A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

Even the meaning of “prison” is different for rich people. Can you blame me for wanting, so much, to be—not even rich, just middle class?

Because they”—and here he pauses to chew his sweet—“are trying their level best to flee the country. They work so hard on applications to American universities that they ignore the school exams, failing and crying and pleading—they had SAT I! They had SAT II! What are these nonsense exams? Why will the school allow such brain drain?”