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F ICT ION
Shooting Barin Ghosh An excerpt from a novel-in-progress
By Logan Royce Beitmen
Imagine fire. Imagine it in black and white. Big white flames and heavy plumes of black smoke. Through gaps in the smoke, you begin to catch what looks like the top of a forehead, the bottom of an ear. The wind changes direction, clearing away some of the smoke that has been obstructing your view. You can see clearly now that it’s the face of Barin Ghosh. Lit from below with flickering shadows, it has an eerie, menacing quality. You see the flames dancing in the lenses of his wireframe glasses. His brows are slightly furrowed. His hair is greasy and rumpled. Paper-thin flakes of carbon float up from the black smoke. They hit his cheek and dissolve into ash. When he wipes them away, it leaves distinctive black and white streaks on his medium-dark skin. The streaks appear stylized, as if drawn on with lipstick. Almost like war paint. Behind his head, in the deep space of the background, you see his white marble villa, overgrown with trees and vines. It’s lit