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“You’re such a disgrace to this family!”
I should be taken aback by her words, but instead, they don’t sting as much as I expect them to. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I told her that it was her choice to have me. I stare at her curly hair, the scarlet ringlets bouncing as she shakes, her head cradled in her hands. I should probably leave before she starts crying. Too late. There are small spots where the fabric turns darker on her blue scrubs. Told myself so many times that I should run away. Escape this hell that is my life. Once, I even packed a bag. But I never did get around to leaving her to toil here.

If I slam the door to my room she’ll come running up the stairs, and I’ll have to face another hour of lecturing. I close the door, making sure to create as little noise as possible. My room is a pigsty. Books everywhere. If I peeled each piece of clothing off of the little mountain that’s formed in the corner, I could probably reveal everything I’ve worn since last week. I topple onto my bed and look at the dusty picture frame propped up neatly on my nightstand. It’s five-year-old me sitting on a man’s lap, my mother standing next to us, dressed in a vibrant floral gown. I look at the man. He sports a neat comb-over and striking eyes. This is supposedly my father. He’s never come to any of my performances or said Happy Birthday to me, but this man is my dad. I look at my mother. She’s so young in love. Little did she know that her love life wrecked this child of hers. I look out my window. One lonely street lamp among a dark blue sky. It lights up the grass around it in a yellowish hue. The outside seems so welcoming now.

Before I can think, my hands start rummaging through drawers, exploring their contents, and stuffing clothes into a small drawstring bag. I throw in all sorts of things without looking. Deodorant, toothbrush, a sad tube of toothpaste, some rubber bands, and a few granola bars. My mother shouldn’t call me downstairs for another thirty minutes, so I look around my room. Clothes everywhere. The bookshelf is tilted, almost. Before I leave, I may as well tidy up in here. It should give at least a little joy to my mother. My odd twisted way of lightening the mood, perhaps. I pick up my clothes and this trance overwhelms me. I can almost imagine my mom opening the door to see her daughter, sitting on the floor, folding clothes. After I fold everything, I organize my bookshelf, leaving a piece of notebook paper and a blue pen out on the shelf. I glance at all the books on the shelf. Mostly picture books and chapter books. The occasional young-adult novel. My mom bought me these back when she still loved me. I glance at my phone. 8:23 pm. Mom will call me down to dinner or something in a few minutes. I write until I fill the page, a few tears falling onto the paper, creating an inky mess. As I come to a close, my pen lingers on the paper. This may be the last time I see my mom. I end the letter with Love and Forever Will, Your Daughter. 

I want my mother to forget me. I want her to start anew, maybe get a husband, and have a kid she actually loves. All my life I’ve only been a burden to her. This decision is in no way going to hurt my mom. I think she realizes that this was going to happen someday. I’ve made it 15 years, and that’s enough. Of course, I’m going to miss her, but if I love her, this is what I have to do. I open my window and throw the bag down onto the lawn. Thank God I didn’t pack anything fragile.

“Rache, dinner!”
8:30 pm. Right on cue. I kiss my room goodbye, making sure to linger on the photo frame. Mom doesn’t even look at me when I come to the table. There’s a paper plate with a ladle full of cold pasta. I don’t even need to look at it, to tell that it’s obviously bland. I watch my mother as she stares at her phone, subconsciously taking bites of pasta and then retracting with disgust. And then taking a bite again. I take a bite of my own and silently agree with my mom. What is this bitter aftertaste? It may be my last full meal so I stuff up anyway. After I finish, I throw away my plate in the trash. I look up at the fridge, a billion little magnets and knick-knacks hanging from it. One of them is a magnet I’d made for my mom on Mother’s Day in second grade. It’s a tiny picture of toothless me holding up a sign that says Love you, Mom! I look over at my mother. She’s still absorbed in her phone. I wish that she would come here and hug me. I wish she would stop me from leaving. I look at her closer. All those years of complaining and lament. The negligence. The abandon. I look at a set of magnets. They’re alphabet ones that spell out S-M-I-L-E. Mom used to spell out one positive word every day. I look at her again, but this time I smile. I smile so big that it hurts. Not as much as it hurts me inside. I scream at her in my head, “Mama, look at me! I’m smiling! You told me to, and so I did, Mama, I smiled! Mama, won’t you smile too?” At this point, I’m crying, fighting with myself for having second doubts. How could I feel so far away from her?

Talk to her, you idiot! Tell her what she deserves. I wipe my tears and turn towards her, taking a step.
Forgive her. Everyone makes mistakes. Let her know that it’s okay. I glance at the time. 9:06 pm.
 “Mom.”
She doesn’t even take her eyes off her phone.
“Mhm.”
I look at her.
“I love you.”
She scrunches up her face, illuminated by the white screen on her phone.
“What?”

She obviously didn’t hear me. I shuffle to the living room and sit on our couch, the plastic cover squeaking with my every move. There are no photos on the wall. There’s no cheesy saying painted on the door or inspirational wall art. Just gray, dull, paint. Beige sofa still wrapped in cellophane. An empty living room. If I leave now, she won’t notice until tomorrow morning. I look at my home one more time, the gray color oddly comforting me, and I  step outside into the world.

I grab the bag and stare at my Mom. She’s still on her phone. If she looks, up she can probably see me clearly, holding this bag, and making a decision that’s too big for me to make. Am I Insane? I shouldn’t have to think this hard. My feet take me down the road until I’m at our neighborhood’s entrance. There are two ways to go. One will take me to the park. The other will take me to the convenience store. I could get food there. I make a right and start walking. 

It’s scary, walking alone. I expect a clown or bear to come attack me from behind. Maybe I’ll get kidnapped by some man cruising in his car. Nevertheless, I keep walking. The familiar hue of streetlights starts flooding in and I feel a bit safer. My shoulders relax as I spot a park bench. This isn’t just any old bench. This was the bench that Mom and I used to sit in, every time we came to the park. I can almost feel the presence of younger me licking an ice cream cone in this very exact spot.  Or when I would tell Mom about school on days we couldn’t get ice cream. This park bench seems like it would be somewhat comfortable. I may as well spend one last night with my memories before I forget them altogether.

My eyes adjust to the lighter sky as I wake up. Surprisingly, I actually slept. The bench seems cushiony, however. There’s a little pressure around my shoulder area and I look up to see a hand there. Veiny, fragile, and wrinkly. A few rings, including a small painted one. I gave Mom this ring in kindergarten. My eyes trace up to her arm and stop at her wet, blue scrubs. Her red ringlets have lost their bounce. I watch her tired face and the way she peacefully snoozes against the streetlight. And that’s when I tell her.

“I forgive you.”
I know she probably didn’t hear me, so I slump onto her shoulder and try to sleep again. I feel her hand slide over my shoulder. It feels like I’m six again, my tired mother cradling me. I hear the faintest whisper.

“Rachel, I’m sorry for being such a negligent mother. All I can do is hope that you truly forgive me and that we can start over. “

I snuggle in closer with her. Turns out she still loves me. I  Do Forgive You.

“Yes, Mom. That would be nice.” The birds start chirping as the sun starts rising over the hills. It’s freezing outside, but oddly I feel right at home. At about 4 in the morning, mom and I decide to take the walk back home. We don’t talk to each other at all but it feels nice. My arm in hers as we listen to the birds sing and the early morning traffic. When we reach home, it’s a new kind of place. The gray wallpaper is now lit with a warm orange tone, not even really gray anymore. I walk into the kitchen as mom sets her keys down, and something catches my eye. The fridge looks the same but one thing is different. It stands inconspicuously among the other miscellaneous objects. The magnets now spell out S-O-R-R-Y.      

“Yellow Rice”

In all my years of being Indian, I have encountered too many colors of rice. None as delicious and unique as lemon rice.

First of all, lemon rice’s color is too unique to keep secret. Its vibrant yellow color will have the kids at your lunch table wondering what on earth is she eating?!  Too few souls are ready to venture out to taste this vibrant, foreign beauty.

It was a food I grew up with. One of my earliest memories was when our roof guy, Rick, tried a bowl. He was fixing something in our home, so my parents invited him in for tea, coffee, whatever his little heart desired... (This is typical for Indian parents (hospitality seems far more important than the love for their children.) My mom served him a steaming cup of sweet Indian coffee. I remember my father, asking in his heavy accent, “Would you like to try some Indian food.” This American had never gone beyond the realms of the five tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, spicy; In India, it’s six ( one of them too complicated to explain.) He wanted a taste of our homecooked meals, so he accepted.  I don’t know what he was expecting, perhaps the sweet, rich flavor you get from Paneer Butter Masala or the tangy, crunchiness from Aloo Tikki. I wanted my 7-year-old self to tell him, my friend, those are the flavors of North India.  This taste would be hard to forget. My mother gave him a bowl full of the vibrant rice and he dug his plastic spoon into the rice (it immediately stained yellow from the turmeric) and took a bite. I watched as his eyes slowly turned red and beads of sweat formed on his wrinkled forehead... He gasped for water, and my sister and I, both young, and acquired to the taste, couldn’t help laughing, as my confused father brought it out to him.

I guess we never noticed how spicy it was. Maybe this is why we find hot sauce and sriracha sweet, and add it to everything.

Lemon rice made the most common appearance in my lunch box. I could bet you I would find my bread-shaped container filled to the brim with that vibrant yellow, and I would probably be right. I couldn’t tell you how many times I would make heads turn just by opening my lunchbox. But as always with unique things, my classmates’ reactions weren’t always positive.  I dealt with a lot of bullying because of the food I brought for lunch, so I asked my mother to pack me the bland, tasteless sandwiches that I saw everyone else bring to lunch. After a week of opening my lunchbox to see the same old soggy PB&J sandwich, I begged my mother to bring back the masalas, the complexities, that I so enjoyed eating. I learned to live with the teasing, and some even asked to try the foods I brought to school. Today, I don’t have a problem with opening my lunchbox and the aromas that arise from it.

My dad hates fast food. This usually results in my mother making food for “snacks-on-the-go”, when we go on vacation, or long road trips. No food is as portable or filling as lemon rice. There is a different feeling when you watch the trees pass by, and you munch on the plate of lemon rice nestled in your lap, with a plastic spoon, maybe a fried potato or two in between bites.  The joyful laughs of my mother and the scolding of my father telling my baby sister to finish her food often pair well with these moments.

Things have been different now, with the virus, and everything. Being isolated has been… different. I’ve definitely spent too much time with my family. We sit down for a late lunch at 3 every day and are unveiled to what I helped my mother make for lunch. Today it was lemon rice. Let me tell you, I was surprised to see the familiar pan of yellow vibrancy.  And to pair it off, a bowl of my mom’s famous fried potatoes (nowhere near in color or taste such as the french fries you get in fast food). It was weird to eat this food while being stationary. Where were the trees? The paper plate, the plastic spoons? Nevertheless,  I closed my eyes and savored the taste my brain had been searching for all these years. It had been so long. Too long. If nostalgia had a flavor, then this would be it. The spicy potatoes with the tangy rice floated me back to my childhood. The feeling of the crunch of the peanuts in the rice was too extraordinary to put down in words. Lunch was over too soon. When will I taste the bright yellow, the tangy sour, of this aromatic rice again?

Many things have significant value in life. None as powerful as food.

- Manushree Navneethakrishnan

A Winter Night

I can feel my cheek tingling
As I press it against the frosted window
A blanket of snow covering my backyard
Tall, naked trees erupting from it.
The grass is silver, like delicate jewels against a white backdrop
The distant sound of chimes in the air
Fills my ear with unwelcome sounds.
Here I am, wrapped in my wool blanket
A steaming cup of cocoa cradled in my hands
It hurts to think of the poor souls who are out there in the cold
Freezing to death
Funny how I smile
At this hostile wonderland.....

That Window

There she goes again
Looking out that same old window
The grime now encrusting its sill
Dirty fingerprints peppering its pane
There she goes again
Crying at what she lost
So she looks out that window
Expecting him to appear
As if he’d be strolling down the street
and He’d give a friendly wave
As if everything was going to be ok again.
It’s not the nature she stares at
Or the misty fog settling over the hilltops
Or the subtle tint of sunlight on the delicate leaves
Staring without a purpose
The trees have been stripped of their lavish leaves
The sparrows, they don’t sing anymore
The grass is dry and it crackles beneath your feet
But, still,  she stares out that window
Praying for time to stop
So she doesn’t have to do this anymore
Distant sounds of bombs crashing
People screaming
Fire crackling
Gunshots ricocheting off of nothing
Buzzing around her like swarms
But still,
She stares out that window.
The ghosts of old memories
Fog around that window
Fogging up those old glasses
That she hasn’t removed since he left.
Same old creaky chair.
Same old scarf that she’s been knitting for years.
Same old scuffed up shoes on the carpet
But still, she stares out that window
Waiting for his return.....

"Imprisonment"

Cold Lank Floor
Stings me as I sit upon it.
Trapped in my own mind
Solitary confinement
It’s too dark in here
Too depressing
I must find a way out.
A window
Look at What little light shines through it
Perhaps that’s the solution !

“Class Dismissed!”

The words escape from my mouth before I can think of how to say them. I can hear the students grumbling as they grab their books. Sometimes, I wish one of them would come to talk to me. I watch them as they file out, one by one, like impatient ants. There goes Auburn. The quiet one of the bunch. Never speaks. Never smiles. She wears that same old expression on her face. Then again, she is the only one who understands any of the material we go over. I like that about her. Not a word but manages to get good grades. 

I wonder what her home life is like. I wonder if she's happy. All I wish is to fascinate these children by helping them learn the wonders of Physics. God, it sounds boring even to me. No use being vivacious when I don’t want to teach the material. No one thinks to ask about how I’m doing. The only time these students talk to me is if I mess up their grades. Over 180 kids. You should try grading that many papers in one night. I wish these students knew that my grandpa passed away last week. I wish I could talk to them. But no, I’m just a teacher who grades their work and supposedly prepares them for the future, when I know that 70% of these children will work in a 9-5 office job. Except for Auburn. She’ll go on to do amazing things.

"The Myth of the Sea Horse"

Ahe loved the ocean. She loved the way the sea breeze picked up her hair. She loved the way the soft, mushy sand felt between her wriggling toes. Most of all, she loved the wonders that the sea enclosed. One day, she dived into the waves and swam down to touch the coral; floating about in the water and marveling at the vibrant fish around her. As she laid her fingertips on the prickly coral, a small seahorse came flitting out of the seaweed Ahe marveled at the tiny wonder. Unable to contain her excitement, she swam out of the water, and ran onto the shore, flailing her arms as she sprinted to her grandmother, Casca. Ahe looked deep into Casca’s weary, brown irises, and asked her, “Grandma, I came to find a creature with a long snout and a tiny body. I wanted to catch it but it swam away from me. What is it, grandma?”

Casca looked up to her granddaughter and smiled, wrinkles forming around her lips. “Ah, my child. You speak of the seahorse. Come sit and let me tell you the tale of Kai’lio”, she said patting the ground, as she spoke. Ahe sat down on the warm sand rested her head on Casca’s lap, as her grandmother stroked her hair, running her fingers through its deep roots. Ahe closes her eyes, the sun warming the pair, as Casca clears her throat.

“Now you see, Kai’lio was a very handsome nymph. All the mermaids had an infatuation for him. His father was Kai, King of the Sea. Kai’lio was almost as handsome as his father, however, after his mother’s passing, his father had sworn to never love again. Kai’lio, though with all his admirers, had only one lover. Her name was Nani. Nani was the most beautiful sea nymph.”

Casca paused and looked at Ahe. “Just like you, my darling!” Ahe giggled to herself. Casca resumed. “All the others would be jealous. Kai’lio was quite the fortunate guy. Nani’s mother, Huhū, was very strict. She forbade her to see Kai’lio. Nani, being the naive juvenile she was, went to him anyway. Huhū interrogated Nani by using her magical power to see through her, discovering she was pregnant with Kai’lio’s child. Huhū banished Nani from their home, and Nani was left wandering the reefs to find her Kai’lio. There was one nymph who was very in love with Kai’lio. Her name was Lili. She would do whatever she could to entice Kai’lio. That night, Lili came to Kai’lio’s home and pleaded for him to love her. Ignoring his resists, Lili started seducing him. As Nani approached his home she saw Lili getting close to Kai’lio. 

“Grandmother, why is Lili so mean?” asked Ahe. her wide curious eyes begged for her grandmother to answer her question. 

“When people want things they can’t have, they become angry and selfish,” Casca replied.
Ahe nudged her Casca’s knee. “Go on!”

“Okay, little one.” Casca laughed

“Nani fainted, clutching her stomach. Kai’lio heard her and broke free from Lili. as he rushed out of his home. Nani had turned cold and hard to the touch, her kind heart no longer beating in her chest. Kai’lio knelt beside her body as he lay his hand on her stomach. Lili loomed above them both, as Kai’lo held Nani’s hand, which could no longer hold him anymore. She attempted to grab Kai’lio’s hand but he hexes Lili to get sucked into the ground, and she turns into lava. Kai’lio’s tear falls on to Nani’s stomach, and he feels a sudden burden on him. He gets up to lay down in his bed, but trips and falls, piercing his finger on a spike of coral. From his finger, bursts thousands of tiny creatures, flitting into the darker sea below. Nani’s lifeless, glowing face illuminates the dark sea around her. For one last time, she smiles for all the ocean to see. Her body wilts into the sand and what’s left of Nani is a clump of sand. The tiny newborn sea horses swam over to the sand clump and started playing in it. Little did they know that these were the remains of Nani, the one that Kai’lio could not have. “That, my child, is the tale of the Sea Horse.”

Casca took a handful of sand and sprinkled it onto the ground, as Ahe watched her. “The foam in the waves is the spirit of Nani and her unborn child.” Ahe ran to the shore and cupped her hands as the water flowed in. She ran back to her grandmother, as the water seeped out of her hold and had fallen into the sand. 

Casca chuckled when she saw this. “Ah, now Kai’lio and Nani have finally reunited.” Ahe spotted a white shell peeking out of the sand and ran to pick it up. She dusted the sand off and clutched the shell in her hand, as she ran over to Casca, now getting up and smoothing her white skirt. Casca holds out her hand and Ahe places her small palm into it. Ahe skips along with her grandmother and says, “What other wonders can we find in the sea, Grandma?” Casca chuckles and says, “There are many, my child. Each one has its own story.”