River Child
River Child By Leah Yan Doherty, 1st Year ETA [Image by Victoria Thiem] I They say I floated softlydown the Yangtze, a ripple-like shimmerinto their outstretched arms—“our little river child” Tears, freshly pluckedfrom the deepened creaseof patient smiles, crinkled around the edgestasting of hope and roasted coffee. At nightI would listen to talesof shape-shifting monkey kingsand Chinese cinderellas “… a bright child and lovely too,with skin as smooth as ivory anddark pools for eyes,” she only had one friend,a magical carp 魚 with golden scales. then, as always, came gentle sleep Stories of my birthplace started and endedwith long-winded lectures on ancient calligraphyand portraits of gray-bearded emperorssitting behind mighty walls of stone. To this faraway land, I was a stranger II We came from various orphanagesbut an invisible string tied our lives togetherlike a red ribbon of fate, trailing after usas dutifully as a kite “Am I pretty?” asked one of my sistersas she pursed her faintly cracked lips andlifted silver-studded brows—don’t tell my mom please—to a green mirror, covered in rust. She widened those almond eyeswhich reflected backa set of canoeslooking for land to accept it “beautiful,” I thought. Then she hushed me,took me suddenly by the handand we started runningbarely swallowing our grins up, up, up. Perhaps it is how memories paint the wallslike intricate murals of wildflowerand laughter stains the ceiling,or perhaps it’s something more? How effortless it is,my heart repliesto remember those days III I look just like them Inside emanated sweetness and gochujangas I made my way through a small doorstepping over strands of leftover hair, black like mine,strewn across the marble floor. There sat a group of people, multiple generationsa middle grandson whose jelly-filled cheeksduplicated in form down the wooden table“Ohhh 맵다,” he sighed Outside my ears picked upa gentle pattering of tiny feet on pavement,and the lingering exhale of lush green peakscalming a school of restless trout. If you listen carefullyto the 북한강 river, a midnight shade of blueyou might be able to hear its twinklingbetween the mountains’ heartbeat “From Korea?” my host aunt asked, mid-chewMy cheeks flushed a deep pinkas the few Korean words I knew took flightlike a couple of traitorous birds. Looking down at the golden dustwhich painted my piano-curved fingersthe way BHC chicken does, salty and sweetI managed to sputter “중국계 미국인.” IV Forever a river child To this day, my head still spinswhenever I catch glimpses of heran ‘olive skin’ girl with high cheekbones andmatted hair from one too many dye jobs Did she have other brothers and sisterswhose likeness was brought up,like clockwork, over a charcoal potof simmering broth? It hurtled me back, her rattling coughfrom years of trekking in fine dustto tend to the soil and pick ripe mountain berriesI looked at my host mom in wonder is this what it’s like? It started as severance,severance from my birth mother’s coos,the pleas of Mandarin speakers on the subway, “你会说中文吗?”and secret talks between the Yangtze and its rolling peaks. As painful as it wasI felt grateful for my imagination thenand in that fleeting moment, pictured myselfat a table several lives away… their lovely river child. From there, the smoky gray sky didwhat I had wanted to do but couldn’tit started to pour [Featured photo by Kierstin Conaway]
Mangoes
Mangoes By Martha “Cati” Pudner, 2nd Year ETA Wrinkled fingers shakily slicing, Flies swarming the samples, Blotches of angled sun streaming between the leaves. There was a sign but no soul around to read it. My hands came up empty But it was already sliced, and handing it over He swatted me away, And him and his flies slid back into the rhythm of the trees. [Featured photo by Tansica Sunkamaneevongse]
the goldfish and a great lake
the goldfish and a great lake By Kat Ray, 1st Year ETA goldfish must not be kept in bowls; folks often do not know that. they need a tank of at least twenty gallons, regularly tested for ammonia and other things. they must eat more than just fish flakes to thrive; you should give them worms and bugs and stuff. yet even the best care cannot stop a sentient goldfish from yearning. they are much like me. i knew a goldfish in a well-filtered tank. he had orange and black flecked scales and big, round eyes. he could see the lake through the near window (in the few hours when the child was not facing him, blocking his view). he would sigh, watching. the other fish did not have the brains for yearning, but had brains enough for wisdom (and gossip). “if you leave,” they said to him and each other, “you may grow. for a goldfish may only grow as big as his pond.” so the goldfish, after hearing this and mulling it over, escaped. he shot from the tank water like a dolphin and flopped along the flooring, flailing without sight and without aim for what seemed like years to him across wood, across pavement, across rocks, across dirt and mud and silt until — gulp — he was swallowed up by the deep pit of a dark, massive lake. he breathed at last, heart racing, eyes spinning and then focusing on the cold green murkiness above and below him. he tried to swim to the bottom, not to count the pebbles as he used to do; just instead to know that they were there. but he could not reach the ground without losing his head. he was at first scared and enchanted; the endless deep, the spacious silence. and then scared and amused; the new fishes, the new diet. and then scared and alone; no falling flakes, no watchful eyes. and then scared. weeks passed of unfocused swimming beneath the current at the top, heart thumping against his ribs. he did not and could not get bigger, as he had not eaten nor barely breathed one deep breath. his scales turned gray, and his blood was low like a dull pain. his heart now groaned as a chant vibrating still in the open water. his eyes rolled back as if they could find and catch his brain running away to his tank at home. home, how strange a word; he mused as it once meant a small glass prison, too small for his scales and fins to grow, too exposed for him to feel comfortable within them. yet now, it was all he yearned for; the rhythmic tapping of a child’s finger to the glass, the gruel that floated down and rotted in the pebbles, the blue and pink substrate that he had counted and named. the mold that grew on his fins from statued sameness. the other fish, always there, frustratingly always there, the melody of their conversations, often shared, often with a smile and the wave of a tail. he yearned for home, now. now, alone, his own pet goldfish in need of tedious care. drifting, eyes finding purchase on the neverending black emptiness below. who could’ve guessed that to live alone meant to survive alone; to get bigger meant to eat, and to eat meant to hunt, and to hunt meant to swim, and to swim meant to wander through water of one hundred fathoms deep. who knows what lies below? and so he went belly up; drifted on his back, eyes blinking and straying up toward the top of the lake for a moment before crusting shut completely. he cursed himself for thinking he was good enough to grow. he mustn’t be kept in a bowl, nor must he be let in the great deep. he did not know what to do, but he had no strength to swim anymore. the waves carried his ragdoll body up to the surface of the lake. it was warm here, as if there was a tank heater. why? he pried open his weary eyes. and he saw the moon. the tank had never let him; the people closed the window shades at night, so he saw neither it nor the sunrise. he had imagined what it would look like; perhaps similar to the ambient light left on atop the tank. but it was nothing of the sort. he mustered up all the strength left within his little body to swim even further toward the surface to see it better. he didn’t care about growing anymore. he just wanted to survive enough seconds to see the moon. he didn’t care how big he looked, nor at this point how zombied he looked, either. his scales brightened in the starlight, anyway. and, to his surprise, he found bits of insects just at the surface. not as nutritious nor readily there as fish pellets, but there, and food. he gobbled them, and at once the tiny engine of his body fueled enough to clear his cloudy eyes. the moon glowed with even more cosmic vivid light. the surface’s space gave him a bit less control as the cold deep, yet there was warmth and food and beauty and perhaps sometimes, being dragged by the currents was good. he let the current take him. it led him, at last, to the shallow. he could see the pebbles. he could hear the distant muffled speech of children playing in the water. unfamiliar in patterns, yet too known as any child’s voice could be. he could be alone now, he would tell himself. if he might just have the moon for company. but the moon became brighter as he had another fish to point it out to; first it was a passing guppy, amused at the strange goldfish’s enchantment, then enthralled himself with what he hadn’t seen in the steady moon before. then it was a shrimp, then a snail. different