an itinerant observer

One fine day, Cyto, the white blood cell, was on his merry way through the blood stream. His job was to look for anything unusual that could become a menace for Biloongra , the kitten in whose blood Cyto lived.  While he was going about his work, distracted by thoughts of some relaxation at Pool Plasma, Cyto noticed something rather peculiar. There was a large lump forming off the side of Arty, the artery he had been born in.  He immediately called his best friends, the twins Leuko and Lympho. LL, as they were fondly called since few could tell them apart, were better than Cyto in communicating with unusual cells that the three would encounter while guarding  Biloongra’s   blood stream. The three cell buddies looked very closely at the mysterious creature. None of them had ever seen something like that before but they all knew that it definitely should not have been there. Cyto called out to the unusual being. “Who are you and what business do you...

Jack did not have much of a childhood to write home about. That obviously did not hinder his meteoric rise; as a young professional, he was already on top of his game. He was quite successful, with a salary in the six digits, vacations pre-planned for a year in advance, and stocks and bonds neatly sorted out. While he could hold on to investments with alacrity, what he couldn’t hold on to, for dear life, were relationships. Friends, men or women, would come and go from his life, with surprising frequency. To him even his biological family, the little he had, felt like it was on borrowed time. I think the lack of long-term connectivity with human beings wasn’t particularly bothersome to Jack. I gathered this over the course of half-a-year when we crossed paths several times. Notwithstanding our differences as obvious as night and day, including our respective skin colors, we shared a common interest: salsa. It was over salsa that we first met. We were both enrolled in a week...

I have always been the kind of girl who believes in true love. When I was little, I couldn’t wait for my own “happily ever after.” Dreaming of my own wedding, binge-watching romantic movies - all that jazz. My definition of love now is different than it was when I was fifteen; or even then it was just a month ago. To me, then, love was a perfect force between two people capable of healing all the hatred and violence in the world. To me, now, love is something too great and complicated to put it into words, but I’ll try. Love is interactions. People. Places. Events. Feelings. Colors. Love is the way my Nani (grandmother) reminisces about my Nana (grandfather). Love is my Abboo’s (father’s) embrace as I cry into his shoulder. Love is strangers offering you iftaar during Ramazan . Love is smiling at yourself in the mirror when you feel radiant. Love is a mother seeing her newborn baby for the first time. We are all bound by love; we are all connected in some way. That’s what’s so ...

Prologue : The bathwater, initially clear blue, gradually takes on a pinkish hue. Like rose water … or fresh henna, that’s come off of tattooed hands and feet immersed in a bath tub. The water overflows onto the pristine white tiled floor, making it blush. Mesmerized by the changing colors, my mind unsuccessfully tries not to focus on the source of that color. Blood. That oozes out of deep slits in both forearms of a beautiful young girl. Hannah sobs quietly and sighs deeply – but refrains from screaming despite pain from incised sinew, nerves, arteries and veins. [Random thought: they say arteries and veins don’t have pain receptors … ] Hannah’s muffled groans eventually die down; so does her body as her life takes flight. And thus Hannah Baker dies at age 17. She takes her own life and she does so in an extreme manner. ****************************************************** “What if Hannah’s parents had discovered her in the bathroom a tad bit earlier? What if 911 ha...