Non-Fiction

By the time I turned four, something had changed in my mother. A thrumming of insect-wings, a pulse kick-starting to life. Her stomach stretched and dimpled, crisscrossed with red veins, becoming a pouch of warm soil for seeds to take root, for tendrils to wrap around the hollows of her bones before sprouting out of her mouth and into the sun.

My sister, Appu, was born on my fourth birthday, and from the moment I heard of her arrival, I planned on hating her with a passion – the nerve of her, stealing my day like it was her birthright! However, as I leaned over the edge of her newborn cot, her face tiny and lost under a hat with a bobble the size of her head, wrinkles frozen in bird-formations on her forehead, I couldn’t help but smile. Her mouth twitched at the corners, as if in response, and, although my father told me that it wasn’t yet a true smile, just instinct, I knew better. She was my sister, and she was grinning back at me.

From then on, Appu stole her way into every facet of my life. Together, we fumbled our way through our first dance and piano recitals. Together, we wrote Santa pleas for puppies and cried when we realized Santa was our mother. Together, we watched helplessly as our grandmother’s memory slowly faded away, darkness blooming on CT scans where white should have been; we know how words become precious when there is still so much left to say. Every Tuesday and Thursday, we tie our karate belts across our waists so tightly that our chests constrict – same curled fists, same dry throats; we are fighters, the Verghese sisters.

But while I’m struggling to perfect my weapon hook-kick, she idly toys with her nunchakus, contemplating their design or their history. While my limbs are trembling from rigidly holding our kathak poses, she has her eyes closed, her head swaying to the pulsating rhythms that dictate the poses. There is a peculiar wide-eyed innocence about her, the sort that can only come from someone who is at ease with herself and the world, who is not perfect and does not strive to be. She may not be a “hero” in the traditional sense, but if a hero is someone who animates and inspires, who influences me to be the best ‘me’ I can possibly be, Appu is definitely mine.

Her inexhaustible curiosity has caused me to question the taken-for-granted world around me; more often than not, my attempts to teach her algebra would end in musings on the meaning of life. Thanks to her pouts over ‘x’, I’ve learned to ask “why?” to questions without straight answers, to approach problems at slanted angles and find solutions in surprising places.

Her unwavering faith in me has helped me trust in myself a little more-and, to a greater extent, in the world as she sees it. When I’m with her, I feel free to be a girl who squeezes her eyes shut for dandelion wishes, who creates elaborate brunch menus consisting of nothing but cereal and toast, who can’t bake a cake and instead eats all the batter. With her, I find joy in hidden places, in simple things: the last piece of chocolate, the sharpened nib of a Prismacolor pencil. She taught me to color trees pink because “they’re prettier that way,” to call grapes “juice balloons” but actual balloons “plastic bags of breath,” to cry when I need to because “it’s always darkest before Daylight Savings Time.”

Last year, during a nighttime power outage in India, we lit a candle and placed it in our bedroom. Under its flickering glow, we acted out shadow-puppet plays and giggled at nothing until the velvet sky became veined with morning gold, until crows began cawing in the humid air outside. At some point, we must have fallen asleep, because we woke up to the noise of TV static and running water. The power was back, but the candle was still burning.

 

Namrata Verghese is a second-year undergraduate student and Robert W. Woodruff Scholar at Emory University, pursuing a double major in English/Creative Writing and Psychology/Linguistics. A modern-day nomad, she was born in India, raised in England, and currently lives in the U.S. Her work has been published in Litro Magazine, Paper Darts, The Tempest, Alloy Literary Magazine, Kitchen Drawer, Her Campus, and Teen Ink Magazine.

The Reversal

They flick their poisonous tongues, tasting the air before letting their words slither out in a low hiss. These words take form, twisting in ways that she is not a part of and in ways that she does not understand. They start rallying now, crowding and pounding her caged head. She does not know if the poison is being absorbed from the outside or spreads from within. Nevertheless she folds, retracting her tentative velvet petals and freezing the blooming of spring.

The Prison

The rising mist from the frozen pond blankets the air in a film of shimmering light. While delicate, the surface of the pond is still forbidding, a pane of unforgiving cold. Underneath the ice, the water is deep and dark. The water swarms, churning heavy, black, and sinister. Sometimes it rises to free itself, pounding against the clear walls and jarring the smooth ice crystals. But never is there a sound. The surface remains pristine as all there is to see is the crisp warmth of the rising haze drifting off the ice and into the light air.

The Scars

Under her ribs, on her thighs, and streaking on the soft underside of her forearms. They are hidden. Some people cut because they cannot feel anything. Others cut because they do not want to feel anything else. For her, she just wants to see her pain.

The Restless

Framed by the dark skeletal outlines of a tree and blunt side edifices of rock, the night is a shadowy cream dotted with the delicate sparkle of jewels. Shooting stars overhead pave a path through the impenetrable night. She walks underneath this painting with nowhere in mind and no one in sight. She walks till her lungs are full from pulling in the cool crisp of the air, and she walks till her fingertips turn purple. She walks till everything grows weary but her thoughts. Her feet carry her to a rocky clearing where the trees part, and the moon bursts out, revealing her own luminous face in full. Meanwhile, the clouds hide themselves in the shadowy outskirts, blending with the mountains that hazily line the horizon. She walks to the edge and sits, pulling her knees to her chest and clasping her arms around them. She begins to rock back and forth before finally resting with her forehead pressed against her kneecaps. She exhales, letting out a puff of air. When she inhales, her breathing catches, hitching. Her choked gasps, hard and ugly, break the still night. Her chest, her heart, heave before she manages to push them down. She leaks though, tears trickling little paths down her rosy cheeks. When it is quiet again, she tilts her face up to the light of the moon and the sky and stars embrace her for all she is and all she is not.

The Rebirth

White, calligraphic strokes tendril into lacy flowers across her new bra. She puts it on, slipping the straps over her shoulder. She pulls on her ocean blue jeans and makes her way to the bathroom where she pours out some alcohol. The acrid smell fills the air. She takes a cloud of cotton, soaking it and pressing it to her white-silver piercings. Then, leaning forward over her sink, she turns her head to the mirror and lightly traces a finger over the small dove soaring up the right side of her neck behind her ear. The skin is tender and raw. She leans back and then shakes out her hair before flipping it upside-down. She gathers it, twisting it till it grows thick and strong, and finishes it in a bun. She straightens and pats her hair to assure herself it will hold.

When she is satisfied, she reaches to turn on the tap where cool rivulets stream across her hands. She scrubs and then shakes them, flicking off the droplets before drying her hands with a towel. Reaching past her clunky glasses, she finds her contacts and gently presses them on to her eyes. Finally she turns and sees a little girl staring straight at her. But she cannot recognize her.

The Family

It took her awhile, but she found them. The ones who will roast s’mores on the beach and hike the hills of meadows. The ones who will poke through the forgotten remnants of an abandoned house and who will whoop in euphoric delight before plunging into the ocean’s icy waves while the sky pours with rain. The ones who will climb rooftops at sunset and challenge each other to a cereal eating contest, chopsticks against fork, using a scooped out watermelon as a bowl. They are crazy, as crazy as she is. But they are not wild for they will walk with her in the quiet woods of winter and let the gentle touch of music dip a finger and draw the unexplainable out.

The Regret

He lay on her lap while she sits crisscross on the floor. She can feel the weight of his eyes, though she cannot not meet them. He reaches up his hand, hesitating. So gently, so softly, he raises it until he touches her cheek. But she cannot meet his gaze. Not even after seven years. She turns away, yet her mind will not let her forget. She cannot forget the smell of his skin, the milky way of birthmarks that climb his throat, or the way his eyes linger with feelings he will never say aloud. When she is alone, these moments are inexplicably and unexpectedly drawn out. They burn inside of her and begin to kindle a soft craving, a yearning, in her heart. Later, when she mounts the courage to meet his eyes, she sees him reach out again to caress her cheek.

This time the cheek of another girl, a beautiful girl, with brilliant eyes and a brilliant smile all mirrored by his.

The Shame

They tell her it is okay to be sad. That it is okay to have a bad day. They tell her to lay her head on their shoulders and cry. To let it out. But it is not okay because she knows that she is their burden.

The Weapons

When she falls, she falls like a rainstorm. It is not a gentle descending mist, but an endless torrent that carves valleys and consumes the land. It is ruthless in its rage, but over time she has learned that she does not like to flood the budding greens of life or splotch the blue skies with the black of thunderclouds. And so she has come to forgive the wrongs, forget the hurt, and forge her own armor. She practices until they blend together and she cannot tell which is used where, but she knows that this is how she will protect herself. This is how, she vows, she will grow strong and not hard. For these are what she has molded for battle.

The Hope

Past the rippling golden waves of wheat and the fluttering prairie fields, past the fruit-filled pastures and soft snow-capped mountains, there is a crater filled with water. The surrounding surface is rocky, but there are patches of hazy soil where spindly dark shoots penetrate, braving the dark landscape. The saplings that grow here are sturdy but twisted; however, the flickering water of the lake softens their grotesque angles. The water itself is calm, and its hue is a deep, resplendent sapphire. It is said that the water comes from the tears of the moon as she watched the bitter battle between the two greatest anguished lovers of nature, heaven and earth. A battle where neither could win without becoming the other. It is why land and air will always remain separate. However the saplings have always persevered and, now trees, they transcend, climbing higher and higher towards the pure light of the sky.

 

Anon is a junior living in Portland, Oregon. Currently, she is riding the waves that high school is and figuring out what she wants to do. In her free time, she likes being outdoors, playing any sort of game, and hanging out with friends.

 

 

I have a theory that reading books is like dating.

From the initial excitement and heightened hopes to examining the cover and dissecting the blurb, creating an idealised possibility of what the book may be about in your own head… From here the relationship begins. You can choose to commit until the end in a monogamous fashion or read multiple books at the same time, dipping in and out of each one, perhaps struggling to find time for the two, or three, or four and detracting from any sort of complete immersion into what one novel can give you. If you find it boring you have every right to leave a book unfinished and abandoned, hoping the untouched pages provide a new possibility for another reader on another day.

 

During the reading process you may keep checking on how many pages are left, growing weary with the effort of pursuing its completion, as if the commitment is too much, too difficult to continue. With some books the pages fly through because they make your soul resonate with a resounding ‘YES!’ and the story they tell becomes so tangible that it soothes your world-weariness like any good heart-filling one-on-one with a lover might do. After the final page is long gone and you are lonely and sleepless, there is always potential to revisit the trustworthy ones that you know you had loved and somehow discover something new in the same pages that you read, long after your final goodbye.

 

I’ve always loved books as a kid and have read throughout my life, so I have consumed quite a fair amount of pages at any one point. I realised when I was book shopping with a friend of mine that each book I read became a symbol for whatever I was experiencing at the time. They became a manifestation of the love and heartbreak that I held for certain people. When the dating process with the novel ceased, so did my relationships with these people. While this list is partly rapid-fire reviews and recommendations of my favourite books, it is also a brief summation of the stories behind the stories and a reminder of the possibilities of what could’ve been.

 

Lolita- Vladimir Nabokov

I first read this book in a middle school science class but got it confiscated because it had explicit content. A friend had lent it to me. The book itself is about a pedophile but the language is so lyrical that the whole novel feels like a hazy dream. The author, Vladimir Nabokov, suffered from grapheme-color synesthesia where letters and numbers translated themselves into colors in his brain. His whole world was colorful, and this reflects in his writing. I attended quite a conservative all-girls middle school and during science class I sat next to the only girl who ever did drugs at all in the whole grade. For this she was the most talked about, judged, hated, yet worshipped character in all social circles at the time. Her hair color changed every month and she swore a lot. Parents told girls not to be friends with her because she was a bad influence. I just happened to sit next to her during science and I knew that I would never be friends with her because she was way too cool for me. But just sitting next to her and talking to her now and again made me feel an instant social boost. We hardly talked. She had a book confiscated too. She had bought 50 Shades of Gray, in the spirit of teenage rebellion. I knew that she had family problems. I didn’t see a reason that she could possibly like, nor dislike me. I assumed that our relationship was fairly neutral. One time I got pulled out of class and was accused of skipping school when I was present the whole time. This girl had wagged school that day and when asked for her details had given mine.

 

Rebecca- Daphne du Maurier

First book I read from the school library after I moved schools! I decided to read it because I was going through my Hitchcock phase at the time and I liked to read the book before I watched the movie. I’m sure it was a great book, very Jane Eyre-esque (another all-time favorite book of mine), but most of the time I couldn’t concentrate on it because for the first time I was interacting with boys properly and was extremely distracted at entertaining the thought that some, might possibly, possibly, like me. Hormones flying high, planning our futures in our heads (to myself only of course, none of which actually happened) — it was an exciting time. In science class I was no longer sitting in the back row with the most popular yet troubled girl in school, but this time I was having seats saved for me and witnessing blushes spread across faces when two smiles of a boy and girl were met mutually. The high did not last long however and I still managed to graduate high school without being in a single relationship.

 

Book of Longing- Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen, as well as being a singer songwriter singing that famous song Hallelujah (a song I first heard as the Shrek soundtrack), also was a poet, who knew! There was one boy who used to call me every night at ten pm to see how I was going, wrote Bible verses on my hand when I was stressed and gave me longing looks and lingering smiles. I was smitten and was already planning our marriage. I thought he was perfect and I thought that he liked (LIKED!!!) me. This was the book I happened to read when I found out he had a girlfriend. I still remember the glare of my living room’s fluorescent lights and the taste of Ben & Jerry’s that accompanied this suite of poems. This book of longing was an integral part of recovering from my own adolescent longing.

 

Of Human Bondage- W. Somerset Maugham

Another book I read before watching the movie, starring the ever-glamorous Bette Davis. The protagonist of this novel happens to share the name of the first boy who ever properly fancied me and whom I also broke. Funnily enough, this is also what happens in the novel. During one English class where we were ordered to write love poems, the boy read this and the students fell silent.

The strings that bind us,

The chains that hold us,

The love that is these strings and chains and hopes and joys.

Like petals; delicate, like bonds; strong.

Love compels and restrains,

Makes us human, and gives us life.

Love washes warmth over us,

We hold it on our inside,

But I cannot let it hide;

It will emerge

Our love may converge

We may bond in matrimony

In perfect, God-breathed harmony.

Thank you for these strings and chains

And though this writing does not do it justice,

Thank you for the warmth in my heart.

 

Strangely, this was somehow addressed to me. But things got awkward while we were talking online.

Him: You’re perfect.

Me: Save your words for someone special.

Him: Are you not someone special?

Me: Not special in the way that I can return your feelings.

 

The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde

Dorian Gray reminds me of my formal date whom I asked to take and who was also blonde, like Dorian in the novel. I made his tie to match my dress. I dried the flower petals of the corsage to be preserved forever. He wouldn’t return my feelings and I would just sit and let my thoughts rush past me, as I lay soulless on the floor of my bedroom. One day his supple skin would sag and his smile lines wouldn’t plump back. I hoped that that day the girl he thought about was me and how we once entered the ballroom arm in arm rather than with my contacts and false lashes falling out.

 

The Virgin Suicides- Jeffrey Eugenides

During senior mathematics, I sat next to this girl named Louise. But no one called her Louise; she insisted that she be called Lo. She wore fake tan and shaved her vagina and asked if I did too. We would talk about everything from butts to interpreting dreams to how if mathematics were a scent it would smell like a supermarket deli. Our taste in music and books were pretty similar and she recommended this one to me. It encapsulates all sorts of naïve teenage longing and nostalgia, haunting you long after the last page. For the first time after reading this book, I wanted to try peach schnapps and communicate with lovers via vinyl records played over the telephone.

 

Metamorphosis- Franz Kafka

After high school graduation I spent a large chunk of time at friends’ beach houses on the east coast of Australia. Late nights, the beach and poolside parties are what the best summers were made of. I wasn’t sure about my religion and worldviews anymore. I could choose who I wanted to keep seeing without being bound by school’s social codes. I could choose whether I wanted to move out or not. I was beginning to realize that sometimes it’s healthier to let go of relationships where there will never be any mutual understanding—including your family. I was learning that depression was hard and that it’s okay not to be okay. This was a book that happened to be lying around in one of these houses while I had no idea where my life was headed and was forced to reflect on the kind of adult woman that I wanted to become. I wanted to be a woman open and honest about her struggles rather than being defensive, aware that gentleness and forgiveness were strengths rather than weaknesses. Someone humble who treated others the way that I wanted to be treated. No matter where I was headed I wanted to be deeply rooted in my relationships. Above all, I wanted to write, hoping that my voice would add something valuable to somebody because I believed in the beauty of the written word. Anything could happen really. While I wouldn’t wake up as an insect like Gregor Samsa did I could wake up and decide whatever I wanted the rest of my life to look like. And that was scary.

 

I haven’t read in a while.

Every night I suppress my flow of consciousness with a never-ending stream of podcasts, music and newsfeed scrolling so I don’t have to think. Because thinking is far more frightening than not being able to fall asleep at a healthy time nor going to work as a used tissue the next morning. I fear my bedtime and time alone to myself every night and one reason I write this is in hope that I am not the only one. I am meant to be in the peak of my youth and it’s a strange transitional season that I am in. I am experiencing the grind of the capitalist machine for the first time, slugging along on the bottom of the corporate ladder with my first part time job out of school. I’m realising that clubbing is not as exciting as it’s made out to be. My finals results have arrived and I have no idea which university that I will attend nor what my future will look like. My dreams are on hold and I don’t even know what they are very clearly. There is clear conflict between what I want and what my parents do. Also, I’m trying really, really hard to love myself.

 

These books remain the same while I continue to grow and change. I will continue to read many more books as the seasons change and I hope to change for the better alongside them.

The potential energy of the written word is formidable.

 

Christina Kim is currently a medical student studying at Western Sydney University. When not studying, she loves drinking tea, listening to live jazz and believing in the power and beauty of the written English language. Her work has been featured in publications such as Cecile’s Writers.