The Question of Red

by Laksmi Pamuntjak

When did she become this jealous person? It stunned her, this thought. So new, so unexpected. That she loved Bhisma with a jealous heart. That she loved and resented him for being indispensable to other human lives, and because she wasn’t the only person he thought about day and night. She felt aches in her bones, in her belly, in her head, and they stayed in her like pesky, impossible ghosts. When she was not aching she was numb. If she stood she felt no sensation in her feet, in her hands; she was like a portable hole moving from place to place.

the multiplicities that built me before I arrived on those foreign shores.

Astounding how similar the face of freedom can be to the face of fascism.

had his wits about him and was a fine storyteller. In the best of times—or the worst, Samuel couldn’t decide—he was telling tall tales, creating a past fit for the ages. Or something he could tell his grandchildren about. Samuel had no issue with that, because that’s what you do. You tell stories, because stories are all that’s left.

But really, how can any one person speak for the rest of humanity? I have long stopped, and perhaps rightly so, presuming that we all think alike. Yet in my heart of hearts I believe in this: give humans darkness and most will see the light.

The gods have been right all along. Our fates are already written in the stars. We can rewrite only so much.