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
A Finger Trap
A Finger Trap By Martha “Cati” Pudner, 2nd Year ETA There are not enough chairs in our cafeteria, but two are always left empty. They sit loyally to either side of a certain student, leaving a thick, telling slice of space in a sea of crammed bodies. I tap her while passing to wave, and she doesn’t look up. I carry on to the teachers’ table, scolding myself for drawing attention to her. Maybe she likes to believe it goes unnoticed. Soon after I sit down, a group of my peers approaches in a single file. A-line dresses flow like blooming petals in the breeze behind them. They sit a couple of chairs away. I steal quick glances as their remaining food diminishes, trying to correctly time a gap between our leaving. I believe I’m successful until I reach a nearby coffee shop and find them inside. The group faces each other in a lively circle and their conversation bounces against the coffee shop’s walls. They acknowledge me with a bow, but the circle stays shut. When the barista calls our drinks, mine is placed conspicuously to the side. As I pass them to approach the counter, my skin grows hot. I imagine pairs of eyes studying me. Has the tray I’m holding suddenly become slippery? I try to gaze coolly in front of me as I head to my table. The teachers’ laughter swirls around the room and twists to avoid the air around me. I feel as if I’m throwing off the carefully curated aesthetic of the cafe, as if I’m an unmatched piece of furniture sticking out sorely. I can feel the self-consciousness slowly rise in my body, and I know it will make my movements unnatural and my steps clumsy. I hold my breath, seizing myself into stillness as if against a beast waiting to pounce. I’m hoping it loses interest, forgets I exist and saunters away on its own. It remains persistent. Frustrated, I push against it with all my force. It latches on like a kitten being pulled from where it is laying, sinking its claws into my chest. It does not give. The familiarness of this process makes it all the more frustrating. It has the acute feeling of trying to lift your feet off the ground by your ankles, tugging ferociously against a law of physics. With agitation, I stare out the window. A vague image rises dimly in my mind: a memory of an old childhood prop. It holds a suggestion to me, and I tentatively reach out to it. I drop the resistance and fall into the emotion. I invite it to swell up with its strength and course through my blood without restraint. Gradually, its demeanor changes and it welcomes me with open arms, like a wave sweeping me up and pulling me to its chest. All at once, I am swallowed and dissolve into the streams of light coming in the window, filling the space between me and the others. My vision is crisp, and my feet dance a couple inches from the ground. But habit hung on my arms like a jealous child, and as quickly as I rose, it pulls me back to earth. The next day at lunch, I see my student sitting alone again. Something has changed: either she or the world around her has transformed. Her face is perfectly calm; her skin breathes fully. Her hair fans out around her, and her feet are inches from the floor. She is still and strong as the water that towers on either side of her. It is as if she has parted this sea on her own. Her silence rings louder than all the surrounding chatter; it clings to my ears. I watch all this for a moment in newfound recognition. How did I not see it before? Then, suddenly afraid someone is watching, I drop my eyes to the ground and hasten away. [Featured photo by Tansica Sunkamaneevongse]