trying to rid my previous thoughts. You are not him anymore, I reminded myself. “It’s just that no one used to even touch my food.”

“Oh, so you’re one of those people.” He nodded to himself as though he had made an important observation. My heart stopped for a second. “Don’t worry. I’m not judging you. My brother is the same. He can have my food, but I can’t even touch his.”

“I don’t mind. We can share our lunch.” I smile; the simple act of sharing food with friends was new to me. Friends. Huh, I guess a lot of things are new now.

“So, what does your father do?” He asked me, after telling me all about his father’s business.

“He has a job in the Public Service Commission.” I could hear the pride in my voice.

“That’s so great! I heard it’s really hard. My cousin attempted it thrice but couldn’t get in.”

“Yeah, it is great. We even got to move here because of the new job.” I instantly wished I hadn’t given so much information; it could lead to more evasive questions.

“New job? Is that why you changed schools?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Cool. I’ve always been here. It’s kind of boring. What did your dad do before?”

“He, uh, he used to prepare for the PSC exams. He studied all day.” I looked away. I was proud of my dad, but I didn’t want to tell a new friend that he used to do manual labor at night while he studied during the day. It is hard for people to understand coming from a low caste, getting a day job is nearly impossible. After all, they called us the untouchables.

“Oh, he must be really smart.”

“Yeah. He is.” My father had always been wise, despite his circumstances. He had single-handedly changed our condition.

Dalit. My father told me it was just a word. A very negative one at that. Even its meaning was broken people. We’re not broken people, he had told me. We’re just people who they are trying to break. Although he had a mature mind, he made me change my name; said he didn’t want any of the negativity to touch me. Sharma is a surname of upper-caste Brahmins, but it also meant comfort and happiness. He said that was all he wanted for me. Maybe, in this new life, it is possible.

 

Shreya is a literature enthusiast from Kathmandu, Nepal. When she is not busy with her school assignments and extracurricular activities, you can always find her experimenting in the kitchen and – of course – writing fiction. With great aspirations, Shreya is a daydreamer. She is always focusing on certain mere objects around her and imagining their stories in her head. During the lockdown, she has set goals to write as much as possible and have them published!

 

 

[1] Chotu – Literally means small. In India, it is a common word to address small boys.

[2] Saraswati Puja – A Hindu festival in which Goddess Saraswati is worshipped.

 [3] Aloo Paratha – A bread dish popular in the Indian subcontinent.