BABATUNDE ADESOKAN VICTORIA LEIGH BENNETT LESLIE CAIRNS CHIDE INDRANIL GHOSH EMMA MCCOY
MARIJA RAKIĆ MIMICA DAMHURI MUHAMMAD ATTICUS PAYNE
TEJASWINEE ROYCHOWDHURY PATRICK TSAO
E E P E R S T U F
month of November 2022.
By Tejaswinee Roychowdhury
Vani is a young woman from a village by a river in Northern India; she has two modest dreams "one, to see where the river went, and two, to marry a man far away from the valley, beyond the great mountains in the north".
A dissatisfied woman attempts to cheat on her husband.
A not quite love letter, with Florence representing the artistic community at large that opened up in a way it had never before during the period of worldwide lockdown.
Elsie, a homeless young woman, befriends an owl while dissociating and pondering about her tumultuous past.
A man takes one last photo of his father.
By Victoria Leigh Bennett
By Indranil Ghosh
By Chide
Poems
By Emma McCoy
Where Does The River Go? by Tejaswinee Roychowdhury
(Twitter: @TejaswineeRC Instagram: @tejaswineeroychowdhury Website: linktr.ee/tejaswinee)
“Life is like the river, sometimes it sweeps you gently along and sometimes the rapids come out of nowhere.”
― Emma SmithFor as long as she could remember, Vani had two dreams: one, to see where the river went, and two, to marry a man far away from the valley, beyond the great mountains in the north.
Once she was wed, Vani believed that although the river headed east from her village, she could easily convince her new husband to take her anywhere in the world.
It would be just like when her mother convinced her father to buy her a sewing machine and get her a wholesale supplier of silk, cotton, zari, and threads, so she could briskly stitch cholis and ghagras and sell them to the villagers and the occasional tourist for a higher than an average price.
Naturally, on a spring evening that smelled of camphor and rose incense from the puja ghar, when Vani learned that she was to wed a potter’s son from the village across the river, her face fell.
Where Does The River Go? by Tejaswinee Roychowdhury
“But Ma, I can see that village from my window!
“There are good people in that village. It will feel just like home and you can come here anytime you like using the footbridge. It is what is best for you.”
Her mother then adjusted her ghunghat, picked up from the kitchen floor a bronze thali filled with expensive kaju barfi on one side and piping hot home made laddoos on the other, and left with Vani’s little brother to distribute them to the neighbors as was the village custom for whenever a wedding was arranged.
Alone in her bedroom overlooking the footbridge and the river, Vani wondered if the potter’s son would share her fervour.
Perhaps, she could still harbor a sliver of hope but the thrill of marriage had slipped away faster than the river water escaped through the gaps between her long and bony fingers.
It was a July wedding and it had been raining sporadically all week.
Despite the dark rain clouds threatening to pour down on the valley, two villages had crowded in one and soon they would take Vani and go crowd in another.
Maithili hummed to herself an old Hindi song as she circled Vani, pinning the red orni on her niece’s head to the red choli and the red ghagra, all three of which bore golden zaris from Vani’s mother’s collection which matched the gold jhumki earrings, necklaces, bangles, tikli, and of course the gold nath or nose ring, the most important jewellery of all.
Alternate white and red pearls were inserted into the top half of the ruby studded nath ring which covered one fourth of her face on the lower left.
Its weight watered Vani’s eyes but she powered through for she was told the nath was a symbol of her father’s status.
Vani had found the idea rather amusing because he could hardly be called wealthy, just an average merchant of stone idols.
But her mother had said, “It is not about wealth. Your father does have a good relationship with the panchayat and if the groom’s family doesn’t understand that we have status in this village then they will find petty excuses to treat you poorly.”
Maithili dragged across the room an old wooden stool with a velvet lined cushion for a seat and put it behind Vani.
“Sit, I’m almost done,” she said. As she rummaged through her collection of bottled scents, she asked, “Why the long face? I thought you’d be happy to get married. It is what you always wanted.”
“But not to the potter’s son from the village across the river!”
“Oh, come now! That boy has a name Raghunath.”
“A ridiculous name.” Vani stared at her reflection for a split second. “It is because of my scars, isn’t it?”
Maithili found the rose scent she was looking for.
“Of course not,” she assured, and with her henna dipped fingers dabbed the scent on Vani’s neck and the inside of her wrists.
“Any boy would be a fool to turn away those beautiful honey eyes. Besides, the moon has scars too. She is loved regardless.”
Where Does The River Go? by Tejaswinee Roychowdhury
“That’s only because no one has a choice! There is just one moon. But there is a carousel of girls to pick and choose from. And nobody likes one with scars!”
It was indeed because of her scars from the particularly nasty chickenpox many summers ago that it was so hard to find a husband for Vani in the first place.
Even buck toothed Raghunath’s mother had demanded ten tolas of gold to agree to the wedding and had finally settled for eight.
But Vani didn’t know any of that and Maithili decided to keep it that way. “Scars or no scars, Raghunath will love you and care for you,” she said.
“You stay put, I will come and get you once the baraati is here.”
Vani looked outside her window at the dark clouds hovering over the valley.
Perhaps, it was always a silly idea to get married and that too during the monsoon, she thought.
The river still went east, fiercer than usual, crashing over boulders and rushing over little flat stones with millions of years’ worth of layers in them.
Her grandmother used to say of the river, “Life is like this river’s flow; it can never halt and must keep going no matter the price.”
2022 Where Does The River Go? by Tejaswinee Roychowdhury
“You’re supposed to weep,” whispered Maithili.
“I’m not sad,” said Vani dryly. Shifting homes from one side of the river to the other just to live with new people wasn’t exactly what she considered tear worthy.
"Must you always be so stubborn? Girls are supposed to weep during their vidaai as they are leaving their maike. Do it, people are watching!”
Vani rolled her eyes under her ghunghat.
Maithili refused to give up. “Look, just pretend like you’re Radha and you are leaving Krishna forever, and... good grief, at least sniff and make a sad face!”
But when Vani suppressed a snigger in response, she smacked her under the elbow.
“Lakhera ji, the sky doesn’t look so good. We must leave for our village since we’re going on foot,” said Raghunath’s father to Vani’s.
He nodded and walked towards his daughter, his only daughter, far too young to step into the life of marriage, but his hands were tied by customs and village norms.
He embraced Vani and whispered in her ear, voice breaking, “Be well, my child.”
"Baba, you know I will only be across the river, right? I can come to visit all of you every day.”
He smiled. If only it were that simple.
The Unconventional Courier November 2022 Where Does The River Go? by Tejaswinee Roychowdhury
With her henna clad hands, Vani scooped up a handful of rice grains and a couple of two rupee coins from the pallu of her aunt’s saree and threw it over her head and behind her.
It was a symbol of gratitude and love, and was supposed to pay her debts off to her parents for raising her, as if that was a debt that could be paid off at all.
She repeated it two more times, and the sleep deprived band shook off their stupor.
Half of them started to blare their trumpets while the other half beat on their drums.
Soon, a snakelike procession engulfed the groom and his new bride to its belly and noisily slithered towards the edge of the village where the footbridge was.
Half the procession was on the footbridge when it started raining heavily as if heaven’s bored Gods had decided to empty freshwater seas over their heads.
Soaked and shivering, the band stopped playing. Men and women yelled and complained as they hurried towards their village; children laughed and infants wailed.
Raghunath took advantage of the commotion and their proximity under the large black trembling umbrella to steal a glance at his scar faced bride.
Where Does The River Go? by Tejaswinee Roychowdhury
He thought the scars were unfortunate, much like his large buck-teeth that always stood between himself and anyone he ever tried to befriend.
Vani, however, her ghunghat lifted for convenience, was invested in managing her ghagra.
A clap of thunder from the west shook the souls of every last person, animal, and tree in the valley.
It was an unusual thunder, nothing like Vani had ever heard before.
Like the rising drum beats in the backdrop of five-year-old Banjara boys and girls walking the rope from one bamboo pole to another, the thunder rumbled on getting louder by the second.
Roaring water, almost as high as the mountains, rushed into the valley from where the two ranges converged.
Panic struck the procession and the footbridge swayed as people pushed and pulled to get themselves to safety.
Those at the south end of the footbridge scampered towards Vani’s village and those at the north end started running towards their own.
Raghunath grabbed his bride by her waist and pushed through the crowd towards his village.
Vani wailed as someone stomped on her left foot, but surrendered to the searing pain and clutched the chest of her husband’s sherwani as she limped alongside him.
2022 Where Does The River Go? by Tejaswinee Roychowdhury
They almost made it to the end of the footbridge; they believed that getting to land would save them as the large valley would spread the water out and lower its altitude.
But the untamed river struck the footbridge with the force and the rage of a starved monster suddenly uncaged, twisting and stretching it like an elastic band until the suspension cables snapped while mercilessly swallowing the valley and its two villages.
Where the quiet river took a sharp turn, a few men had built a large pyre with wood from the nearby trees.
On the pyre, lay the thirteen pale and stiff corpses the river had brought earlier that day.
The men had taken the gold off a young bride for she would no longer need them, but they left a toe ring on her punctured left foot for sending the dead with a bit of gold was customary and that was all the custom the men could afford or care for.
Not a tear shed, and not a chant uttered, strangers lit the pyre up; it was an act of kindness for the alternative was leaving them to the mercy of the crows circling above and cawing into the slate skies.
And if the men had stuck around to watch the dead rise in curling smoke, they might have heard one of them say, “So this is where the river goes."
Tejaswinee Roychowdhury is a Bengali Indian lawyer, writer, poet, and occasional artist. Her fiction has been/will be published in Muse India, Misery Tourism, Alphabet Box, Borderless Journal, Kitaab, and Active Muse, among others. Currently, she's a fiction/screen/stage editor for The Storyteller's Refrain.
Social Media & Website: Twitter: @TejaswineeRC
@tejaswineeroychowdhury Website: linktr.ee/tejaswinee
“People cheat when they are afraid. When there is no cost to being wrong or confessing ignorance, there is no reason to cheat or fake comprehension.”
Leah Hager CohenToday, I'm going to cheat on my husband.
I’m going to make love to a man whom I’m not allowed to love. I’ll meet the morning after being blinded by my act, which I’ll carry with me for a long time. After showering I’ll recognize his smell that will remind me of us. I’ll carry collected guilt and bitterness as I walk down the street and, finally, I’ll bring them into my apartment with me.
I was sitting opposite to Igor, looking at a curtain with red rhomboidal pattern, avoiding to look him straight at his eyes. It seemed that our breathing was matched, in spite of the fear creeping in between his focused gaze and my absence. I was looking for a sign for what was about to follow, something other than the cruel chemistry that reigned supreme over the room and was there right away when we first had met, irrational and strong.
I had planned this, weighing each of the options from several perspectives that had arose ahead of us in the midst of eruption of time and closeness, as powerful as lava.
The Unconventional Courier
We'll Know by Marija Rakić Mimica
Come here,” he said as I was taking off my sandals with ankle straps. I remember the time when I bought them, I was walking in the city with Vedran, hand in hand, summer gluing our palms together.
“I’m scared. Our emotions will be more than just the words.”
“Me too.” He looked at a place on my neck. Maybe he thought of his wife and her hands as she tightened sheets on their bed, folded their pyjamas under memory foam pillows, and quickly cooked before he went away on a business trip. He might've also been thinking of his kids having trouble finishing homework.
Igor and his wife have been married for six years. She’s a housewife, cocooned in a two storey house, with no zeal or resistance. All will died in her after she gave birth to their second child.
They were in two separate worlds, he once told me.
“There is no going back after this,” I continued with my version of events, not paying any attention to the expression on Igor’s face. His gaze was drifting aimlessly, like an empty boat in the open sea, swaying from one end of the room to the other, looking for a stronghold.
He was sensitive, and I was particularly attracted to his sensitivity. He was soaking up my emotions like a sponge, getting me right and understanding me without verbal communication.
Emotions were just thoughts before they became words, he used to say.
Outside, sultriness was turning off the day; fresh air was somewhere out there, in another city, abandoned like it didn’t exist, just like our marriages, although they were still with us. He was sitting in an armchair next to bed, jitters whiffing from his dark skin. I was looking at his regular, white teeth, pleasure spread all over my body like an announcement.
Marija Rakić
We had discussed this for a long time, almost a year. Here we are now, sitting in a hotel room...
I met Igor in my third year of marriage, when my husband’s hand on my thigh still stirred desire in me as we talked and argued, roared like animals, climaxing even when tired, devouring garlic sausages at midnight, slamming the doors, leaving and returning.
Back then, I was emotionally fulfilled, giggled a lot, ate healthy and taking care that my baby birth love handles would not be noticed in the little black dress that I wore to parties.
At that time, I had never even imagined that somebody else could rouse in me something bigger and stronger.
He turned up unexpectedly, on a sultry evening in August, on a stone terrace at a party hosted by joint friends. He approached me as I was standing by myself on the southern side of the terrace. An unpleasant hovering feeling in my head caused by sweltering air took me away from the heated faces and crowd. I soon found myself close to the rail from where the view opened up towards misty sky above the silent sea. He leaned on the rail and asked me how long we would have to wait for sea air to climb up to the terrace.
“It can help you with your promotion, though I’m not so sure. Last year, you were writing a novel, now you’re being promoted as a teacher. You’re wandering all the time,” Vedran told me as I put my clothes in a suitcase with my sweaty hands.
I was folding T shirts as if it was something of vital importance; neatly ironed and folded clothes gave me back a bit of stability, that I was far away from at that moment.
We'll
Marija Rakić Mimica
“I guess you’re right,” I said as I continued folding the clothes for stability's sake.
I’ve been spinning in circles for some time now, and I’m not sure that my circles are expanding at that.
On the other hand, spinning in an emotional circle is similar to a ride on a roller coaster; adrenalin stimulates all my bodily receptors, creating an addiction I cannot get away from, keeping me awake all the time so that I'm ready for close combat or escape. And that is why I persist in getting more.
"Do you remember how often we‘ve quarrelled this winter? It’s not like that anymore. It won’t be so difficult forever. It’ll pass.” He enunciated his sentences quickly, caught up in the role of the caring husband, quite different from the one who wouldn’t even notice me when I walked past him naked the very same winter. I could run, sing, scream as loud as I could, dance around pole, but he would simply sit.
We were both tired and chewed by last year's many litigations, business trips and days spent in courtrooms, wearisome arguments, and the sudden growth of the loan instalment we took out to live in the suburbs.
“Of course,” I responded. I was busy packing my business clothes for a seminar. I folded the suits the best in the end, above neatly folded shirts.
Vedran and I communicate on high frequencies, with a dose of alienation lurking behind every tone that is later watered with reports on faults and deficiencies of the other person.
In those rare moments we spend together, we dig holes in each other’s souls as if we were moles.
Marija Rakić
We sat without moving.
Igor was looking at my body; I was studying a black and white framed photograph of an island behind his back. The photo captured wild waves splashing over cliffs behind the pier and featured tightly moored boats swaying along long and fat waves. There were also locals crowding on the shore to observe the sea raging in front of their eyes.
“Come.” He interrupted the silence as if everything was all right. His voice was pleasant, often calming me down by long conversations and stubborn presence. I was reading hope from his facial expressions. After all, he had been planning our intimate relations for months, wrestling with every single act of my cowardice. It seemed to me that he had been here forever.
I would give him a call whenever I was left in my apartment by myself. He talked to me whenever he could, patiently and calmly, as I sat on my couch after a stressful work day and Vedran was on a business trip because of some lawsuit in another city.
Our thoughts were swarming around us persistently just like bees around flowers. First came the innocent ones, the ones that don’t draw guilt. Then came conversations during crazy hours and drinking coffees accompanied by harmless touches, quarrels and platonic make ups.
I was looking forward to it as I rushed heedlessly to the schoolyard, hanging strongly to our intimate moments.
I tried running away more than once, pushed him away from myself, yet I’m here, in this place, with him, and not sitting at my own living room table in a spacious suburb apartment, preparing a light dinner, reading a bedside story to my daughter, after which I usually slump over the couch next to my husband, the man I love.
We'll Know by Marija Rakić Mimica
“What are you going to buy me? What?” Mirta was wailing as I tried to untangle the fishbone braid in the middle of her head. Her curls dropped out of her braid holder. This morning, I’ve glued them to her head by hairpins, but they were now everywhere. She looked for me with her sparky eyes, tugged at my skirt, and bounced.
“Buy me Elsa’s castle!” She shouted as she kissed me in the centre of my forehead.
I left the room.
“Mom, the door!” she yelled.
“Okay.” I opened the door slightly and looked at her once again. She closed her eyes tight.
Mirta has always been afraid of the dark. Before going to bed, when Vedran was still away, I left the light on in the living room. I lay in my bed and my voice went through the door, left slightly ajar until she asked the last question. I kept hearing her question in my head long after she fell asleep, like a rhyme.
“How many times do I have to wake up before Dad comes home?” she asked. She always asks this question.
Igor squeezed himself into the armchair, probably thinking about everything. Although he never admitted it, I feel that he’s scared of my unstableness, which always follows us.
We'll Know by Marija Rakić Mimica
He won me over by his calm, rational approach to our possible future. Sometimes it seemed to me that I fit perfectly into his world of figures and computer operations, as if I were an equation with several unknowns and only one exact solution.
I got lost in my analyses of our relationship. I turned around my axis, spun in a circle, while Igor was very realistic when he thought about us, specifically, what will happen during the morning after, the morning that will bluntly kick us out from the bed and into the street, the outer world.
He stood up and opened the curtains. I thought that I was so fucking in love with this man.
We can go for a drink. There is a bar at the lobby.” I said. Every muscle in me pulsated, ready to face another challenge, carefully planned by myself in order to finally calm down, as I loved to explain to myself.
Maybe now is the time, I thought. This has to go away at one point.
“Did you talk to him last night?” he asked as we sat behind the counter, with only a quick shadow passing over his face to show how uncomfortable he was.
“No, I didn’t.” I replied and ordered a double vodka. I squirmed in my chair and lit a cigarette. I felt smoke scratching me inside my throat. I looked around and caught his hand.
A strange tenderness lurched over our heads. We were alone at the hotel bar.
“It’s difficult to talk to you. I don’t understand you. First, you look for me, then you push me away, then again you look for me. What do you want?”
We'll Know by Marija Rakić Mimica
He moved a curl from my cheek. I sucked in my stomach and stopped breathing, as particles of his perfume diluted in my nostrils and travelled all the way to my brain.
His touch was natural, and his desire finally emerged to the surface, bringing us together in the moment that we thought about for so long, and then it seemed that it just materialized right in front of us, quickly and suddenly.
We have been in love with each other platonically for too long. Now, the time when there is nothing to talk about has come. Words are now just sets of sounds with no meaning, irrelevant, uttered so many times before.
“Kiss me.” I realized right away that this was said by some other woman.
He came close. He kissed me, I felt his warm tongue in my mouth, his fingers on my skin, his rigid muscles next to my thighs. I stood back.
Now, when our intimate relationship was supposed to be fully realized, we were practically silent. He was spinning a glass of whiskey on the wooden counter and I was looking outside, towards the hotel terrace.
“You love him.” He said.
I felt a strong blow to my stomach and straightened my back. All the mosaic pieces were slowly finding their places, somewhat like our betrayals. I looked miserably into Igor’s eyes.
No, definitely. He wasn’t the one.
“Come on. Nobody will ever know.” He tried to pull me towards him.
I stood up. Igor was standing next to a bar stool in the hotel lobby, slightly glancing towards me over his shoulder. He sat at the counter and turned his back to me.
I went out, low fluffy clouds were hanging in the sky, like curtains, covering tops of nearby hills and most of land.
Sirocco was raising dust on the terrace, the waiters were picking up white tablecloths and dishes from tables, the air was warm and wet.
Further away in the open sea, the wind raised waves.
“We’ll know.”
We'll Know by Marija Rakić Mimica
We'll Know by Marija Rakić Mimica
Marija Rakić Mimica was born in 1982 in Split.
She graduated in Croatian language and literature and comparative literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb.
She has won four literary awards for her short stories; Prose for the best prose manuscript by an author under 35 for 2015, Brod knjižara Brod kulture 2016, third prize in the competition Story in the City of Trogir City Library, first prize for prose in the Literary Competition "Ticket 2020."
So far, she has published prose in all major literary magazines. Short stories were also published in the collections 20 + 1 The Most Beautiful Story for Summer published by Brod kulture, in thefinals of Lapis Histriae 2014, the finals of the Zlatko Tomičić Award 2018, the Bedekovčina 2015 collection. She published a collection of short stories Dancing in the Yard .)
She is currently the leader of a drama workshop at the Sunce moje malo Kindergarten and the Book Lovers' Club at the Peristil House of Culture and Language in Split. She is employed in Split as a Croatian language teacher in high school.
Follow Marija on IG: @marijarakic mimica
“And when I thought of Florence, it was like a miracle city embalmed and like a corolla, because it was called the city of lilies and its cathedral, St. Mary of the Flowers."
― Marcel ProustFar from Florence I lie as I write to you this summer. How strange a thought this would be for our two souls two whole summers ago, where all seemed possible how intoxicating, the scent of a whole race’s glory, cast wide over one clamouring city, one endless song of light. The gates had been thrown open to travellers young and old, from near and far, simple or scarred; save for one sacred condition: an aweful heart.
That summer, and the one that followed, drunk on the wine of midnight’s penning blaze, I danced in your revels, I sang songs of joy, and swallowed my throat’s blood, so keen on burning everything I had for your bonfire flame.
Don’t you remember? I gave you everything. Would have given more if you’d asked.
I climbed to the tops of your spires, ran from building to building and soared under your watchful gaze. I scraped layers from my very bones on every one of your whetstones, just to look right in that Florentine haze. Didn’t you see?
You loved me. The world was dark and cold outside, with you, the one light, and your walls teemed, overflowing with eager travellers begging to escape their pain. You took each of us in, let us learn, grow, sin
Let every willing wick be called an artist, told us to keep these traditions thrumming through every darkened age. For two summers, I was one of your own.
Then the darkness recoiled at last, tendrils slowly pulling away. The paths were clear once more, well worn, they led, all, to you. With clear day to guide us home, and bells calling us to fix the rubble, we left that city of light, the gates thrown open as always.
I had to go. I told you so. Said I’d be back next summer, my love.
Rubble restored, I ran once more on the path, so sure I’d kiss my lecturers once more. Those fountains of knowledge that’d once begged to flow, I dedicated my steps to every one of those, And at the gates, you said no.
Once we’d left, that was it. No more would the fountains flow for free, no more would you take those from afar, because there was not enough misery. Your light was not needed anymore, you reasoned. We could find our ways in our own place. And so, I was turned away, for reasons no one could say, exiled from my beloved Florence’s day.
Atticus Payne
Do you still remember me, I wonder? Think of me every now and then? Did you ever care?
What must I do to have my renaissance again? What name must I bear? Must one now be born as an heir? How far back have you stepped, my love? There was once such hope, such progress.
I beg you to reconsider. For the time that we shared, two glorious summers past.
Atticus Payne is a teen writer and self dubbed professional daydreamer. A Best of the Net nominee, she is also the publication director of Healthline zine. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Outlander Zine, immortal journal, Paper Crane Journal, and others.
Atticus can be contacted @janelleyapp on Twitter.
Owl, Lunar, Twig by Leslie Cairns
“I visited many places, Some of them quite Exotic and far away, But I always returned to myself.”
― Dejan StojanovicI took a maimed or fallen barn owl into my home. Its mask was similar to what huskies have on their face except tawny: all ribbon, concise, unawares. Blinking at me as if to say I know. I hadn’t named it yet, but handed it a crumb of off-brand blueberry Poptart, which it surprisingly took into its gnarled teeth. In middle school, before we could dissect shark or sheep really large mammals we had to dissect owl pellets. I’d sheepishly thought the pellets were homes. Only after I cut in, asking my lab partner if she saw twigs, did she laugh in a snarl. Teeth pearled with braces I would never have. Braces meant a family that loved you, took you to the doctors, wanted more.
It’s old dung. It’s disgusting. It’s not a home or a nest. Are you ridiculous? She’d pulled her Abercrombie sweater closer to her, head in her curls. I couldn’t tell if she was discussing the home or me.
I snap from the memory, clutching the phone to my ear. Telling my friend Eleanor about the owl. Eleanor’s like a sister to me, even though I hadn’t been able to travel to her wedding. Couldn’t afford it back then or now.
The Unconventional Courier November 2022 Owl, Lunar, Twig by Leslie Cairns
She sighs on the other end, and I make the owl a blanket of my own creation. She sighs some more.
“Elsie,” she says.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I retort. “The owl’s staying. I’m weird. I know. But it needs to heal.”
Eleanor, my truly devoted friend the one who made me a bridesmaid in emerald, even though I didn’t go sighs some more.
I hang up, not unkindly, and the owl blinks at me. My head pulses like a migraine, but unsteady and shaky. Not constant, not needing to drown out light. A headache just for me. I know I’m about to disassociate, untangle from the vertebrae of the day.
--
“Go, just go,” she said.
“Mom?” I say. Stomach wavering. “Go on, get out.”
She shoves an old toothpaste colored suitcase at me. Oversized, looking like it could fit a funeral suit.
The Unconventional Courier November 2022 Owl, Lunar, Twig by Leslie Cairns
"It was your father’s old one. Perfect for you.”
No one would get the context of why that remark was so cruel. I think of how my two sisters don’t have to leave. Just me. I think of how I drank her champagne, diluted in orange juice since I was underage, still naively afraid the cops would come looking for me if I spilled.
I wanted to help her finish the bottles, always forgetting when the moths and crickets hugged me outside, that she would just bellow her way into another one. Howl at the moon, foul.
“I can’t. Where would I go?” I say.
She shrugs so simply, as if I was asking her if it’s Monday. That’s when I knew I needed to get gone. She’s not there: just dead weight, lackluster.
“I’m going.” She pawed her feet, unsteady.
“You’re just drinking. Maybe you want me to stay.”
She laughed. “You know that’s not true.”
I throw random blouses, sweatpants from Victoria’s Secret Pink into my bag. Garments that hugged me in another life.
My childhood dog, Dexter, whimpered in the corner.
I looked him dead in the eye.“Don’t be afraid little guy. I’ll be back.”
I didn’t think that was true, but I couldn’t bear telling him. He wagged his little dachshund tail; it reminded me of the summers we spent jogging side by side, near the farms and pebbled hills. Barely a car.
It was bad for his back in long distances, but he loved it just the same. So, he’d endure for just a little while.
2022 Owl, Lunar, Twig by Leslie Cairns
I kissed Dex, his jaw wobbled, then he dove back into unfinished laundry. Just a little head sticking out, as if he was cascaded socks.
I’m halfway out the door, and my Mom said, “Do you think you’ll ever even graduate or get a job in this world? I mean, you?”
I just looked at her. Our eyes almost the same hue.
I finally didn’t have to answer her, or perhaps I’d been too shocked to care. Just residue, leaving time and jazz sounds.
“Goodbye Mom,” I said.
I didn’t grab towels or socks. I thought of how my room would just shiver with no one to sleep in it. How it will go unused like a broken heart. The ceiling fan will twirl without an audience. For some reason, that made me sadder than anything else. The owl nestles into me: all strange muscle and tissue. Feathers oddly soft. “Hi, Buddy,” I said. “I disassociate from time to time.”
She doesn’t fly away. I realize she’s hurt. Grabbing my first aid kit, the first thing I put in my newfound house when I moved in. I take out gauze, add some soothing balm to it like lipgloss, and stick it around her wing. She beaks me but I know it’s just because she’s afraid.
I practice in my head how I’m going to talk to her three times before I say anything out loud. I don’t want to spook her or to think I’m kicking her out. I would never want to sound like she did, not to any living thing.
I practice, whisper before saying it out loud, in moon tones. Soft, hushed and lunar: “You can go at any time. If you need to.”
Leslie Cairns
I nod, satisfied. The owl shimmies closer as the breeze wraps around my ankle and her talons. They’re almost mustard. She has a white streak down her right side. There’s no blood.
My therapist once said during inpatient that distress tolerance is when you’re actually in pain. Trauma unfolding. All you can do is see it’s happening: spinning like someone suddenly under ice. Just there then gone. Dissociation won’t last forever, but time will trick you. You just have to grab that ice bitten hand. Call 9/11. Do what you have to do. When I disassociate, I just count my breaths in lunar phases. Full, half, sliver, blackout eclipse.
The owl chirps, wanting to join its family, probably. But it can’t fly so it can’t find them right now.
“I know the feeling buddy,” I say.
Once the memory of leaving my Mom subsides, I’m left with wanting to hurl. My therapist said emotional regulation is the second tier. You’re ‘with it’ enough to tolerate and name the feelings. She handed me a rainbow pinwheel that I pocketed. ‘Sad’ became a thesaurus of larger words. You spun the wheel for feelings. I have a Masters Degree now, in English: I could name so many words. Until I was sitting on a sofa, or a therapy chair, then I could only mutter basic panderings. Sad. Fearful. Afraid. I’m okay though, was my constant addendum to anything I said.
The Unconventional Courier November 2022 Owl, Lunar, Twig by Leslie Cairns
The pretty words left my body when I tried to name them. I even used to recite Shakespeare in highschool; I was good at it. But when a therapist said, how are you feeling? I just stared at the windows like I was cigarette plumes of smoke echoing out the window. I turned into nothing.
“Sad?” I’d say. My fists would be clenched but I didn’t know how to say mad. I’d have to leave the room to throw up, but I’d say, sort of anxious.
But I’m in my house, I’m in the present. I can do this.
The owl stares at me.
"I’m afraid. For you, for all of my friends’ sighs. For this house not really being a home yet. Does it look alright to you?” I look over at the bird and laugh, because of course she doesn’t know.
“I’m going to call you something beautiful. Like that pinwheel of words. I’ll really think of what you should be,” I say.
She fluffs, preens, ignoring my story. Of course she is: she’s a bird.
I glance at the alcove above us, the quilt from my 1920s grandmother underneath us.
“I’m so petrified,” I say. I think that was on the pinwheel.” Clutching my sides, knees, scabs, stomach, hip bones.
“I won’t even be able to eat. When those memories come up, they just snatch everything. You know?”
She lets out a howl, and the bandage looks weird. I redo, breathe. Barely feeling it now: the way my Mom smelled, the way it comes into my vision whenever it wants to, all the time.
Unconventional Courier
2022 Owl, Lunar, Twig by Leslie Cairns
The third tier, my therapist always said, was mindfulness. When she’d say it, her argyle sweater would be draped over her shoulders. Her sailor stripes and ruby flats reminded me of a weird kind of armor. Bad stuff wouldn’t happen to people dressed so preppy it almost screams at you. Maybe looking sweet would keep the monsters away.
I looked at my acid wash jeans, and looked at the therapist, and felt so alone.
Now, I stare at the owl, leaning on my belly. I place my head in my hands, and watch the moonlight trickle on us. In this way, we’re exactly the same. We could both be animals, or both have in tandem heartbeats; no one would ever really know.
Do one thing at a time. Wrap your arms on your stomach. Breathe in. Out. Visualize a safe space, or bubbles of loved ones that you can count. Count the different shades of autumn on trees. It turns off the chaos of the world. Plus, your brain cannot panic and count at the same time, my therapist had said with a slight giggle.
I count the owl’s eyes, obviously two. The feathers until I get to her belly and she moves to a branch above me: 206.
I call Eleanor back. “206!” I say.
The Unconventional Courier
Owl, Lunar, Twig by Leslie Cairns
“What?” She yawns. I hear her husband cooing to her just like the owl is to me, only sweeter because it’s actually something tangible, not my messed up version of love. Of losing my mind with an owl.
“She has 206 feathers. I was trying to do mindfulness in my new home.”
The sighing again. The pause like the shifting of Petal’s feet. That’s what I wanted to name her, Petal. Not a basic part of a flower, but a specific one. A pretty sounding word, but it held everything together.
This one seems easy, I’d said to my therapist. She’d leaned forward; a cat with a canary.
Finally winning.
“Really?” she’d said. “I think you struggle with this one the most. You’re lonely. You isolate. Your Mom kicked you out.”
The reality is like pebbles in pockets.
Make future plans,” she said. She changed the subject and I noticed, but I pretended that I hadn’t.
“Ask someone what they need from you. Listen for subtext. Clarify your needs.”
She handed me acronyms: ways to be KIND, FALTER, and TIPP.
Owl, Lunar, Twig by Leslie Cairns
“Okay,” I said. I threw them to the back of my purse for a while, wanting to believe I was lovable. Not an isolated version of the girl who used to recite Shakespeare for her friends, who would then laugh at her, leaned against lockers. Tolerating.
I paused, air. “I need you to love my house, I decorated it so. And, the pebbles I put ”
“Stop, just stop,” Eleanor said. I could picture her leaning against her husband. Him giving her a soft mouthed kiss, after.
“You’re not in a house,” she said. “You want it to be, but it’s an abandoned shed. You pinged me the coordinates. You won’t go to a shelter.”
My stomach starts to belch in fear; memories start to crowd my vision. I shake my head, count feathers.
“I have an owl,” I whisper.
“You both are not where you belong,” she says. I cradle the phone near my ear. I don’t want to hang up, nor do I want to believe her.
“I have to go,” I say.
“No ” Eleanor starts.
The owl suddenly jumps on my lap. Stares into my eyes, then takes off. Reaching my hands at the feathers that fall down as she goes, pretending for a moment that she’s leaving me something to follow. The answer, the reason, the need to, that I’m after.
Leslie Cairns holds an MA degree in English Rhetoric. She lives in Denver, Colorado.
poetry in various magazines,
Mag, Swim Press, Bright Flash
Damhuri Muhammad
“Everything exists to end in a photograph.”
Susan SontagHow long can you look back at the face you captured in the photo after he died? You asked while looking for a self portrait of a personage in a special folder on your laptop. A writer of the obituary article wanted it because the well-known man had just been reported dead. What if what appears on the screen is your father's face, which you may have captured before he passed away? Can you stare at that face for several hours? For you, it is the most terrible job. It may be more dangerous than endeavoring to gain photoshoot momentum in a precarious situation. The face in the photo looks like it wants to talk to you. His lips seemed to move. His hand seems to be outstretched asking you to be quiet for a moment, listening to his request. With all kinds of expressions, he seems to be begging you to convey things that are not conveyed in his life. He revealed all the secrets about all sorts of accusations that he might have denied when he was alive. Portraits of a dead person are like virtual homes in which there is a lot of hope, and everything is meant for you.
The Unconventional Courier November 2022 The Last Portrait Photo Folder by Damhuri Muhammad
“
Supposedly, if the person is dead, all the photos should also be buried! So as not to cause trouble," you said, annoyed.
That's what makes you more passionate about capturing inanimate objects than taking pictures of living people. If you can't avoid humans, you will choose a human who is already lying in the coffin. But, of course, there are times when you can't resist pointing the mouth of the lens at the face of a living person. Do you remember when your father suddenly asked for taking a picture with the background of the Kangkung garden which he worked on with the remnants of his strength after years of working as a well digger?
“You are so busy taking pictures for other people. Now, take a photo of me. Show this expanse of vegetable gardens as proof that I am still energetic,” said your father on one occasion when you returned home several years ago.
“Please make it so that my face doesn't look too old. Likewise for my body. Try to make it not look frail," your father requested, even though he was seventy two at that time.
"Why are you still silent? Hurry up and get your tools ready!”
A request that is not only unusual but also makes you gasp for a few pauses. You know, ever since you were a kid, there have been no family photos hanging on the walls of your living room. Even if there were photos, it's just a photo of your younger brother receiving a speech competition trophy, or a photo of your other younger brother when his classmate in junior high took part in an inter-school competition. Even though three scholars lived in that house (including yourself), not a single graduation photo was posted. No pictures of your mother, not your father, not even their wedding picture. But then, at the age of seventy two, he suddenly asked you to prepare a photo shoot to capture him. I don't know for what purpose.
The
by Damhuri Muhammad
Without asking too much, you take the best lenses out of your backpack, flash-off lamps. You also install tripods and light reflectors in the Kangkung garden area behind your childhood home. You let your father stand in the comfortable position without being directed at all. You just let him talk freely during the photoshoot. The afternoon light was quite bright. The atmosphere is cool and calm, with interludes of light jokes, until you finally manage to get fifty frames from various shooting angles, with image sharpness and perfect detail.
"No check the results needed. I believe you are already an expert!”
“You may send one or two to my brothers. Just to show that I'm still strong. I haven't been made fragile by diseases like them."
"Just keep the rest. You'll need it later."
From the chat during the photoshoot, you were actually aware that he wanted to pose with you, which you could've done via selfie mode on your digital camera. But your father hesitated to convey a wish that might have sounded exaggerated. He knew since your childhood that you always refused every invitation to take pictures. Your first experience with photography was the experience of facing fear. At that time, standing a few steps in front of the lens mouth, it was like resigning yourself to a deadly shot from an executor's rifle with a terrible face, even though the photographer was your father's youngest brother. You feel threatened every time you have to face the camera. Your face feels like you're going to be skinned, your ears feel like they're going to be cut, and your chest feels like you're going to be stabbed.
"People who are afraid to be photographed as a child later grow up to be photographers," said your uncle hopefully. Your father immediately agreed with him.
That wish came true later on. Time polished your photography skills.
Your days cannot be separated from the camera. Nothing is more interesting to you than drawing with light, even though your field of science has absolutely nothing to do with photography. However, your behavior has not changed. Left alone with the reality of the image, you are afraid to reveal yourself. You always reduce the risk of being exposed to many people. You like to hide from anyone. When you can't avoid having to pose in front of the camera, the results are predictable: forced smiles and a giddy aura that you can't deny. Friends call you a photographer with one taboo: being the object of the photoshoot. When that happens, they say, your reputation as a great photographer will be destroyed.
One year after you sent several photo frames of your father to his siblings via e mail, you heard the news that your father had passed away. Several people carried your father's body from the Kangkung garden. At that time, he was harvesting, and was waiting to bring the results to the market for a buyer. Suddenly, your father was struck by asphyxiation until he collapsed and slumped limply on the ground. Your father lay in a weakened state for several months until his life was unable to be saved. So, the photoshoot that produced 50 frames was your last time with him. You even failed to see your father to his grave. The plane you were taking from Jakarta was delayed. All you can see when you arrive at your village is that your father's burial ground is still brown.
"Until now I have not been able to open the folder containing my father's photos!" You said with an increasingly confused look.
“Once I accidentally opened it, then I hastily closed it. My father lives in those photos!”
by Damhuri Muhammad
The photos in a special folder on the laptop are not yet how thrilling your chest. When we were students, do you remember taking me to your village?
At that time I brought an analog camera, a prize I got from a photo contest. With that camera (of course with amateurish skills and cheap support tools) I made a group photo pose in your yard; you, two of your younger brothers, and your father. The photo is still intact in my archives.
The photos are outdated, and of course the colors are dull. But the memories that live in them, I guarantee they will not rust. In the past, after we printed the photo negative, you were very excited to say that your father is still energetic. At that time your father was toughness. After digging a well in someone's house, his whole body was covered in clay. You noted that only his tongue was not clay colored.
“As long as the shovel is still hitting the rocks in the depths of the well, never hesitate. I'll get dirty with clay, and you guys have fun at school,” your father encouraged.
You can't take care of your father the way he casually takes your little body to the health center when you have a high fever after playing football in the pouring rain. You can't give him his favorite food because he has lost his appetite. While in childhood, a piece of cake that was almost put in his mouth he snatched back because he saw your eyes want the cake. Now he is gone. Your joy with him is also long gone. But you won't forget the smell of clay that has fused with your father's skin. You'll never forget the way he laughed, the stubby base of his arm. Missing the old days hanging on your father's shoulders is a kind of joy that will no longer make a sound. Or a kind of silence that will no longer be spoken of for the rest of your life.
The negative of the old photo has disappeared. However, I have saved it by converting to digital format. I have sent the softcopy to your email address. Download and keep it safe. You will need it soon...
Damhuri Muhammad was born in Sumatra, and lives in Jakarta, Indonesia. He is a graduate of the postgraduate philosophy program at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta.
He writes fiction, literary criticism, and opinion columns. His work has appeared in The Daily Star, Eksentrika, The MuslimMirror, and elsewhere. He currently serves as a lecturer in philosophy at Darma Persada University, Jakarta.
can be found on Twitter
damhurimuhammad
It shouldn’t hurt to have a joyous heart, Or whether we are grateful for what’s given Or whether we lapsed in free space, our part A guess thrown out by slow evolving heav’n.
For we know not what put us here, just when, And might as well be like all creatures else, To live like birds, like chortl’ing grackle, wren, Believing each day’s sun, each worm our pulse.
of Sonnets
Victoria Leigh Bennett
If anything our spell of ecstasy Unhinges to return us to the clay
It is to know ourselves the patent thieves Who’ve put all other lives in disarray.
And to an end foreswearing dominance
Except to aid, we must restore, enhance.
Except to aid, we must cease dominance, For we are feeble gods, who renovate But cannot out of nothing ordain chance, Just only with our test tubes bollocks fate.
How funny yet how apt we sketch our gods, Our first created lives, to take the blame Of all we can’t control, to beat the odds
When we have need to plead, call out some name.
The words we use, we hope they’ll meet our case; When nought do work, well then, “it was God’s will,”
But if they play us true, “we saw God’s face
And He (or She) us chose so to fulfill.”
Ecologizing
of Sonnets
Victoria Leigh Bennett
Manipulating deity’s a way For us to slack responsibility.
So not to slack, let’s rather choose this way: “The effort must start here and now, with me.”
If God there be, surely that god would lay Intelligence on us as rental fee.
That god would put us far below the salt, For we waste all resources, kine, rock, air, We use the globe as if it were our vault, If God’s supreme, our stewardship’s not fair.
It isn’t fair to creatures we share with To drink their water and pollute the world
As if we could at any time draw hith Our gods to gift an earth like wool new burled.
Nor is it any fairer to our peers, Our fellow pilgrim humans who dwell here.
Our fellow human pilgrims here, our peers
In situations grimmer where they lose All that they have, of desert, wood, or weir We cannot leave all them to pay our dues.
Once more there is a space race, too, because We eat, consume, move on, leave trash behind; We are the worst of vermin, jackals, daws, Even animals’ instincts best our ample minds.
The jackal, daw, the vulture, clean up messes, But as for us, our plastics, oil spills, smog-All, all our clutter, selfish thought confesses, And shows the earth with us has slipped a cog.
And if we don’t address our problems now Tomorrow is too late earth to endow. Tomorrow will be too late, we see it now, For ice caps melt, and species die, too soon; As if there weren’t a choice, we mope and mow And live disconsolate, cry, out of tune.
Sonnets
Victoria Leigh Bennett
When scientists who have the best we know Speak out, and say our fate will soon be sealed If we do not engage the undertow Of our own doing, restore earth, new healed
Then some try to debate not how or where, But if the scientists know truth, or lie; The doubters challenging, a waste of air, Since all will die together, sweet or wry.
For all we know, bugs, viruses we fight Are earth’s solution: send us back to night.
If earth’s solution sends us into night, To fight, restoring order with us gone, Then we’re, disconsolate, deprived of light For our own hands have worked to make us pawns.
There are so many roses still and hills, So many meerkats, many lions, rich loam, And horses, lotuses, and singing rills, It would be sad to thus be summoned home
Victoria Leigh
Into the earth, for where else do we lie?
When all the days and days and nights have passed, And if there is a heaven, where bestowed Are all our rights to be there, at the last?
For if we cannot joy in earth’s demesne, What other heav’n consoles us with its scene?
What other heav’n consoles for earth’s demesne? So beautiful, so rare, has been our time However frustrate, or in pain we’ve been, What better place could pass for the sublime?
It is a strange excuse to say “I wait For happiness to be when I am dead; And for the evil things done here on earth I’ll with god, angels congregate instead.”
If people’s gods are true, expecting joy
At all the matchless gifts of earth’s domain, And looking for us to combat annoy With balances made up from fair, soft rain, With sun, dance, colors bright to take our part, It shouldn’t hurt to have a joyous heart.
B.A., Cornell Univ., M.A. & Ph.D., Univ. of Toronto, English & Theater. "Come for the shadows, stay for the read."
In Print: "Poems from the Northeast," 2021. OOP but on website: "Scenes de la Vie Americaine (en Paris)," [in English], 2022. Aug. 2021 to Nov. 2022, Victoria will have published 25 times with: Roi Faineant Literary Press, The Unconventional Courier, Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Art, Barzakh Magazine, The Alien Buddha Press, The Madrigal Press, Amphora Magazine, Discretionary Love, Winning Writers (requested for 2 newsletters), Cult of Clio.
She has been accepted w/4 works by Bullshit Literary Magazine for 4/23. Victoria is the organizer behind the poets' collective @PoetsonThursday along with Alex Guenther & Dave Garbutt. She writes Fiction/Flash/CNF/Poetry. Victoria is emotionally and ocularly disabled. You can follow Victoria on: Website: creative-shadows.com Twitter: @vicklbennett
One day epitaphs will be forgotten last words lost, the living that once curried us will hurry from where we sleep. The land, we pranced the land we desecrated will be the final the only home
Now that you are young, virile full of life and brimming with fire, fast-forward this poem and quickly envision those declining grey looks your old eyes will wear, those regrets at lovers who now squirm at your wrinkled brow and stayed with you only for the beauty that vanished and the respite of those true friends who love your soul bare, unfurnished
and still cherish the happiness of your wrinkled soul while you bend tiredly over a crooked stick watch with nostalgia how grand sons flee dangerously across a sharp bend of familiar valleys and disappear amidst the clouds of seduction.
(On 5 June 2022, a mass shooting and bomb attack occurred at a Catholic church in the city of Owo in Ondo State, Nigeria. Wikipedia)
& fathers find their homes with no rubbles
Let a drum of storm settles into a violin of worship
where violence has torn & wrecked a church
Let worshippers spring from those charred sands Echoes of their praises opening this nation Into rebirth Into manacles
Of her redemption
Waliyullah Adesokan (Toonday) writes from Oyo State, Nigeria.
Firstbank.
Wales Haiku, Ethel-Zine, Shallowtales
Stillwater
(Twitter: @indraghosh314 IG: @indraghosh314)
After “Margin of Silence” (1942) by Kay Sage
I cannot breathe, yet I live.
I cannot see, yet I solve.
I cannot move, yet I hide myself.
I cannot hear, yet I know.
I cannot speak, yet I teach.
I cannot taste, yet I remember. I cannot protect, yet I guide. I cannot feel, yet I learn. I cannot, yet I do!
After “The Fourteen Daggers” (1942) by Kay Sage
Introduce yourself. The touch. Daunting? No, heartening. Come closer. I am not allowed. Why is that? I overturn in no time. I make my own rules.
You are notion. Not always.
not? Because random tissues scream. I find that intimidating. So does everyone. Let us call it a day, maybe? Right, see you soon!
by Edvard Munch
I did, I did not, Who’s judging? Why me? They flaunt, On the shore, Who knew? Who won? The choking, The smoke, Is it a staged act? Are you sure? The billows, The floaters, Saving me? Is that true?
Indranil Ghosh is a Ph.D. student in applied mathematics from India, currently residing in New Zealand.
Highly inspired by Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, and Robert Frost, whenever he is not working, one may find him either reading classic poems or listening to music from the 70s and 80s.
His Twitter handle is @indraghosh314 You can follow him on IG: @indraghosh314
The Unconventional
sometimes, i love you so much it isn't love by Chide
i love you. i love you the way the sun loves the moon; chasing her like a spellbound lover across the sky year in, year out without a choice or even the knowledge of how to love anyone else, like how
Apollo loved Hyacinthus: in discuses and blood-red flowers, my love foe you burns like a wild flame in love with freedom and air and dry grass, holds on to you like how a spider's web holds fast to a fly's wings.
i love you in the sounds of the morning, the serene singing of birds, the gentle whispering of the breeze, and
The Unconventional Courier
2022 sometimes, i love you so much it isn't love by Chide
in the haunting sounds of the night, the throaty croaks of frogs, the hypnotic chirping of crickets, even the soprano screeching of a banshee. i love you in words that do not exist and colours that cannot be seen, in profound silence like human ears can never know i love you in moments that can never again be relived, lost to the permanent amnesia of failing memories, in gasps for air that seem inadequate, too little, too precious. and it is for this reason i hate you; because i love you.
sometimes, i love you so much it isn't love by Chide
Chide is a Nigerian student and poet who loves to read psychological thrillers and take long strolls just after dark. She has work recently published or forthcoming in Worm Moon Archive, Karma Comes Before The Magazine and The Creative Zine. You can follow her on Twitter @god chide.
—Seriously dangerous religion— for Ian Provan
When he was studying theology, my dad inadvertently showed me how to befriend a professor: build him a deck while your children eat pancakes inside. Take delight in his wit, in the accent so thick you’d need a crowbar to stir it.
Go fishing, read his book, graduate and wait as he watches your children graduate in turn.
I have many memories of him but my favorite is this: we are snowed in, all of us.
We go to the bottom of our steep hill to assess that tricky turn, to see if he can make his flight, or stay another night.
There are already two cars in the ditch, writing etched in snow and swerving tire treads showing black against the whit
He is a prophet of the old ages, watching that third car pull slowly forward.
I often wonder what the driver was thinking seeing the old man with the eyes of God shake his head and point at the writing on the road, and how he bore witness to a third casualty of friction and gravity.
“Legions of scholars have wondered whether Christ laughed. The question doesn’t interest me much.
I believe he never laughed, because, omniscient as the son of God had to be, he knew how we Christians would behave.”
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
Communion given in a solid gold cup inlaid with the blood jewels of holy wars
Christ probably laughed at that standing ankle deep in cow shit in the barn he was born in
He watches the board shift on the coffee table to the coos of delight of the brightly dressed women and the disguised gasps of the richly suited men. Smoke lingers in the air as they ask, “Will there be war?”
The papers say no, the president says no, and in the clink of slim bracelets and candy colored nails
Emma McCoy
the board says no too. He catches the eye of a woman slinking toward the exit with the beginnings of worry on her smoky eyelids and raises his glass sardonically.
Emma McCoy is a poet and essayist with love for the old stories. She is the assistant editor of Whale Road Review, co editor of Driftwood, and poetry reader for the Minison Project. She is the author of “In Case I Live Forever” (2022), and she has poems published in places like Flat Ink, Paddler Press, and Jupiter Review.
What's your best remedy for Writer's Block? Discuss!
In answer to your question as to what's my best remedy for writer's block, it's this: I sort of "divide myself in half" long enough to make up a few writing prompts, as if for a stranger or group of other writers.
The prompts are often or at least sometimes written in the form of a theme, though not always. For example, I was taught that a theme is not just one or two words as people often name them, but instead are a word group containing at least one verbal, a gerund or participle.
Thus, "finding true happiness" is a theme, whereas "happiness" or "true happiness" are both only topics. But sometimes, it's quicker and more inspirational just to make up topics, such as the last two foregoing. Once I have about ten of these items, I look over the lists with the other part of my "divided self," the writing part, and try to find what I'd like to write about. Often, two of the themes or topics or a theme and a topic seem to combine for me, and that's what I use, saving the rest for another time.
I dislike the term "writer's block". It's too vague and mystical for me, and vague, mystical problems are difficult problems to solve. Instead, I prefer to specify, when it comes to this issue. Just as there is no one source of writer's block for me, it stands to reason that there is no one solution.
Sometimes it's a problem with me, the writer: not enough creative fuel has gone into my creative well recently, and so, there's nothing to draw on for story making. Sometimes it's a problem with the story itself: a plot hole, or a character that doesn't feel real, or a turn in the story that suddenly doesn't seem right, for one reason or another.
That requires some editing, or, if the editing isn't working, then some simmering. V.E. Schwab has an apt metaphor they use for this: the six burger stove. If the story has run into a problem that my conscious mind is having trouble with, I'll walk away, leaving the story on low heat, while I go do something else. Sometimes it's writing another piece, and sometimes it's living my life outside of writing. Trust the subconscious to take over and make things right. Sometimes, however, it's a problem of fear. The idea is perfect and beautiful in your mind, so if it doesn't come out perfect and beautiful on the
page, it can feel wrong. To that end, sometimes I just have to get a paper and pen out, and break the story before I even write it. "This is how it starts", or "So, there's this thing:". A clear sign to my brain that this is me haphazardly telling myself the story so it's existing outside of my brain; telling myself that it's not supposed to be perfect yet.
The thing is, if I’m stymied mid plot, just struggling to put coherent words on the page, it’s because I’ve been abruptly disconnected from the emotions that were propelling the narration, the composition.
I’ll shut off my laptop or slam close my notebook and move away for minutes or hours or days or even months; let it all simmer and cook in the back of my head because you know, the narrator is like that infant that won’t talk if it’s being watched. (I should know; I used to be that infant.) But this alone isn’t helpful, I’ll need a stimulant to get me back on track, and that, for me, has always been music.
In fact, my best remedy for anything has always been music. When you see me with my earphones on, know I’ve already escaped, leaving behind a shell-like physical presence in the real world.
While I often use music to enter a meditative state or lift myself off deep dark trenches that are consuming and suffocating me, music also works as a stimulant for imagination. Come to think of it, I use imagination to slide or explode my way out of depressive bouts.
Additionally, music not only regulates my emotions, but it also has the ability to put me in specific
emotional states I need to be in for a creative project. Just the other day, I was listening to ‘Experience’ by Ludovico Einaudi, Daniel Hope, and I Virtuosi Italiani on a loop, in order to churn out two poems in a single day because I was on a deadline.
I suppose this is pretty obvious now I am an intuitive writer. Thus, when it comes to dealing with the big old writer’s block, whether in fiction or poetry, I inevitably find myself browsing through my extremely varied playlists, while simultaneously (if required) taking a step back. I think it is important to remember that the creative process is not a sprint, it’s a marathon, and it is futile and counterproductive to overwork ourselves. There are bad days, bad weeks, bad months; hell, there are bad years. Some of the best creative work will emerge from those times but it must come organically.
Babatunde Waliyullah Adesokan:
Though I may title this missive "Ten Ways to Best Remedy Writer's Block," I still disagree with the description that writer's block is a temporal inability to find words to put on paper. Unfortunately, it becomes more embarrassing when a writer cannot meet predefined targets or gets stuck on a piece of work. Such that the strain and the pressure of this inability can be overwhelming and even depressing in its most potent phase.
These ten ways to best remedy writer's block are as important as discussing mental health for a writer and also a means of demystifying the heavy burden that comes with "Writer's Block."
Oftentimes, the basic approach to remedying this is to revisit the description: inability to find the right words or appropriate
words to put on paper. So, if as a writer you could find the right words for every occasion, you would have successfully dealt with writers' block. The repository of words is where you find the right words:
1.Read books or poems that inspire you.
2. Make a note of any words that stand out in those works.
3. Read works in the field if you have a specific topic in mind.
4. Rest. Relaxation may be just what you need to get out of the situation.
5. Do you have inspiring activities that have been potent in the past? Find your touch. Visit. Imbue yourself in it.
6. Review your previous works. It may be time to further perfect them.
7. Check your most successful work. Do a rejoinder. Or reverse writing.
8. Write about how you feel during the blocks. No matter how uninspiring. You are demystifying it.
9. If you have a deadline to meet, break it down into Specific, Achievable, Realistic, Time bound tiny goals. So that the elephantine task could become miniscule.
10. Do not call it "writer's block". Instead, call it "finding the right words". By that, the problem is already spelling its solutions.
Writer's Block is not aphasia. Writer's block is not a disease. It is simply a need to either rest or do it differently.
And a writer is never stuck. All they need to do is to keep writing or reading till they find the right words. Till they learn better enough to take pressure off themselves and till they believe that there is no Writer's Block.
Writer's block is a scary feeling to encounter, be it in my academic or poetry endeavours. From time to time, I have tried all sorts of remedies to battle this beast but have failed horribly.
What I have realised is, for me, writer's block gets triggered whenever I am overthinking. Not even a streak of multiple cups of caffeine can bring down the block when I am in overthinking mode. So, nowadays, what I mostly do is just STOP for the moment. I jump into completely unrelated errands, like laundry/vacuuming/organizing. To be honest, this has worked wonders for me.
It's during these unrelated activities that new ideas/ solutions pop up in my otherwise messed-up brain. Not that everyone should embrace the above methodology! I have accepted it as my modus operandi which I am planning to stick to for a while until it becomes defunct too!
"A man is like
novel: until the very
page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading."
-Yevgeny Zamyatin