Issue #11
Happy Spring everyone!
That’s a joke if I ever heard one, it’s starting to burn up pretty quickly where I am. As COVID numbers rise and India tries to fight another lockdown, I hope this issue brings some brightness and shine to your month.
In this issue, Farshogar Vazifdar publishes chapter 2 of his story Touch. I want to extend immense gratitude to everyone reading and investing in mush’s first long-form fictional narrative. In other firsts, some exciting news! Illustrator and designer Alafiya Hasan is entering our universe with what is the first visual narrative being published by this newsletter. Going forward, I‘m going to actively be trying to provide a platform for more art by other exemplary queer artists as well. If you’d like to pitch an art piece, contact details can be found at the end of every issue. Wrapping up will be an exploration of both love and self reflection by the absolutely incredible Jo, in their essay For Old Times’ Sake/Never Change.
I feel like I’m always saying thank you to mush’s readers, but truthfully, it can’t really be said enough. Thank you for your investment in these stories, for your loyalty and especially your feedback. I hope you enjoy this one.
One last thing, mush strives to publish narratives that are meant to be sat with and absorbed over time. So slow down and take as much time as you need, we’re not going anywhere, we promise.
x
Veer Misra (@v.eird)
Touch, Chapter 2:
How could you have not noticed it, M?
by Farshogar Vazifdar
This story is a continuation from Issue 10. Head over here to read it if you haven’t yet.
I must have been around 8 years old when my mother scolded me for making my brothers cry (when it was completely their fault) and I’d convinced myself that I had to run away from this household. So I packed my bag in the afternoon with a few clothes, some slices of bread, a torch (in case it gets too dark at night) and my books so I could still attend school, and left just as the sun was setting; convinced that the hillock would help me cross the wall and into the world beyond.
And I trudged. Past the school that ended a couple of hours ago, past the theatre showing yet another film of a damsel in distress, past Aunty Ni’s stall and Ar Uncle’s cigarette shop (that would surprisingly stay open till late, I remembered), past the group of the older kids that could stay out all night long, and reached the foot of the hillock.
I looked up and gauged its height. I had never gone up alone before. My parents never allowed me. “It’s a little bit too close to the wall, M. It’s dangerous...” I mocked them in my head.
There was an unclear path running through the low grass leading to the top that stopped abruptly near a high rockface. It had rained that afternoon and the ground was a bit slushy, but I began my ascent to the summit for the very first time in my life.
I was surprised when I managed to climb up the final stretch and reach the top of the hill. I wasn’t the least athletic kid in class, but I would sometimes be the last one called while teams were being picked in school. I was so proud of myself that I wanted to run back and tell my parents what I was able to do. But then I remembered that I still hated them and walked towards the wall with pride.
I was disappointed that the hill didn’t go over the top of the wall, but for the first time in forever I was in awe at the size of the wall. I had never been so close to the top before. Was there really no barbed wire on the top? I always thought there was. Did someone tell us that or was it something I just assumed would be there? I inched closer to the other end of the hill, enamoured by its sheer mass. The top of the wall stood strong, its blocked edge running seamlessly through as far as I could see. I stood there breathing in the expanse, inching closer towards the wall when I heard a soft whisper, “Hello? Is somebody there?”
I froze. Not knowing what to do. All our lives we were told never to go near the wall because the Mirrors would kill us, but by then I’d grown to believe it was just another story they told us so we’d go to sleep. Of course the only day I decide to run away is the day the mirrors finally attack us. I cursed myself. But then the voice came again, this time interspersed with faint sobs, “Please help me. I… I can’t climb back up.”
I went down onto the ground on all fours and crawled towards the edge. I didn’t know what to expect. Will it have 4 mouths? 6 legs? 8 hands??!
I inched closer and poked my head beyond the cliff, when I saw him. A boy, around my age, crouching down with his right hand around his legs looking up at me.
“Hello? Can you help me?” he croaked.
“Who… who are you?” I stared at his arm slumping lifelessly to his left. “Are you a mirror?”
“No… I’m stuck here. I can’t climb up.”
“Then why did you go down there if you can’t climb up?” I said confidently. I had never seen this boy before. He definitely wasn’t studying in my school. Where was he from?
“I was exploring the area to try and find some treasure.”
“Did you find anything?”
“I… I found a cave. Do you want to see it?”
I paused. Weighed my options for a bit in my head, but eventually replied.
“Yes!”
And that’s when I saw E’s eyes sparkle behind his scar for the first time. “Come down!” he said, “I’ll show you.”
He reached his right hand out and helped me jump down to the ledge beyond the cliff, and crawled into the cave to his right. At first it was dark and scary, but I followed the dark silhouette of the boy in front of me through a short tunnel until I could feel the rock around me expand into a large empty space.
I reached into my bag to pull out the large torch I had packed and turned it on.
“Oh wow, you’re prepared for an… for an exhibition!”
“Do you mean expedition?” I said vainly. It was the biggest word I knew.
“Hehehe I meant that.” He laughed.
And I laughed with him. And the cave echoed with our laughter. And we laughed together at our echo for what seemed like forever.
“E!” Someone called out from outside the cave. “Are you in here?”
“Papa!” he answered. “My papa is here. I have to go back home.”
And we crawled out the same way we came in.
“Papa papa! I came here for an… for an expedition, but then I couldn’t climb back up, but then I met this boy, and I showed him the cave, and we had so much fun papa inside the cave…”
“Alright E,” his father sighed. “But next time, you tell us where you are going, ok? You can’t just crawl into any space you find. What if there were Mirrors inside?”
“I don’t think the Mirrors are real.” I said softly
“My, isn’t he a brave boy. What’s your name?” his father asked me, lifting E up from to the ledge beyond the cliff to the top of the hill.
“My name is M, uncle.”
“Ok M, let’s get you home as well,” he said, and lifted me up to where E was standing. He managed to climb up very easily, and we all walked silently to the bottom of the hill.
“Uncle my house is that way” I said when I noticed them turning right, away from the theatre.
“Ok then. Will you promise to reach home safely?”
“Yes uncle,” I replied.
“E, say goodbye to your new friend”
“Let’s meet tomorrow again, ok?” E exclaimed.
“Okay!”
“Bye M! See you tomorrow!” He gave me a loose hug with his right arm.
“Bye E!”
----
I ran towards the Other E and kicked him in his stomach. He fell backward. I had never been this violent before but I couldn’t think clearly. My mind was foggy and my vision was blurred with the tears swelling in my eyes.
“You killed him!” I yelled
“M, calm down.”
“Do NOT tell me to calm down! You fucking killed him!”
“M listen to me!” He said, trying to get back up
But I couldn’t. I kicked him again, sending me knee towards his face with more force than I thought I’d ever have.
And I let out a scream. Long and loud. Out of frustration. Out of fear. Out of the sheer inability to navigate the loss I wasn’t sure I was feeling yet.
E sat on the ground, with a bloody mouth, waiting patiently for me to get done.
I wiped my tears and saw a grin forming across the left side of his face.
“What!?” I croaked.
“Your mom sent samosas?”
I clutched the bag hanging from my waistband. “How do you know my mom made them?”
“She made a special batch just for me, right? Without any chillies?”
I stood there in disbelief. How does he know all this? Has he been spying on us?
He slowly got up, pinching his nose with his fingers while balancing himself. “We have shared experiences, you know. He… I mean the E from here and I.”
He limped towards the bench for Mr. J and dropped himself onto the right end. “We may live in parallel spaces, but a lot of what we do daily and how we live our lives are really similar.”
“You’re lying!”
“M, trust me,” he sighed, giving me a reflected version of the look that I adored for so long. “There’s far too much that has been kept from you, from the people living in this township. We do not know why you were never educated about the truth about your existence. But your entire kind has been living in complete ignorance for too many centuries.”
“My entire kind? What do you mean by my entire kind?” I whispered weakly. The adrenaline rush was finally dying out and found myself feeling extremely exhausted. I’m really not used to exerting my body so much. I sat myself down on the other side of the bench when it occurred to me: Why hadn’t I disappeared? I touched a Mirror as well. Why wasn’t I dead yet?”
But before I could ask him, the sirens began to ring.
“THE WALL HAS BEEN BREACHED. I REPEAT: THE WALL HAS BEEN BREACHED. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. KINDLY LOCK ALL YOUR DOORS AND WINDOWS AND MOVE TO THE NEAREST BUNKER. REPORT ANY UNTOWARD ACTIVITY TO YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD SUPERVISOR IMMEDIATELY. THE WALL HAS BEEN BREACHED. I REPEAT...”
“Fuck! That was quick.” E got up and started walking towards the cliff. “Can I, like, please have the samosas? Please! I’ve packed a whole lot of supplies but I’d really like some of your mom’s samosas” he asked cheekily.
“Supplies? What do you mean by supplies? Where are you going?” I began to notice that this E was a lot more confident than the E I knew. No, not just confident. But cockier.
“I’m going to lay low in the cave for a while until the search is over.”
“How do you know about the--”
“Yeah yeah, I know about the cave. We’ve had the same experiences, remember? Anyway, I need to lay low and avoid being found before the rest arrive.”
“The REST!” I yelled, heading towards him. “You mean there are more of you coming?”
“Uh huh” E said affirmatively, as he continued walking away from me.
I felt my throat tighten yet again as tears teamed up in my eyes.
“Why are you doing this to us? We’ve been living peacefully for so long! Why did you even come here in the first place? The wall was meant to keep you out--”
“Keep us out?!” He stopped and turned around, staring deep into my eyes with a look of disappointment that I had never received from my E. “You guys really don’t know anything about the wall, do you?”
“What do you mean?” I slowed to a stop.
“M, don’t be stupid. The wall wasn’t meant to keep us out. It was made to keep you in.”
I didn’t believe him. But I didn’t know what to say.
“I can’t believe that all of you have been so naive.” He paused. “Look at the wall, M. Yes, it’s long and massive but don’t tell me that in all these years you never noticed that it was curving inward? That it was bending towards you, bending all the way around the cemetery in the north and meeting beyond the Misty Forest.”
I froze. I didn’t like the way he pointed at me when he said ‘you’, but for the second time that night I was too numb to move. The siren in the distance faded into silence in my head as I turned and followed the line at the top of the wall for the very first time in almost two decades. I followed its sharp edge beyond the school, the temple, beyond the roads and the highways between the towns, fading behind the mist over the Misty Forest.
“How could you have not noticed it, M? You’re one of the smartest ones here.”
But I didn’t know what to say. All my emotions had shut down.
“Umm… anyway. I’ve got stuff to prepare for. I know you’re not likely to do this, but I’d really appreciate it, M, if you didn’t tell anyone where I’m holed up. Okay?”
I didn’t know what to say. Had we been lied to all our lives? Were we even lied to if we didn’t even know the truth? How could I have not noticed the wall curving in? How was I unable to notice something so obvious? I felt too embarrassed to reply to him. I felt too afraid to ask another question. I felt too insignificant to get anything out of my mouth.
I just stood there, my body refusing to let me speak.
E began to walk away towards the cave when I was certain I heard the faint sound of a gun being cocked in the distance.
A familiar deep voice boomed calmly behind me.
“M, son, slowly step away from that Mirror.”
I turned around and saw my father on the far side of the hill, pointing his rifle right at E.
How Do You Know by Alafiya Hasan
For Old Times' Sake/ Never Change by Jo
I’ve only been an out and proud queer, trans person for the past 2 years of my life. I know that when someone goes over my instagram, it looks like I’ve known for the past 26 years. Truth is, I have. I just didn’t have the words for it. Instead, I had words for how to love a man, internalised and read out like a manual from every place I looked and heard from. I had the language to cause hurt to friends who showed any love for women. I had words to convince myself I was just a different kind of girl, and I had just the right word thrown at me to tell me I was dating too many people (for the record, only 4 and it’s actually been pretty great). When I started (not very gradually) talking about my many identities, it probably looked intense. Hell, sometimes I look at my work and wonder where all these thoughts are coming from. I know it's intense. I understand intense and I embrace intense- this is the life of someone walking squarely outside every single norm that was set for me. And for someone outside of my mind, it probably looked like I was in happy heterosexuality one day and on the next, I was gay and radical and screaming. And they probably felt left out of this monumental change. This new life, new me, new flags, new words, new pride- when nothing changed for me. It just became less fogged up.
I’ve never really come out. Not to a lot of my friends. Those who know always knew, and those who didn’t were mostly caught by surprise(?) or didn’t care. All of these scenarios are okay, but it does make me wonder about a lot of things. It makes me wonder about my 8th grade friends that I notice, lurking around my instagram page, liking my posts but never texting me. It makes me wonder about the words I do get on my messages- usually those about being proud of me. I assume these words need to be said so that my friends who sent them can come out of their own closets as allies. I wonder about those allies who have remained in my life, calmly floating in my posts, messages and through visits- stumbling with using the correct pronouns and smiling at my smiling face as they try. I wonder about the hesitation before messages are sent to me- what do I talk to this queer trans(?) person about? Like my queerness stripped me of the identity I had before it-existing as only a transcending force of the norm we had all learnt together- as though they did not have the same responsibility and right to break these norms that seem to imprison me more than them. I receive (and wonder about) new articles on trans trauma. I post a picture on trans joy after every one of these news articles has been seen and consumed by me. I type out a message saying ‘I know, please don’t send these to me, they are triggering’ and quickly backspace- what if these doors close? I occasionally get connected to other trans people in their lives, other queer people in their lives- but what about connecting- the both of us? I get tip toes on a line that surrounds me that I did not want to exist.This line, caused by insurmountable pain- a collective pain borrowed and lent throughout a community of margins slashed across each of our lives. I get silent reactions to stories about my partner, and with that sometimes, my partner is wished on their birthday.
I wonder a lot about knowing my older friends as new people, but baggage is not easy to keep down. It is heavy, and picking it up from the shoulders sometimes takes more effort than lowering it to the ground. I once put up a story that said ‘Friends who have known me in school, I’d like to connect again’ in the hopes that someone would want to get back in touch- they did, but a few days and months later to connect the dots on ‘the trans issue’. I wonder if they felt angry, that I didn’t tell them when I came out, that I didn’t know what I wanted to call my feelings, that I didn’t connect these dots for them- or that I didn’t hide like they wanted me to so that life was easy, and comfortable and so that they could keep me alive when they spoke about their friends to their parents. I wonder often, about why I don't have school friends like so many others do- but then I also realise that those of us who were closeted in school eventually found each other. The glue of heterosexuality and interests relating to being cisgender didn't exist with me, and so, I couldn't keep these friends. We have nothing in common if you have too, made your entire life about being heterosexual and cis- very much and on the "opposite" end of me.
So count this little write up as a coming out, because I (or any of us) don’t have to. This is a reflection, not a letter of repentance on not coming out to my straight friend list earlier. I just didn’t trust anyone enough to talk to you about the insides of my mind. I have also never found you attractive, for the record (who’s keeping the record btw?). I have dated the people I found attractive- yes, even the men. I figured that I really liked the men I was dating, I just didn’t think I could marry them while I was dating them. A lot of it was settling for something that was always sold to me as the normal way to behave, and go about life and I mostly took it sitting down- until I didn’t. I loved the men I dated for 9 years of my life, yes, even the one that didn’t respect my ‘no’. I later understood that I am possibly pan-romantic, which means I romantically can be around all kinds of people. Before this, I found the language to say that I’m gay or something more to my liking- that I’m queer. Non normative. Not normal. I thought I knew love before I met Teenasai, but I did not. If you asked me what it feels like, I don’t even think I could describe it. I have never felt the love that I have felt for my Teenasai, not in the 9 years I tried to fit inside a box that was encouraged, even by you. I didn’t fall in love like I stomped into a book store and chose a book that would make me seem cool. Teenasai is not my rebellion, Teenasai is my love. They both might be the same, but that is not what I wanted. That is what you want of me, so that you can be proud of me, you can hold me up and you can tell me that I’m doing my best with the limited amount of space that is afforded to me on this earth. About my gender, I knew way earlier. I knew about my gender just not 'being it' when everything I did wasn't the right way to do it. I was still in a "girls' school', surrounded by teachers who asked us not to hug girls, but that it was okay to hug boys. We were all taught the same thing, and we all learnt this language of being the best, most achieving girls. I did everything right, but I also didn't do anything right. I wonder about the teachers on my (ultra sanitised) Facebook profile commenting on the wedding pictures of my heterosexual friends, and I wonder about the silence that surrounds a whole part of my identity. I did everything right, but I also didn't do anything right.
I often reflect on the signs in my autograph and slam books that said Never Change. Written page, after page, after page by acquaintances, friends, best friends and people I had just smiled at once in the hallway during my board exams. I wonder if they really meant it, and whether they kept that prayer on their lips as they went through their lives. Never Change. A whisper to every new person they met, every person they let go. I wonder if the people who heard those syllables took these words to heart, did it haunt them like it haunts me?
Never change.
Don't change (realise) your gender, or our memories of what we assigned to you
Your appearance
Your problematic sense of humour
What binds us together
Your understanding of the world
How much you can tolerate
Never change
Your straight lines
Drawn into a box that's not even
Three dimensional
Around you
Neatly
Without any colour
Never change
Stay in these two spaces
Same
Speed
Same
Tempo
Same
Rhythm
Come, dance this dance
With us
You won't be alone
As long we sound the same
Never change,
Never change.
My closet is in those two words.
Never
Change
Before you leave, we just wanted to mention that a platform like mush thrives simply on more and more people reading queer stories. If you like what you just read, it would be wonderful if you could share this newsletter with your friends, families, lovers, pets as well as any sociable gremlins that you might come across.
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