Athena

I am sandwiched between two groups of people; one set is a group of women, entirely blonde, dressed as much as borderline college women can be for the winter, but their heels still click against the wooden floor of the coffee shop. They’re discussing, only marginally, it seems, a Powerpoint that has to do with a business presentation. When they all seem to come to a consensus about something, one girl writes it down on her copy of the Powerpoint. It’s staggering how blonde they all are; with the former frequency of them, it’s no wonder men think women should be suitably stupid.

The people on the other side of me are a father and presumably his young daughter. I cannot help but wonder why a man would give such a small child, still growing and with string blonde hair, coffee. Does she have a dissertation to complete already? Is she the kind with ADHD where caffeine puts her to sleep, much to her father’s relief?

The coffee shop is bustling today; there’s a day off at the university for Presidents’ Day, so there must also be a game. Or maybe parents are visiting, or maybe students are packed in to finish homework a day delayed. The parent and child have left now, almost as if the father saw my pen moving so quickly and worried. Now a laptop is propped up on the circular table; he might be a graduate student or a post-doc. We’re all here to work on something.

I look at one of the empty chairs discarded, and I think about someone coming in from the cold — just having quickly eaten a large meal, their first in a very long time. He might stand in line, along with people who want their afternoon pick-me-up, and his epiglottis might fail. I can already hear the footsteps of the intrepid, young, scruffy barista. All the students around me would gasp, afraid to handle the so obviously homeless man for fear of contagion. But much to Doctor Heimlich’s delight, the barista would save the man’s life using his maneuver. It would probably make the campus paper, though the small time hero isn’t a student.

The first thing I realize, even when I’m not necessarily paying full attention, is that students and the young here somehow ignore and try to ‘keep their hands’ clean of those who are left homeless. I think that part of the process of growing up is realizing that your fears are just that — your fears — and you need to confront them, otherwise they’ll be there forever. And those who confront them head on are often rewarded with notoriety they never asked for and are completely out of place with their usual set of activities. Heroes are found in the ordinary, and as soon as people start realizing this, we’ll have more people who actually take a stand, not just click their heels and drink overpriced and weak coffee.

“Thank you.”

I handed her the bag, and I could barely keep my eyes open. I hadn’t slept in three days, and the effects were not looking good. I had craters under my eyes, and I could barely keep my pupils focused on anything for too long without wanting to drop off. I was surprised that my manager even deemed me fit to come to work that morning; in the mirror, I’d looked like death warmed over. It’d been a hard week – make that a hard life – lately, and as I got older, even just in my early twenties, it seemed to me that I showed my distress more and more through my face than anything else. I had successfully not yawned when handing her the bag of whatever it was she had bought, but I had to blink for momentary optical rest as I handed her the change from her twenty. She smiled at me, as I realized that she was probably a rich mother, buying a few things for her well-adjusted, educated children. This was a college town, after all, even though I’d lost the means to go there. And I constantly reminded myself, as I saw other twenty-somethings with their parents on the weekends, taking a break from studying with people who had raised them that they actually liked. A wave of jealousy came over me even as she smiled at me, and she must’ve sensed it. “Here,” her voice was as affectionately wrinkled as her face, but strong. “Take this.” I blinked, wearily looking at what was in her hand. It was a fifty; with how work was going, I wasn’t going to make that even in one day. Everything was tight. Nothing met like it used to, so easily and neatly like the corners of a quilt when I folded the linens at home for my own parents, a millions years ago. I parted my dry and nearly immobile lips to say thank you as I gently took the extra cash, but her smile curled warmly before I could. “Don’t say a thing. I wish my children had as much life in them as is in your face.”

~~~~~

“I’m sorry.”

Somehow it didn’t mean anything. We are always trained to automatically say, “It’s okay” or just shrug at things that should offend us. We learn to lie to people about when and how we’re upset, and how to sit there and still put them first. We still, unfathomably, think about their feelings first and don’t have an appropriate outburst because of how it would affect them. Because he didn’t stop becoming someone I loved when he told me the truth. We all have failings, and he admitted his to me. It’s one of the reasons why I still love him, why we’re able to be great friends. But I still remember sitting by myself in that room, blinking at a confession that had been news to me and not everyone else, and wanting to break down. Wanting to tell him that he was a piece of shit for not telling you everything when you’d been so forthright with someone who lived across oceans and landmasses, in a world completely different from my own. I’d been a damaged girl, so young and naïve, wanting to believe that someone would accept me in the ways that my parents hadn’t. I wanted love, but before I knew all of what that meant, I fell in love with someone who fundamentally hurt me. But experience teaches us much, and in the end, the apology is part of the lesson. Knowing heartbreak, and knowing how to mend after the fact and stay friends and to some degree lovers, is an important lesson. Sometimes I just wish he hadn’t had to apologize in the first place.

~~~~~

“I didn’t mean to.”

My back burned as I lay partially on the ground and on the wall. She really had poor choice of when to play roughly sometimes, though it was no real fault of her own. She should’ve known better with her capriciousness, but what was done was done. I groaned as I lifted myself, and my back cried out in its own anthropomorphized way. She rushed over to me, her parents not yet realizing that our playing in the narrow corridor, just in front of the door of the bathroom and the guestroom I was using, had come to a painful and abrupt conclusion. I struggled to stand, but only with a hand on my lower back. I could only imagine that this was how older men and women felt when their backs were beginning to go. I groaned, not really because of the pain, but more because of what worse injuries for my back were to come. I rolled my eyes at her as she lent me a hand in assistance just before I’d made it up off the floor, and probably laughed at an inopportune time, wanting to make her feel less bad for her poor choice in tickling. “I know you didn’t,” I said whilst rubbing my sore muscles, “but you could have a little more foresight? That really did hurt.” I huffed at her, and tried to make sure that she felt the appropriate amount of bad for the injuries she caused me. But I knew it was an inevitable occurrence with her; she meant well, but something often didn’t connect in her brain. Though she was near genius IQ, the physicality of things and how they affected others did tend to escape her grasp on more than one occasion. But when it turned out to produce good ideas, I loved her for it.

~~~~~

I attempted to slam the refrigerator door, frustrated with not finding my favorites in there. What was the point of keeping something if it was gone without your consent? I growled in the kitchen, trying to do it quietly, but all the while wishing that my housemate could hear how angry I was getting over her latest transgression. We lived in a nice, large house, and it was just the two of us. Why did we keep getting into these tiffs over each other’s possessions? Certainly both of us had lots of space to keep our things, and things that were labeled were clearly owned by the person’s name they bore on them. But the only girl I lived with didn’t seem to grasp this simple concept. I’d written my name on a few boxes of my favorite Thai takeout, and when I’d looked for them a week later, they’d vanished even though I’d been saving them for the times I especially wanted Thai food. I got strange cravings in the middle of the night, and the morning they had vanished, I’d questioned her about their whereabouts.

“You put them where?” I remembered raising my eyebrow almost dangerously.

“In the trash.” Her voice was all matter-of-fact, it was almost like her observation of my anger meant nothing to her, or even less than nothing.

“Those were from my favorite Thai place! I have to go all the way back to get more. Why did you throw out what I wanted to eat?” I struggled not to yell as her facial expressions hardly changed, but all she could do before returning to bed was, “You weren’t going to anyway.”

~~~~~

Thick letters came for me in the mail. My stomach was doing stunts that the Cirque du Soleil would find truly impressive. They might want to draft it even before I finished opening these letters, finding out about my future. Two sets came, and they were all unnervingly thick, like bacon I’d had in New Zealand, steak in Texas, or homemade roast beef sandwiches. One set was from all the medical schools I’d applied to eagerly, wanting to pursue a career curing people and caring for them privately and publicly. It was what I had wanted since adolescence, and it had been what I’d been preparing for academically. I’d had my share of setbacks, just as anyone had, but I’d made sure that I’d cleaned up after myself and that my record was impeccable. With all my good reputation with professors, I’d convinced myself that I’d be a shoe-in for medical school and any specialization I wanted. But as I sat with all of these envelopes on my desk, I also faced another reality. I’d have to be paying for an extremely expensive education by taking out massive loans, and I’d very likely moving to at least another state. Letters came from several places in California, the one university in Seattle, and others in Colorado and Tennessee. My hands shook with anticipation as I arranged the numerous other envelopes neatly on the leather-covered top of my desk.

The other letters were from East Coast publishers, mainly ones in New York, about my first manuscript that I’d sent out. I didn’t know how to interpret a thick envelope versus a thin one in this case; this experience was unlike anything my parents had given me instruction in or wanted me to do with my life. But new had become exciting as I got older, and it was with these envelopes that I started the opening process of all of them. I grabbed the letter opener from the top drawer, and carefully tore open the tops of the sealed envelopes with surgical precision. I never thought so many acceptances would be so daunting. It was the classic case of too many choices being a bad thing for the consumer. My best friend came in from the other room, knowing I was agonizing over all the mail I’d just received, and she marveled at all of the good responses I’d gotten from both my favorite endeavors in life. “You’re so lucky. I only got one acceptance out of all the programs I applied to.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “Did you call your parents to tell them you won’t be here in-state anymore?”

“Somehow it didn’t mean anything.”

~~~~~

The hospital corridors are quiet. Most of the residents are either sleeping on their few spare moments, or they’re home like most reasonable people. I’ve never been a reasonable person, and though I’m not supposed to be around for once, all I can do is walk these corridors so I don’t have to fall asleep. The continuity and soothing colors of all the tiles and walls would put any normal hospital-goers to ease and immediate sleep, but since the hospital began my place of learning, its appearance made me alert. I focused on the things that I did everyday at the hospital that I would do again tomorrow, and I would try to forget today. The attending doctor had taken the time, despite his famously bad temper with what he called ‘youngsters’, to put his hand on my shoulders to soothe my anxieties about my first time doing time of death for an elderly patient. He’d been mine, but he’d been in the hospital for an age, it seemed to most, if not all the residents. I was devastated that it had to be my watch under which he died. Why couldn’t have I been older when I lost my first patient? Why couldn’t I go home and get sleep, which would undoubtedly help me do better with my work from now on? There was no one around me, only the ghosts from the faraway vital machines. So the only person I had to talk to was myself.

“I couldn’t do anything.”

This was a prompt done for a friend; they’ve definitely seen this, and I’m happy to report that they enjoyed it.. on their birthday no less! Hopefully you all enjoy this as much as they said they did.

I ran. All I could do was run, feeling the strength of my legs underneath me. The wind passed beneath them, and all I could think of was the moment when, in stop-motion photography, a horse’s legs were all suspended for less than a second above the earth, none of the hooves touching the air. My breath caught in my lungs, almost as if I were trying to make the most out of each breath as the oxygen nourished the blood that had no nutrients to deliver to the rest of my body. As my legs moved, I was almost simultaneously aware of the flow of blood through my veins, arteries, and capillaries. Everything seemed to move together, in one graceful motion, but I needed it to move faster. I wanted the ground beneath me to be pushed away by the force of my legs propelling my body forward; I wanted to fly without wings. The deep breaths I’d known in my daily running were helping me run as fast as I could, but I couldn’t fly. I cried out in futility, trying to pound against the hard – or soft, I couldn’t tell – surface that my body wasn’t allowed to leave. I felt like a female tennis player, crying out in agony and in a brutish manner when all around me was peace.

Every swing of my thighs and calves together was like a chord of music, but as I ran the music started more and more futile. I was running at my top speeds, running as fast as I possibly could. I was breathing like a marathon runner, after a lifetime of training and discipline, runs their finest race. My technique seemed unbeatable, but it seemed that everything I did was futile.

I was incredibly fast, but it was faster. I didn’t want to imagine how much faster or crueler this could be, so I did everything I could to dodge it. I used each breath more wisely, and almost pushed my diaphragm towards my hips with each breath. My body cried out as each breath inevitably became less effective, but I didn’t want to show it any mercy. I had to get away from the horrible thing that was chasing me that I couldn’t let get me. But it was already everywhere. Running was only fleeing the inevitable. It was all over me, seething on my skin and clothes, and even as my skin fell off in the natural course of things, the enemy I fled with my body was already hard at work invading it. My throat itched, the skin of my arms and legs slowly fell off, and my hair grew long and deader as I ran. It was no use; I couldn’t run from something that was already inside of me. My body wanted to be rid of it, though it was a part of it as well. It shook, convulsed, and writhed as I ran my body mercilessly ragged. There was no one chasing me, so I couldn’t look back at any daunting predator. It was the very life around me and on me that lived on me for its own survival that I wanted to escape.

I could almost see them; all those small creatures that could fit ten million billion of themselves on the simple head of a pin without being seen. My skin crawled, even as I was still running for want of something to do so I wouldn’t have to think about what had learned to live on me. Some of them were furry, others long and skinny – some had even learned to live on my eyelashes, eating up what little eyeliner or eye shadow I put on in the mornings. They ate, lived, and died right on my skin, and all I could think about was all the refuse they’d leave behind on me, just like we leave behind refuse in the course of our day-to-day lives as humans.

Somehow, enough of them had found me that I started to cringe as I observed the path my arms made in the air while I ran, still running, never slowing down to worry over all the things living for countless generations on my flesh. I didn’t want to feel my breath full of them, teeming like the lowest forms of organisms at the bottom of the sea, dirty and grimy with the decay water could cause. My arms were turning colors, almost like colonies of organisms had decided to terra-form me. It was an impossible mix of purple, green, and gray, and it made me want to vomit. I held it in, however green my face was turning in nausea to match the growing patches of color on my arm. What could I do? Could I really have no recourse but to realize that this was my fate – another unsavory fact of life? I didn’t want to; the mere thought of having to do so caused me to grow myself out by making my nauseated face and cheeks almost as vibrantly green as my arms were relentlessly becoming.

Finally, my body gave out, and I did everything not to fall to the ground as I spun on my heels. My body needed time and space to stop the force of inertia from continuing to act, and my forcing my body to stop running was against what it expected of me. So I swayed and staggered, trying to get my bearings. And when I finally felt where the ground was, the first thing my body saw fit to do was retch. It came and came and came, almost like a faucet that someone had turned on for a few seconds too long. The acid from my stomach burned my esophagus, but in a strange way I felt cleansed. I felt like all those organisms on my arms and face must’ve died with the force of that powerful expulsion. And true enough, I examined my quivering and panicky arms. They were their familiar color, fair and unharmed, and I could breathe for the first time before I woke up.

“Write about something you really loved, a time when you felt whole and complete in an activity.”

Though my parents instilled in me a love for piano because it became an important outlet for me as a grew up, the activity that was a surprising joy as I improved in it was archery. The last year of gym that I had to take was in my freshman year of high school, and we spent the second half of that year playing games and honing various skills that most of us had never had experience doing. I quickly became enamored with archery once we learned the rudimentary method of shooting an arrow. We learned to watch each other, and to be careful when we raised our bows, whether or not they had an arrow ready to be fired. I was actually startled by the motion of the bow when I first shot an arrow and saw it sink deep into the soft bed of the target. It was surprisingly near the center, and I was encouraged. I learned to tolerate the snap-back of the bow, and would even fall into a sort of trance firing arrows as near the bull’s eye as I could, or even near an arbitrary point on the target itself. I even remember shooting an arrow clean through the center of the target, and taking a few minutes to pray it carefully from the jaws of the soft cloth and stuffing inside of the target without destroying the equipment entirely. I got good and fluid, and even being alert to check for anyone in the path of my arrows became part of the relaxing experience.

It was one of the first times I felt totally comfortable in my body, especially when it came to using my body in a physical act. I was aware of my back, my arms, my wrists with the guard on it so that the bow didn’t leave a bruise on me after many arrows, and the position of my hips and legs. Everything felt streamlined and perfect, and my feet seemed to always know how to compensate for the snapback of the bigger bows, as I got good enough to fool around with the weighted bows. Bending the larger bows was better than lifting weights, as I could feel both sets of muscles on my arm moving concurrently. It was one of the few things we did that year that didn’t make me feel bad about my body, as I had always struggled with my weight due to the situation I faced at home at the time.  I had a good relationship with my gym teacher, and she would let me shoot in the range in the school’s vast backyard as a way to relax. She knew a great deal about my home situation, as my parents’ reputation tended to precede them. But getting to escape out there, especially under the sun with a bow in my hands, was remarkably soothing. It was an instance of controlled violence, I suppose, and I was happy that I could find a way to channel it, something my parents had failed to do. While allowing me a form of exercise, it was a mental release for me as well. That was the first time I ever felt completely comfortable in a physical activity, when I yearned to be doing something with my body and not just with my brain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Write about a time when I had magical powers.”

This is embarrassing for me, especially as I stare at the topics that I’ve marked in my blog itself. I remember, years ago, but disturbingly not so long ago, in the middle of my dabbling in Pagan ideology, I stumbled onto the idea of otherkin. It was the idea that certain people were imbued with parts of the soul of an animal. Just like many people are inclined to think that they have a certain disease when they read more about it, a series of events and conversations made me believe in a series of moments of insanity that I had a wolf inside of me. I don’t know now how I, when I was nineteen, put together a momentary mental haze and strange acoustics of my parents’ home and jumped to the conclusion that I was doing anything but making a gross exaggeration. I used to think that I craved meat because of this other part of me (not because I’m at all anemic), and that my sex drive skyrocketed around the full moon. That happened because of the nature of my womanly cycles, and the fact that because my body desperately wanted to reproduce at certain ages, my sex drive would keep me up at night. And the staying up all night around the full moon? All that was just a form of forced insomnia. I got a lot of reading done those nights, but they weren’t because of anything special inside of me. It was just the straight refusal to sleep because I was supposed to be doing something wolf-like.

I feel so foolish now, and even more so because I did try to hang onto these silly beliefs for a relatively long time, even though I knew they weren’t true. I’d like to think my case of a period of insanity isn’t as bad as that of those around me at times, but who knows. It was certainly a strange time in my life, for I felt what any degree of faith must be like. I felt sick and, inherently, I knew that I was deluding myself. I just wanted to grasp onto that evidence that came to me and was confirmed to me by people I love so much. But sometimes things are misinterpreted and thought to be something they’re not. I’m certainly wholly embarrassed by this little escapade, though it was nice feeling like I could do things and had something else living inside me. But I put it all in my head because I wanted to feel special – I supposed it’s the privilege of inexperienced youth to do so. But thankfully, I regained what sanity I had lost in declaring that part of myself was a wolf. And what was I thinking, anyway? To believe that sincerely I would’ve had to believe in reincarnation, which I think is just wishful thinking.

It did make for good writing, and conversation – especially when one of my best skeptical friends had a dream along the lines of what I discussed with my temporarily insane bout with lycanthropy. It was nice to have an excuse to talk more with him, and to both come out of strange experiences knowing that people can always trick themselves with their own thoughts. It’s always a scary thought, the idea that you can be your own worst enemy when it comes to perception. But all you can do is look at things objectively as possible when you’re going through them, and try to separate faith from undeniable logic and reason.

These stories are all variations of one childhood memory I have and had not been able to get rid of before this. It makes me happy to twist, bend, and let this go after so many years.

**

The pile of work doesn’t seem any smaller. It’s like trying to crack a five thousand year old glacier with an ice pick. You can feel your eyes trying to pry themselves out of your skull – anything to escape the monotony of the work which all of your teachers have chosen this Thanksgiving to bestow upon you. Happy Thanksgiving, indeed. The tenets of being an exceptional student force you to stay at your desk, consulting friends over translations of passages in Spanish and having everyone read various papers in wildly differing disciplines. There’s nothing like being a part of a web of intellectual exchange, and it makes you feel like you belong to something that loves you just as much in return.

As you stop to drink and eat, there’s a pounding at the door.

“Are you getting dressed? We have to go in an hour. Your aunt will be expecting all the food I made.”

“Sorry mom, I’ve got a couple exams when I go back and a few papers to finish. You go on without me. Tell Khala I miss her and send her my love.”

“Don’t say that now. You just want to stay home because you want to go on the internet and do all those bad things.”

“Mom, seriously. I’ve got work – I can’t go. If I go, I’m going to lose a day and a half. Tell Khala I’m sorry.”

The pounding gets louder, almost like you can hear the sound described by Edgar Allen Poe in The Tell-Tale Heart. The heart is thumping louder and louder, just as your mother’s fists are threatening to break the door.

“Mom, will you stop? I’m trying to concentrate.” In desperation and copying a move seen in the movies, you take your chair and position it against the door, hoping that it will keep your mother out. Having to kneel on the floor is a decent trade for being able to work in peace.

“No! You’re getting dressed for that party!” The chair goes flying towards you, and the sharp corners of its legs nip your toes.

“Mom, seriously – I have a test in Spanish, two papers if you don’t include the revisions I have to make. I have a ton of stuff to do. I can’t go.”

Tears run down your face as you gradually attempt to block out the slew of insults that your mother uses to categorize you. Most of them are in the language that you have acquired after years of living amongst your blood relatives, and they’re temporarily easy to forget while you hurriedly type in another language that neither of your parents can speak or write fluently. Lingual safety has always been important to you, and it’s something that your parents give and take away when they see fit to do so.

You are reminded of all the abuse your parents have put you through for more than sixteen years, and how you always accepted that you couldn’t do anything about it. Learned helplessness is a concept that you will learn later, which you will happily abandon in light of a life lived in awareness.

Tears run down your face. All the suffering you’ve experienced is flashing before your eyes, and you’re perpetually afraid that who you will become is framed by the bruises and scars that your parents have decided that you deserve.

Anger rises.

“Mom, just shut up, will you? Don’t you want me to finish any of this? Do you want me to fail all of my classes?”

Her head bobs from side to side, in a way that would be characteristic of those of color and funny in any other situation. “We will see how well you do in your schoolwork. I’d rather take my chances staying at home watching you when you’re on the computer, and if I have to stay at home for you, I will blame you to your aunt’s face for all that food I made for the Thanksgiving Day party. You bitch.”

You get gradually more angry, thinking that the justification for your academic career would’ve been enough to make your stubborn mother realize that you have no choice but to stay at home and work diligently.

“Just shut up, mom. See? I’m doing several papers. And if I’m talking to anyone, it’s to ask them to read the papers. I can’t ask you or dad. They’re papers you can only critique if you’ve read the stories.”

“Then read the stories to me after we get back!”

“Have you ever read any Hawthorne? You won’t be able to understand the language; you can barely speak English. And I’m not waiting for Dad to read them.”

“Why not, isn’t your dad good enough for you?”

“Hey!” The steps of your father thunder down the hall, towards the computer room where you and your mother have been fighting for some time now. “What’s going on here? Why haven’t you been getting ready?” The anger on your father’s face is plain, but you hope that reason through academic logistics will help reduce his anger.

“Dad, I have schoolwork—“

“She wants to go on the internet and look at porn sites while we’re gone!” Your mother exclaims, without a shred of evidence you know of that she can produce.

Your father waves his hands dismissively at your mother. “I don’t care what you think.” He turns to you. “If you have homework, then your mother and I will go. Keep working.”

“No! She’s coming with us!” Your father, ignoring the new outburst of your mother at you, goes to do some unseen thing. You’re left to deal with the aftermath of your mother’s infuriation.

“Mom, just shut up…” The temper that you know has come from your mother and father balls up in your fists, and your vision goes to the biggest thing in the room that you can throw with any ease. Ironically, it’s the chair that your mother forced so easily off of the door she nearly broke.

You find yourself yelling, trying anything to get her to shut up. Grabbing the chair that’s within the radius of your reach, you fling it at your mother in a fit of rage that has finally found its purchase in you. Who can blame you? Your genetics have lead you to this moment, when you finally assume physical responsibility for yourself. But you can barely believe what you’ve just done, after a childhood and an upcoming adulthood of telling yourself that you will never reflect the violent sides of your parents.

You now know the reality of not escaping your genetics, and there is only dread in your eyes as you look back up at your mother, who is astonished. You are only barely aware of her as she blames your violent outburst on your father, who is in the meantime in another room, realizing that none of us are going anywhere. He only proceeds to go and apparently clean the house, and you find the strength and opportunity to finally push your mother out of the room.

She bitches about all the wasted food that she will feed you in the coming weeks for dinner, but you find your safe haven in the schoolwork that has kept your shelter hallowed. It will bring you away from her, and allow you to run from the unsavory parts of your genetics.

~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a long weekend already, and rings indicating lack of sleep formed around her eyes. Her graduate work was getting tedious, and she regretted living at home while she was doing it. While it did save her a lot of money in terms of living expenses, Aliena had never had the best experience with her parents. They were people she had been glad to escape when she first moved into her own dormitory. Independence in her studies was something that had taken to her very well, and moving back home meant that she had to reconcile that with her parents’ interest. Ali knew that to her parents she would always be a sprawling little baby girl, especially after going to school with several people who already had children and families of their own.

Ali often locked herself in the den to catch up on papers and class work, and because of her being accustomed to not notifying anyone of her schedule, she soon found her mother pounding at the den door.

“Yes, mom?” She rifled through papers and computer files, barely looking at her annoyed mother as she spoke. “I’m kinda busy, and I have a lot to finish this weekend, so I would appreciate it if you could tell me what’s wrong.”

“You have to get ready to go out to your Khalamoni’s; we’re leaving soon.” Ali looked up at her mother’s features and saw what she recognized from her own childhood — Indian harshness. Both her parents, but especially her mother, had been physically and mentally abusive all her life. Aliena had escaped it briefly when living apart from her family home during the beginnings of her high school vacation, but it had become a rude awakening for her in returning home, especially in situations like this.

“Mom, I can’t. I’m too busy working. Tell Khala I love her and I’m sorry. I can’t go.” Aliena looked up at her computer screen, as an important e-mail had come from a professor, and she immediately began to read it for any important information concerning coursework.

“I cannot leave you alone here; you have to go.” Her mother’s tone was defiant and unwavering. It hadn’t changed a bit since Aliena was a child. Fortunately for Ali, she was no longer a child.

“Why do I have to go? So people can ask why I’m not married yet?” The graduate student felt her stomach contract in an indication that it needed some sort of food, but she didn’t want to go see her relatives and waste an entire night just for a meal. Not when she had this much work and material to process.

“You should be married by now. You have a good degree, and it is time. You should see Hasena about a match with us, your parents.” Aliena could only roll her eyes at her parents, as she had personally thrown out all of those perceptions concerning societal properness long ago, especially concerning marriage. She had found her love in her academic discipline, and that what was where Ali wanted to place her committment. After all, she was now twenty-six. Studying came to her like breathing at this point in her academic discipline; it was all she wanted to know.

“Mom, I’m getting another degree. I don’t have the time to get married, and I don’t want to think about it, either. Plus I have a mountain of work right now. Seriously.” Ali gestured to the gross amount of paperwork that was littered across the desk she had claimed as her own from childhood and onwards in life. She thought it should be enough proof to show to her obstinate mother, but what she heard next made her regret moving home at all.

“I know what they do in these graduate programs. You just delay everything, unless you want a PhD. Are you going to get a PhD in Psychology? Your matchmaker’s daughter ran away trying to get one of those.” Her mother drew nearer, and lines of anger drew themselves down her face. “You are going to your Khalamoni’s house tonight, and you are getting dressed for it now. You could only be this committed to work if you were seeing an American boy. You cannot! You must marry a Bengali!”

Aliena rolled her eyes as her mother’s voice grew in volume. Once, she had been afraid of this happening because it would so often lead to abuse for her. But now that she was a grown woman she had finally realized that she could almost certainly hit back. Or, even better, change her surroundings. Ali hurriedly collected her papers and her laptop computer, and ran into her father as she went to her own bedroom to collect her car keys. It was the one investment that required the most attention, but now that she lived in the turbulent world of her birth family again, it was a godsend when she needed to get some perspective on an assignment or just breathe outside of her family’s tight rules.

“What’s going on?” Her father could tell something was brewing by the determined look on Aliena’s face, and the way she stormed away with folded laptop in hand as well as her other studying materials.

“Mom’s forcing me to go to Khalamoni’s house tonight. I have too much work to go.”  Her expression assumed a desperate air for a moment. “Please, change her mind?” Aliena hoped that now that she had proven herself academically, her father would stick his neck out for her more. She swallowed, hoping that her father’s silence was pregnant with resolution.

He turned to Ali’s mother. “Why are you pressuring her to go? She’s doing her Master’s all by herself; why is there this talk of a PhD that I hear from all the way down the hall?” He saw his wife’s jaw open as if she intended to say something, but he only raised his finger. “You have done enough in this family. You have driven away my son from doing his Master’s work here, but you will not drive away my daughter.”

“But your daughter is dating an American! And she’s already twenty-six; how is she going to get married? Look at her!” Aliena frowned, knowing that her father had done his best, but also that her mother would always argue, no matter the previous injustices for which her father would reprimand her mother. This family had a cancer in it, and it would only spread.

As Aliena clutched her keys tightly, she turned to her father. He could see that he was saddened by the situation; he had his daughter home doing her education in what the Americans called his ‘golden years’, and it had to be marred by his wife’s bickering. Aliena was urged by a very Westernized instance of emotion to hug her father.

“There’s a Starbucks café not far from here. I’ll go there to work until you and mom leave for Khalamoni’s. Do you think you’ll be gone in two hours?” Aliena tilted her head at her father as he looked up at her. Only his eyes smiled as he realized she was fine and just trying to make his spirits light.

Aliena turned on her heel and her father looked upon her as she moved downstairs, hopefully to drive her car to where she said she was going. He was proud to see his daughter recover herself so gracefully.

Ali’s mother soon figured out where Ali was going with her car keys once the young student headed for the front door, and started to protest.

“Mom, this is my car. I bought it with my money. And I’m trying to finish my degree in peace. If I have to drive to a café to do that, so be it.”

With that, she lugged her things and as carefully as possible placed them in her backseat. Ali found herself relaxing and returning to her normal state when she was flying down the highway. It was funny; when she was younger, driving fast had scared her, especially when she would merge onto the highway. But now, it was a form or release. As her foot bore down on the gas pedal, she let go of everything that would bother her when she stayed with her parents while completing her studies. Ali was well and whole now; everything else could be emptied as she saw fit.

~~~~~~~~

The early morning of the weekend breaks, and the women of the house get up very slowly. This is not out of laziness, for they are all rather excited. They move like shadows, even wearing hijabs in the comfort of their own homes for the sake of their modesty — at least according to the police that claim to be Iran’s watchdogs of morality. Women are mice before their husbands arise, especially the ones that study in secret. Literature is highly regulated in Iran, since the police seem to think that people will follow the example of everything they read. These police, guided by the ideas and wishes of Islam, have banned most of the books from the east except those they deign to be good for their cause and for the growth of the younger people of Iran. There is no touch, no love, no conflict in their books. They’re flat and male-dominated, and do not entertain any opposing viewpoints.

But in secret, a select few people sell and obtain banned books, and keep them in their homes in defiance of this attempt to enforce one morality on a large country. Women gather with other women in private residences to discuss them — even books like Lolita. They convey intelligence that cannot be heard in public, especially regarding these works from the West. The West is an immoral cesspool according to the Iranian government, and yet the mother and daughter we see arising before their husband and father enjoy them together. The beloved copies of these books lie carefully concealed in the daughter’s room, and the mother sneaks into her room early in the morning to read and talk with her daughter.

This nameless mother wants so much more for her daughter than she had been given as a girl her age. She does not want her to be married off to a man who will think of her as his slave, his chattel, or his status symbol. This mother wants her daughter to be accepted wholly into a man’s mind and heart, and not into his list of responsibilities that he accepts begrudgingly. They read “Pride and Prejudice”, and the young daughter sighs as the handsome man professes his love for the heroine of the story. She wants to see her daughter become a heroine.

The young daughter’s wonders and worries are almost a mirror of her mother’s, except for the fact that she longs to travel to the West. She sees no future of light and happiness here, even though she is not yet twenty years of age. Education and reality have already begun to take hold, and in Iran women are not supposed to even let themselves wander out of the house uncovered in their minds. They cannot drive a car, nor go anywhere unescorted by a male family member. Life in this country is full of hate and deceit, even in the simplest and loving of actions.

The pages turn in the early morning quiet, and there is something wordless passed between these unnamed generations. The most recent generation must realize that being permitted to break the law with their parents is a sign that all is not well in their home country. Can this ever be fixed? They must wonder, looking up at night at all those stars in the Middle East. The desire to leave becomes more apparent with every book read, every page turned that has come from another country. The daughter and mother will miss each other if a decision is reached, but the next generation must do what is best for them.

Suddenly, as they reach the next chapter of the tantalizing book, there is a rumbling in the house. Both women recognize it as the sound of their main provider arising to a late breakfast in his house. Quickly, they scatter; unfortunately this is not the first time their studies have had to end and be concealed because of their patriarch’s feelings on women receiving education. The wife he had had a secret and hidden education, and made sure that her daughter had the same at all costs. Now her daughter was coming into the bloom of life, and she was proud that her progeny had a mind and motivation of her own. Even as they stashed their books in a secret compartment in the young daughter’s closet, and the mother quickly pulled out prayer rugs, the matron of the house was hopeful that she could arrange some way for her daughter to attain admission to a university abroad.

There were three prayer rugs put down neatly on the daughter’s floor just when the father opened the door.

“What is going on here? Why are you up so early before me?” He was visibly blinking away sleep, trying to focus on his wife and daughter, both wearing their plain hijabs.

“We both happened to wake up before you, and we thought we might start the day’s prayer early, Husband.” In the most submissive way possible, she gestured to the third prayer rug. “I would be honored if you were to join us.”

“We do have Allah to thank for all this,” He said, almost nonchalantly accepting the tentative invitation to prayer. The large man started going through the motions, just as his wife and daughter did, but the two women had long since learned to exchange meaningful glances between them.

The daughter knew her surahs perhaps better than her own name, and knew also that her mother’s furtive looks said one thing.

He must never find out.

~~~~~~~~

Light came in through the grand windows of the virtuoso’s music room; it gave him the light he needed to work on his latest composition. It was a waltz for the next celebration the King was having at his palace, possibly for the introduction of some new Lord or Lady, or perhaps for a marriage announcement. The reason escaped him in that very moment, as patches of sunlight streamed across his elegant grand piano while he furiously worked. It was like a kind of madness; everyone marveled at his musical ability at the unveiling of his new pieces, and no one could imagine how he crafted such beautiful melodies and harmonies seemingly out of thin air. But when he was in this state, no one could disturb him. No one could — except for a woman. Though he had a reputation for being a brilliant virtuoso pianist, his many transgressions with women were extensively (though extremely informally) documented. Even while he worked now, he was entertaining a young woman of questionable moral fiber on his lap. Though it was sunny in his working room, it felt like his hands and the rest of his body were freezing to death. Though married, he saw the excess coupling as a way for him to continue his work in peace. Besides, his wife wouldn’t have indulged him in such a luscious manner; the young woman squealed and groaned adorably, and was undeniably attractive as she moved back and forth on what any book about the human body of that period would call his “male member”. He could only grin lecherously as he worked, creating a piece to match the ecstasy of this young woman’s willingness just before his door was unceremoniously flung open.

“Johann! What are you doing?” His wife’s irritable tones were unmistakable to him after all their years of marriage; he had been considerably younger, but she was a shrinking violet at the dawn of their matrimony. Things had found their way into change with her, however. She became a shrew: loud, ungrateful, resentful of her husband’s meager success using his genetic talents as a boy, and unyielding in the bedroom. It pained him to deal with her, especially when he remembered how pretty she had been when he deflowered her. Now, it couldn’t be said that she was unattractive, but when Johann looked her, he felt very tired. It was like seeing time itself painted across her face, and suddenly he remembered how much he wished that she would paint her face to look nicer every once in a while. He certainly missed when they were younger, but as he sat with a much younger woman on his lap he knew those days were far behind them.

“What does it look like?” He grunted, brushing his hands against his young lover’s hands on the way to organize the sheets of his composition on the music stand of his piano. “I’m working, leave me be.” Stubbornly he refused to even acknowledge the existence of the woman who sat lewdly on his lap; perhaps it could be said that stubbornness was one of his enduring characteristics over the years as well.

“Working indeed! How did you get that trollop in here?” Johann’s wife found her voice was climbing to new notes as she yelled at her husband, with the smallest tinge of jealousy in her wide emotional range. She had always hated that her husband couldn’t have made his business in a trade that would allow him to be faithful to her. She knew that for many men, women were expendable, but surely marriage should make her more important to him? Surely, any common whore that might service him took no precedence before his wife.

“None of your business! And besides, I need them all. They’re my muses.” The young girl, almost proud of her indecency with the older pianist’s penis still inside her as he talked to his wife, grinned at this mention of being his muse.

“How many muses do there need to be? How many girls, Johann?”

“As many as it takes! Besides,” He felt his throat catch with the nerves behind emotional honesty. “you cannot give what any of them can. Even the ugliest one.”

“What, you want a fiery woman? You want one that will give you ideas with her actions?” She ground her teeth as she realized that her husband had so many transgressions because of what her family had told her – men wanted women who were seen, not heard, and who spoke when they were spoken to. It seemed to her that she had only become vocal in the years of their marriage when she became angry over his many harlots. But then, there had been many. She was resolved to make an impression on her husband, even if it would be years too late. So, she reached for the cause of his infidelity – the pages of sheet music that were already written. They made him think of all his women? Well, he would be reminded that there should only be one woman in his life. Quickly, she tore the sheets into strips, and without regard for their importance, strung them through her hair as primitive curlers, if only to enrage her husband and get him to focus on her for a change.

Without consideration for the young girl who had been his muse only a few moments earlier, he pushed her off his lap and looked incredulously at his wife. The work of that entire day – gone. It had been his finest work, and he imagined it becoming a mainstay favorite of the King’s. But where was it now? In his confounded wife’s hair, curling the masses into uptight strands.

He could’ve yelled at her, and in his lack of restraint, he did. It was like a lion on the Serengeti: utterly fearsome and a declaration of one’s loss and territory. Johann took no care in chasing his wife around the music room, and she took haste in hiking up her skirts so as to flee his wrath.

The servants peeked in on the unique marital squabble, and could barely believe what they were seeing. Certainly, if the virtuoso had any competition, they could have obtained this story from his hired help and Johann would very likely have become ruined. But virtuosos tended to respect one another, so the fight was only a source of amusement for the help until one well-intentioned servant walked into the music room.

With every hope of ending the fight, the young servant said, “Would Milord and lady like something to eat?”

Almost as if united against a common enemy, both husband and wife cried out, “No!” Somehow, the piano bench that the composer had been sitting on found its way hurtling towards the unfortunate poor servant boy.

For the rest of that afternoon, after the young woman exhibiting quite the array of whorish behavior had been let out of the house, the husband and wife fought in that same room about a multitude of things. Objects of varying value were thrown and shattered, but neither of them seemed to want to stop.

The servant boy who had been abused by the couple asked the old cook, once he had regained his wits, “Why do they fight so? They sound like a couple of cats bickering over a dead mouse.”

The cook halted butchering a fresh piece of venison and looked up at the young boy. “Son, you’ll find that there are many different ways the rich – or, those who are richer than us – express affection. Not all of them may be healthy, but I guess it’s the mutual understanding that that’s how those two people communicate best.”

Mystified, the boy rolled his eyes and walked off to his other duties in the modest estate, hearing the sounds of the argument reverberating for several hours more.

~~~~~~~~

The archer struggled to string his arrow; he had been a proficient sharpshooter, but now his years had caught up to him. His eyesight was now a burden rather than a necessary player in hitting his target. The man’s hands shook a bit with arthritis as he gripped the bow in uneasy anticipation. He wished that he had never taken on the younger man’s proposition that if he could still hit the bullseye of the target he had known in his days of youth. The bow pressed intrusively against his worn flesh, causing nothing but a marginal bit of discomfort. Though he was happy to defend his daughter’s honor, he wasn’t sure that he could be the right man for the job. The bowstring began to tighten against the strain of him stretching the bow, and the father held his breath as he attempted to concentrate.

The man in his bloom of youth who looked on was suspicious of the man’s show of being rickety. He certainly had not seemed so when he had stood up for his adolescent daughter and her right to be left alone. The older man seemed quite in control of his faculties in that moment, and he already felt cheated, almost as if the older man were playing him for a fool and using his apparent age to make fun of him for being the better man with arrows. After all, youth is the most valuable asset of those who are young; in the mind of that young man, the idea that an old man could be a better archer than he made his blood boil. He was almost inclined to laugh for no reason at all when the old man finally let the arrow fly towards the target. He wished for anything to distract the geezer from his obviously meticulous method of practicing archery.  The older gentleman only wanted this moment to be over, and to have his daughter be safe from this ruffian who prodded at her honor on the street like young men would torment stray cats or dogs. His pretty blonde daughter with green eyes looked on nervously; it was the place of women to look on as their respective men – be they brothers, fathers, or husbands – fought for their worth in this world. It was simply in the culture of those times, and there was little reason for it to change at that moment. That father found himself wishing that his charming blossom of a girl had a strong and fit brother, if only for a moment in time.

The arrow flew, though the old archer regretted his shaky hands at the very last moment. He tried to reason with himself that he might always recount that last arrow and think of ways he might’ve changed it for years to come, especially since his eyes were shut when the arrow finally left the bow. He could barely breathe, but when he allowed himself to see what he had done he could only gasp. The old man, despite the degradation of his hip, could’ve fallen on the hard ground from sheer shock.

The arrow had shot clear through the target, impaling itself on the soft cloth of the traditional equipment used with novices. He almost felt like puffing out his chest; it was further confirmation that though he was aging, he was still a man. He still had the capability to protect his family – or so he thought. When he heard the young man’s next words, he felt like he was a child’s toy that had been broken after its initial purchase.

“He cheated!” The unfairness of youth rang out in his voice, and it echoed through the busy parts of the town in which these two men had first found each other’s company. People raised their eyebrows anytime someone involved in an agreement accused the other of cheating him. It was part of the communal atmosphere; most people who lived so amongst others for so long as the archer had didn’t try on dishonesty except in the most dire of situations. As dire as things had been while the man’s hands shook, it certainly looked unlikely that the old archer would have had any opportunity to cheat the impetuous boy.

“How could I have? I am old, and as much as I hate to admit it, my best days are behind me…” His cries of defense were almost an afterthought as the younger man, desperate to have a chance at the young woman, has called over a nobleman who was probably in town for the market day. Many of the noblemen had made their starts in trade, and many of them saw no reason to let go of anything that would allow them any income.

The nobleman was informed of the incident with the two men, and he nodded sagely, as men of status are often wont to do.

“My dear boy, I don’t think you have been cheated,” the nobleman said tentatively, trying to remain as neutral as he could. “this old man only has his daughter in the world, and how can anyone deceive another with old age? Luck favors people sometimes; it can be said to be the will of God—“

Before the nobleman could finish his attempt at diplomacy, the young man’s fist lost its bearings and hit the nobleman in the jaw. He almost snapped like a wild beast, and people in the town either watched the display of ferocity or dropped what they were doing to restrain the young, unstable man from the well-liked man of high birth.

His blood was bright red, a startling color to see on a man of respect. The nobleman wiped the corner of his mouth and felt his chin to make sure it was in its usual position. The young man looked at his knuckles, and the sight of a few drops of blood against his own skin shocked the young man into a bout of plain, unadulterated fear.  The consequences of his actions became even more real when the townspeople around him began to gather closer to him. His heart pounded in his chest, and the basic need he had towards self-preservation triggered itself as he ran away from the threat of those around him. He didn’t want to face them all on, and the slightest impression of a lesson about violence might’ve entered his conscious mind at that very moment.

As the young man was run out of town by the threat of violence, the young girl’s green eyes smiled at her father when she approached him to put her hand on his shoulder in a subtle gesture of gratefulness.

The old man smiled a worn smile at his only reason to go on and live in this world. She was radiant, growing up exactly like her mother, his wife had. They were both beautiful in his mind, and he hoped that those lovely eyes would help him find her a suitable husband for when God saw fit to take him from this world.

In the meantime, the old archer set down his bow and walked on with his only child in this world.