Category: Essay

Essay by Idle InkJul 13, 202312:35 pm

How to inherit storytelling by A.J. Akoto

*All italics in parentheses are excerpts from Unmothered, A.J. Akoto’s debut poetry collection, published by Arachne Press in July 2023.

My mother dreamed me before she even knew she was pregnant. The message of me came from her grandmother. Her dead grandmother. Woman to woman, across realms, whether real or in the imagination-soaked field of my mother’s subconscious, they communicated. I sometimes wonder if my mother and I would talk more if one of us were dead (Dreams are a gathering place,/ after all. Is she meeting me/ where she can?). Then again, the silence between us is so populated – by memories, stories, aunts trying to push me into contact – that it makes me question what it really means to no longer talk to someone. Especially when that someone is your mother.

Essay by Idle InkJul 1, 202311:26 am

The Crow and the Peacock by Nupur Gupta

The first time I saw death coming my way was when I went to my maternal grandfather’s home and saw him crying on the bed in pain. Kidney failure. He was begging my father to bring something that would kill him instantly. He was tired of waiting for the crows to come and feed on him. I was four. It was a dark room; I’d spent quite a lot of time there before my grandfather did pass away. The corner bulb just gave me enough light to see my grandfather in the middle of the bed, wearing his usual attire. His white Kurta Pajama. It’s strange how he used to wear white when in Hindus, we wear white after somebody dies. He was crying in pain, and my mother sat by his side, silently shedding tears. Her father was begging for death. Death can make you feel helpless in a unique way. At that time, I didn’t exactly understand what was happening and why everyone was crying. Maybe I was breaking inside, something was changing in me, and I didn’t even realize it till it happened to me; when years later, I wanted the crow to come for me.

Essay by Idle InkJun 3, 202311:53 am

Moving Home and Not Coming Out by Anonymous

I

The first time I was 15. He had blonde curls, deep blue eyes and an American drawl from his mother that cut deep through suburban London. I told a friend how beautiful I thought he was but did nothing else. It surfaced again from time to time but never with the same simplicity, the shy urge to be close to someone, to touch skin and graze lips.

Decades later it has finally begun to materialise but not as I expected. Last year I realised how at home I feel in female clothing – slithers of lace and silk, straps I can pull taught between my fingers and a metallic necklace that jolts me with confidence each time I touch it. What started as a memory of how beautiful I thought a boy at school was has morphed into a preoccupation with ceding control: degradation by older women, an occasionally urgent desire to give head and presenting feminine all seem to be ways of escaping the pressure of a conventionally male role, of taking the lead.

Essay by Idle InkApr 1, 202312:11 pm

In Pursuit of Small Plates and Financial Autonomy by Leah McDonald

Today Sib told us that London has been named the Greatest City in the World and then we all laughed.

On the way home from the office my phone broke and I held back tears on the Northern line. Just this morning I told El I didn’t think it was normal how tired I was all the time and then I googled is it normal to feel exhausted all the time in January. Thomas and I went to sleep at half past nine all week and we didn’t even have sex.

Essay by Idle InkMar 4, 202311:00 am

Unforgotten Memories by Catherine Jaishankar

Why do we forget? There is no proven scientific reason for why we forget.¹ Our brain has the ability to store the equivalent of 2.5 million gigabytes ² of digital memory whereas my M1 Mac has only 250 GB. Why is our brain designed to delete memories when it has so much space? The ability to recall a memory is often associated with how well it’s stored and it always differs from one person to another. My childhood memories are compartmentalized in two ways. First, is according to the two different schools I studied in, St. Joseph’s Convent till my fifth standard and Montfort School till my tenth standard. Second, is my house. Pre-renovation and post. Before narrating any of my leftover childhood memories, I have to do some mental calculations to figure out the exact age I was in by identifying how I looked (I had different physical phases in different schools) and the setting. If the parking space at my home was spacious and bright, if the staircase was part of the veranda, if the backyard still existed, then the memory is most likely to be pre-renovation. Once the memory is successfully identified, then my brain starts counting the age. I know I was five in my first standard. That being my focal point I work my age to the memory. This is the mental prep that I have to do before beginning to narrate a memory as ‘I was five/seven/eight.’

Essay by Idle InkFeb 4, 202312:07 pm

Albert Camus Would Have Loved Sharknado by Lucy Puopolo

There are seven movies in the Sharknado cinematic universe. The last movie, gloriously titled Sharknado: It’s About Time, follows the two main characters, Fin and Gil, as they warp through the inter-dimensional fabric of space and time, plagued by swarms of bloodthirsty sharks swirling around in a tunnel of doom. Sharknado: It’s About Time includes but is not at all limited to Benjamin Franklin, dinosaur mounts, Cleopatra, a Wild West showdown, and a robot wife that shoots lasers out of her eyes. Some of the cast members include write-home names like Alaska Thunderfuck, Jaason (with two a’s, not a typo) Simmons, and someone who is only ever referred to online as “Naked Cowboy. ” The films also feature Billie Ray Cyrus, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Perez Hilton, and Jerry Springer. In short, Sharknado is the single best thing to ever happen in the history of cinema.

Essay by Idle InkFeb 4, 202312:03 pm

When the Hills Fell by Sarah Harley

I grew up believing we lived in the mountains, surrounded by fir trees. When the tops of the trees began to flutter, I hid inside a cupboard, afraid that the hills would fall in on us.

In the evenings, my father built the nightly fire outside in the garden. The smoke came through the window. Inside, my mother sat in the brown chair smoking her last cigarette of the evening as she drank the next drink, watching the night fall softly and regretfully around her. They did not speak.

Essay by Idle InkFeb 4, 202312:01 pm

The Mother in the Mirror by Tia Slavin

I have never been able to see myself in the male narratives of existentialism. The question of my existence is a far more futile one than they write about. The human condition is for men. I reside in the female condition. The philosophical concerns are our bodies, our wrinkles. The men who will love us, hurt us, desire us. You see for women there are two deaths to consider. There is of course the physical decaying. There is just also the death of you. The you who is the object. The you who is gazed upon. The female existence centres around your attractibility. This death is not an end. Merely a change in the state, a move in the lifecycle.

Essay by Idle InkDec 3, 202210:50 am

Eternal Wager by Josh Rank

“Why do you do that?”

I turned around, halfway up the stairs, and pretended I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Do what?”

“Slap your leg?”

We were in his basement, which had a same-leg staircase.

“Wanna play horse?” I asked.

He paused for a second, and then said, “Sure,” before running past me up the stairs.

I don’t know how it started, these little games. But they still linger. The initial motivation might be gone, but they’re worn in place. Products of habit. Annoying tics that my wife can’t stand.