Remembering

How to Feel

Nur Kader

Green with chlorophyll I am growing 
in a yellow type of way, afraid of what is come,
Sweeping the side of the road 
Lights as high as pine trees
Balmy night air 
‍
Waiting for some Motherboard to 
take me no
where 
‍
My laughter as I realized I was the sun, 
glowing
hair like an endangered redwood forest
Sitting on the grass and the sun rise 
washing me in 
hope for a future that would inevitably come. 
In that moment, 
I was swinging high enough to maybe, just maybe,
escape the orbit of my fears, and jump. 

Nur is a freshman at the College, living in North Carolina. She believes in prioritizing joy, and their main medium is poetry but they also write stories.

On Going

Shanivi Srikonda

__________

Shanivi likes to explore the human condition through the intersection of visual art and writing. She is enthusiastic about connecting with others and their experiences, and learning more from them.

The Next Magic

Nila A

Jacob rubbed his eyes to give his hands something to do. It pained him to talk about Penny Hardaway, a basketball player who he claimed had an innate, extraordinary understanding of the court. Penny’s body found paths in the alleys between players that went unnoticed by his lesser opponents. He was a tall man in a position designed for small men, so like a drone, his vision was unbiased and all-encompassing.

They nicknamed him The Next Magic, after a similarly visually gifted player, Magic Johnson (whose real name was Earvin, so the need for a nickname was understandable).

So, Earvin was so good they called him Magic, and Penny was so good they called him The Next Magic, until Penny broke his knee and stopped playing for 63 games. His body never returned to normal, and no one called him anything after that.

Jacob tried to explain why Magic Johnson was the best point guard in the game, but by the time he started talking about triple-doubles, it was too late to ask what a point guard does exactly, so I just sat and thought about the process of becoming another person. Did Magic Johnson grow on top of Penny until Penny had sporadic patches of Magic's skin like a sleek fungus? Or, did Magic grow inside of Penny, like the tiny capsules I submerged in water as a child until they grew into dinosaurs? Did Magic stop growing when Penny hurt his knee? Is there a half-sized Magic Johnson floating around Penny's organs? Is this why his body never returned to normal?

We were on the topic because I’d found a basketball on my way home. It landed in front of me and bounced in perfect arcs. I looked up at the townhouses down the street carving perfect rectangles into the night sky above them, but no one was on the roofs. None of the windows were open. It was as if the basketball had fallen from a tiny space warp that sprouted above my head.

I showed Jacob the basketball, and he noticed a large black scribble that spelled Penny Hardaway in messy cursive.

"I'm Penny," I said, as Jacob stood to leave the room. I was both trying to convince him I had been listening to him, and trying to prevent him from leaving me. "And you're Magic. If you're not careful I'm going to take over your body." I nudged the plush of his stomach with my toes.

"What does that even mean, Mira?" he asked, and shut the door behind him.
‍
‍

When I found the basketball, Jacob had recently graduated. He had found an apartment in Boston near the water, and I chose to live with him for a few months during the summer before my sophomore year began. Before I lived with Jacob, I never watched basketball, and I still don’t understand it. Sometimes, Jacob and I would be laying side by side on the couch when a basketball game would start. He would turn on the TV and I would stare, briefly hypnotized by these men and their perpetual back and forth. Eventually, I would get bored and press my face against Jacob’s chest.

I didn't mind laying there, not being able to see or move for hours while Jacob watched the TV behind me, because it kept him still, pressed against me, not wandering elsewhere.

During my first week in his apartment, I met his upstairs neighbor Pia in the laundry room. She was wearing a floor length leopard print skirt, and the rim of her lower eyelid was lined with glossy, star-shaped stickers.

“It’s for work,” she mentioned, pointing at the basket of fabric resistance bands she was loading into the washer. 

Technically, Pia was a file clerk, but she told me her real dream was to become a professional warm-up artist. Not a dancer, but a professional warm-up artist. She created exercises to stretch, loosen, and emotionally prepare an athlete for physical activity, which she herself rarely did. It was an uncharted science, and she was the pioneer of her field.

She invited me to her apartment the following day during her lunch break, and we ate lunch together most days after that. She talked about her work, and the frailty of an unprepared body. I mostly talked to her about Jacob. After a couple weeks, I invited her to meet him, but she declined.

“He sounds like another white boy with a bad attitude,” she said. 
‍
‍

Jacob and I met during a lecture for a class called Entrepreneurship in the Age of AI. He was a senior and I was a freshman, and both of us dropped the class, but during our two weeks of enrollment we sat next to each other and made quips while the professor spoke. "You could add 'in the Age of AI' to anything, and it would sound smart," I said. We invented alternative lecture subjects. Karmic Sex in the Age of AI. Popping my Roommate's Back Pimple in the Age of AI. Pretending your Distant Grandmother Died to get out of Class in the Age of AI.

One day, halfway through the lecture, he said "My dad's really annoying. Wanna skip class and get lunch?"

"My mom has an anger problem," I said. "Let's get lunch." I found out later his dad was the professor of the course, so I felt guilty for telling him about my mom.
‍


We ate lunch at a dining hall for upperclassmen. I was thrilled by the long mahogany tables, and the tall windows spilling golden light onto the faces of what seemed to be an older, more beautiful genus of student than I had ever seen on campus. After lunch, we took a bus to Jacob's favorite place in the city, a time-travel themed supermarket located underneath an Applebee's. We spent hours walking through aisles of robot breast milk, or dinosaur feet.

Before then, I had rarely left campus. It astonished me that there might be peculiar little wonders hidden throughout the city, underneath Applebee's everywhere. I assumed Jacob must have had an extraordinary understanding of the world, and the secret escapes hidden throughout.

I bought a small box of time-travel sickness pills, which tasted like black licorice jelly beans.

We decided to walk back to campus instead of taking the bus. My phone died, but he assured me he was familiar with the area. Even though we got lost six times, and finally called a car to drive us back to campus, I still found his confidence endearing. "My own Amerigo Vespucci," I joked.

In his dorm room, we collapsed onto his bed while we were still sweaty and clothed.

My freshman year roommate did everything for her boyfriend. On multiple occasions, I saw her doing her boyfriend's laundry while he was in class, and I thought to myself absolutely never. But that first night, as I watched Jacob let out small snorts of air while he slept, I stayed awake for hours. All I could think was Give me your laundry. Give me your dirtiest laundry — I'd hand wash it if I had to.
‍
‍

On weekends, Jacob and I visited his family in their suburban home. Their front yard was filled with Cosmos and Larkspur, Bluemink and Amaranth — all names I came to learn while taking walks with Jacob's mother.

"Did your mother grow any flowers?" she asked me once.

"No, mostly vegetables," I lied.

Each night, we dined on risotto or spanakopita, hanger Steak or fish with romesco sauce — also words I also came to learn by spending time with Jacob's family. It was easy to both love him and hate him for this pristine life, his suburban home, his PhD parents.

His family rarely noticed my dinner silence. Occasionally, certain topics would compel Jacob to nod to me from across the table. "Mira was a golf champ in high school" or "Mira and I watched that show together."

Jacob moved with a general clumsiness. He had converted his early interest in video games into a desire to build and code. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of private school education, mixed with his teenage gawkiness gave him the kind of awkward intelligence most women found patronizing. Every time he spoke of me in front of his family, with a voice tinged with pride, I saw myself the way he might see me. I was his first girlfriend and a triumph over his last personal frontier: the ability to be loved.

At night, I slept in his sister's old room, since she lived and worked in California as a research assistant in Ornithology. Her room was full of stuffed colored birds, chess trophies, and Model UN badges. Sometimes, after everyone else fell asleep, I went through her drawers. I picked the locks on her paisley childhood diary, and combed through the evidence of her teenage angst.

Sometimes when Jacob and I were together in this home, I would pretend we were siblings and not lovers. I wanted to wear her over me like a cloak. I read through her old chemistry homework, or song lyrics she wrote about how she wanted the world to be a better place, and I pictured myself writing them.

Once, I found a note that her mother had written her. It had two columns, one that was titled "What I Said" and the other column was titled "What I Meant." It was a list of all the seemingly rude things her Mom had said to her (Get out, Eat garbage if you want, I don't care), followed by what she really meant (I just need some space right now, I wished you helped more around the house).

I tried to think of my own Mom writing something like that.

‍What I said:
‍I hope you die, you fat piece of shit.

‍What I meant:
…



My mother’s frankness was refreshing. She spoke the truth, no matter how badly I wished she didn’t mean it. 



My mother was always controlled by anger; she grew up steeped in it.

Her mother was angry, and her father was angry.  The street vendors near her house were angry, largely ignored and profitless, so they shot spit at passerby. Even the dust was angry, forcing its way into her throat until she violently hacked to repudiate it.  

My mother said my father was angry too, before he left her to lead a local chapter of The Communist Party of India. At night, he bred his anger in dimly-lit basements over pamphlets of Marxist theory. During the day, their anger blocked traffic as it marched between cars like water flowing in between rocks. 

My mom was still angry when she moved to America, two years after I was born, and she remained angry. Most mornings, I woke up to the sounds of her shouting over the foot of my bed. In the evenings, while we ate dinner in front of the television, in between our shared laughs, she would yell at me to eat faster, or eat slower. She slammed her fists on the table, or threw pans against the wall, and occasionally, she hit me. Each time she did, she looked at me with a confused, sleepy expression, as if the anger was another woman living inside of her. The other woman receded while my mother’s fist was still raised, just in time for her to understand what she had done to me. 

I was afraid of my mother hurting me, but I was more afraid that her anger would find its way inside of me, so, in high school, I did my best to stay out of the house. I worked overtime scooping ice cream until my right forearm ballooned to twice the size of my left one. I joined the golf team solely because of their notoriously long practices. I stayed at the coffee shop studying until minutes before closing time, while the baristas apologetically dragged their mops around my body so that the wet strings were like little dogs nipping at my feet. Most days, I came home to my mother asleep on the couch while I stepped over a forest floor of broken glass and spilled wine. 

When I left for college, I stopped talking to my mother all together. I spent every school vacation with Jacob’s family, and a generous scholarship spared me from calling to ask for money. I thought physical distance might fracture our genetic linkage, but still, I felt her residual anger living deep within my tendons. It would start in my jaw and make its way up to my temples like black mold. My hand would turn to fists in my pockets. My gaze would linger a little too long at a hammer or a heavy book. I worried my mother’s anger might fester within me until it took over my body completely from the inside.  

Only when Jacob held me was I at peace. When we touched, my body felt like an extension of his — calm and brilliant — so nothing horrible could come from within me. 



Each day of that summer felt prolonged, and overwhelming. I spent most of my time alone, waiting for Jacob to return from work. Visiting Pia during her lunch break provided a brief respite from an endless barrage of worries: what the weather would be, whether my mother was ok, whether I would be ok, but mostly, when Jacob would return. He almost always came home later than I expected.

Pia labelled this as a deal breaker. She identified a few of his other habits (he made me clean up after his friends, or expected me to follow him home every weekend) as others.

I didn't understand why I let Jacob take so much from me, and this confusion led to anger similar to the anger I imagined my mother felt while I lived with her. It tightened around my skin like sharp strands.

But then I would remember, I didn't want to break this deal. When he came home, it felt like the only time worth caring about were the moments we spent together. He stood behind me and smoothed the curls in my hair. He brought me purple cupcakes from the local bakery. His kitchen was always full of globes of colored fruit. His mother always smelled like sandalwood and rose water. He had an 8-piece acoustic drum set that I got to watch him play every day, clumsily, as if he were trying to catch a ball just out of reach. I got all of this for just a couple hours of waiting, or a just couple nights of cleaning. I would make the same deal over and over again. Every day. Forever.



I thought about Penny Hardaway, when he was younger. I thought about how easy it must’ve felt to be adored because of your association to another, to not have to build a fanbase entirely alone. 



If I were a famous basketball player, I would want to be like Penny Hardaway. I thought Penny must've felt really precious, nestled in the love of someone else’s devotees. 
‍
Nearly every evening that summer, Jacob's three close friends visited his apartment. Damian had joined the military to aid his political career (and because of his ever-present desire to be physically and emotionally dominated). Brendan always talked about his all-consuming itch to fall in love, and I had felt bad for him, until I heard his lengthy, unreasonable qualifications for a partner (a history of bleached hair, protruding collarbones, an interest in geology, etc.). Andrew once challenged a professional, competitive eater to a cheeseball eating competition, and after losing by nearly a pound of cheeseballs, spent the rest of the weekend pouring out bright orange pools of cheesy puke.

The boys were always cursing someone out, or tripping over themselves. Spilling beer, peeing somewhere inappropriate. But they were so beautiful, all of them! Their tall bodies leaped and plunged into the air around them. They were clumsy and woeless. Since I spent most of my freshman year laying in Jacob's bed, I didn't have much time to make friends, so I felt fulfilled by their company.

I felt Jacob liked it when I spent time with his friends. It made me feel unbearably precious — a rare prize. I didn't recoil when they spoke of sticky women, and I never flinched when they ravaged the apartment. The boys took this as a testament to my impenetrable chillness.

But when the boys groped my newfound basketball, it felt like a personal violation. It hurt somewhere deep inside of me to watch it ricochet around the room. Each time it clanged against the glass, the kitchen sink, our porcelain bowls, I felt a painful dislodging in my stomach. After some time, I stole it back from the air, mid-arc, and claimed it as mine.

"Mira." Jacob looked confused. "She doesn't even like basketball."

What could I have said? I like this basketball. It feels rare for good things to sprout in front of me. The last time I had this feeling — the charged excitement of novelty — was last year, when I met Jacob. Every time I think of this ball, I picture Penny Hardaway in his prime, awash with youthful energy. Every time I touch this ball, I feel zapped with a glint of his good fortune.

‍"You're right," I settled on saying. I tossed the basketball back to the boys, and left the room.



The following day, I couldn't stop thinking about the way the boys' gross ownership blanketed everything in the apartment. I noticed nothing in the space belonged to me. Jacob had bought all of the appliances and furniture. Most of my clothes were gifted to me by his mother. I let him carve into every minute of my time like a whittler with a stick of wood, and I worried I would become a floor full of shavings.

The basketball loomed in my peripheral vision. It appeared discolored and lumpy, as if thick sheens of mold grew on its surface.

I felt my mother's anger expanding inside of me. My body became a discord of different tempos: my heart pulsed quickly, my fingers rapped against my skin in an aimless, syncopated rhythm, my forehead throbbed slow and painfully. All of my muscles flexed, as if trying to protect me from myself.

Worried about what my body might be capable of, I fled to Pia's room, and told her about the previous night, while carefully avoiding the reason for my anger. I never told Pia about the basketball. My fantasies about Penny Hardaway felt both too precious and too delirious to withstand the ever-logical Pia.

"You have to stop letting those boys take from you," she said, before handing me a glass of water.

She placed her hand on my back, and she talked me through one of her warm-ups. She asked me to drink the water while picturing all energy outside of my own draining from my body.With each steady gulp, I fidgeted less. Blood rushed away from my head. My heart slowed to one, unifying pulse.



Once, while Jacob and I were resting on opposite ends of the couch with our feet writhing around each other, I asked him about Penny Hardaway's injury. I imagined a snap of bone so sharp, it must have broken the sound barrier.

But Jacob told me there was no clean break. Little injuries (a heavy landing, a twist slightly awry) scored into Penny's knee until it grew soft. The ache rotted even the healthy parts of his body — his upper back, his lower back, his foot. Eventually, he became more injury than athlete and stopped playing altogether.

This worried me. Penny's downfall was not caused by his own failures, but by the insidious force that swelled within his own body without his knowledge. I looked at my arms. I tried to envision the spaces between nerves that my mother's anger took hold inside of me, and I pulled my feet away from Jacob. I never spoke to him about my family, so I felt distant, carrying the secret of a grim past, and a terrifying future.


‍
A week after I found the basketball, the box in which it was kept was opened and emptied. Instead of visiting Pia during lunch, I checked under every piece of furniture, searching for the truth I already knew. The ball was gone. Jacob had taken it.

When he returned, he answered my questions with an innocent, exasperated tone. I didn't know you cared so much. It was three hundred dollars, Mira.

‍The anger embedded in my muscles awakened before my mind had a chance to respond. It altered my vision — I saw each glass item as an explosion yet to occur. Hot pine needles poked into my joints, and something hot and horrible festered in my rib cage. My mind was filled with the urgent need to move — to force this anger outside of me.

My arm picked up a mug on the counter, and flung it downward in a parabolic motion. I felt like I was dancing. I felt like I was doing one of Pia's warm-ups, and I was warming up. I was getting hotter and hotter.

As the mug shattered against the wall, one porcelain shard scraped Jacob across the cheek, leaving a clean red line that muddled with blood in the following seconds.

Jacob screamed. Get out. Get out. You psycho.

‍Panic brought me to Pia's front door, the only place I knew to go in distress. Inside, I fell through her nimble arms onto the floor at her feet.

That evening, Jacob would text me that it was over, that I should pack my things by the next day. I would stay with Pia for a few weeks while I looked for work and another place to live.

The following semester, whenever our mutual friends would see me on campus, they would look at me with amusement and pity. When I passed, they would airily whisper to their friends about what I had done.

But I already knew, on the floor of Pia's apartment, what was soon to happen.The edges of my vision blurred. Without Jacob, I couldn't conceive of myself as a real, tangible human, so I pressed my knees tightly to my chest. I worried if I didn't manually hold myself together, I might simply disintegrate. Sadness altered my perception of time. I couldn't remember anything from the past, and I couldn't understand the future. I had only this one, unbearable moment.

My thoughts were too clouded with despair to fully register Pia's presence, but I spoke aloud, half wailing, about all that had happened.

She cocked her head when I told her about the basketball. When I showed her a picture, she told me it was her signature, not Penny Hardaway’s. She had signed her name on the basketball while testing an idea for one warm-up, and tossed it out of the window as part of another. When I looked at the picture, the markings seemed to rearrange themselves into the words Pia Hammery in perfect cursive. I felt silly to have thought it spelled anything else. 

From her closet, she pulled another basketball. She took a marker and scribbled her own name on the ball's course surface. She looked powerful looming over me. She became her own idol. Pia the file clerk and Pia the warm-up artist, also became Pia the Penny Hardaway and Pia the Magic Johnson. It made me happy to think of the potential nestled inside one mighty body.

She crouched next to me and passed the marker, encouraging me to sign my name above hers. With each stroke of the marker on the ball’s leather pebbling, I briefly felt, for this one simple action, that I was the controller of my own movement. 

__________

Nila is a student at Harvard University studying Computer Science. She is originally from Louisville, KY.

Sean Niu quit his tech PM job during the pandemic to pursue writing and photography. During the darkest days of the pandemic in LA he spent his days photographing the lonely, empty strip malls of the city. You can find more of his photography on his Instagram: @sameseanniulook. He also hosts and produces The Electric Image Express, a podcast about Asian film, identity, and the creative journey.

William S. Matawaran (b. 1998, Philippines) is a student and visual artist working with different media such as traditional & digital illustration, painting, and sculpture. Aside from finishing his studies, he works as a freelance illustrator and painter.