When Maggie Murray lost her husband to drowning, it came as no surprise. The sea had never made any secret of itself. She knew what it was and what it did, and she’d carried the weight of that knowledge since her earliest days. She’d been just a bairn when her father paid for a pleasure trip on a flat calm day when the Firth was a lake and sunlight stippled the water. But as soon as the boat slid out of the harbour mouth, Maggie felt the deck move under her feet and began to scream. By the time the boat was brought back into the harbour, she was half-senseless. They laid her on the quay, and s ..read more

For one summer, George Burns set up an orange-and-green folding chair at the edge of our lake. The town was a place that was no place in particular, and the lake was the size of a spaghetti pot. No one can prove it, but he was there. The Munchkins knew it; fourteen under-eights whose counselor had been felled by mononucleosis. The under-eights were no counselor’s first choice, not when you could command Arts and Crafts or impress the eleven–twelves with your knowledge of Sassy magazine and the hidden meanings of Smashing Pumpkins lyrics. But the under-eights of 1994 were feral dwarves with adv ..read more

The half-moon beach is manmade – I found out. The house used to be a boathouse belonging to a hotel, perched on top of a cliff, overlooking the majestic lake encircled by lush foliage. It started with a vision of a rich man. A railway was laid, the beach was made. The hotel was eager to meet the whims and needs of the most privileged class arriving in carriages and cars. I once lived near the water. Not this close. But you could see a sliver of the sea from the top of the hill behind the house. The backyard of the house was filled with orange trees. My sisters and I would pick and pick and fil ..read more

Kennedy sniffed himself. ‘Hot dang, I stink like dog meat.’ Where the stink had come from, Kennedy couldn’t say. Nor could he say how he knew what dog meat smelled like, exactly. Did he mean that he smelled like dog food? As if he was confusing the thing doing the eating with the thing being eaten? Like that riddle about what cows drink and how everyone always said ‘milk’, just, like, on instinct? Were those the same? A dog eating dog meat and a cow drinking cow milk? Something in Kennedy’s head made him think they totally were, even if he couldn’t make sense of it right in that moment. Probab ..read more

At the beginning of the summer of 1986, my parents separated. My mother and I left the flat on Gurusaday Road where I’d lived all my life, to stay with my grandparents on the opposite bank of the Hooghly River in the district of Shibpur. As we sat in the taxi, Ma told me that at the end of the holidays, I wasn’t going back to my school. ‘You’re only eleven,’ she said. ‘I think a bit of change will be good for you.’ ‘So won’t we live here anymore?’ ‘I need to figure things out first.’ She offered me a mint from her handbag. I didn’t really feel like it but took it anyway. Ma hadn’t decided what ..read more

She had trouble recognising her son when he visited. This wasn’t entirely accurate, he acknowledged; Bernie was either known or new. When he arrived at the nursing home, a carer would greet him and indicate if it was a sunny or cloudy day; it referred to his mother’s powers of recall, but those were now permanently altered like some form of mental climate change. He’d walk through to what was laughably called the lounge. He thought they should just call it the television room, as any conversation had surrendered to the stream of information pouring from the massive screen. It looked like a pie ..read more

Her head spins, her feet ache, and the ‘Idle’ icon counts the seconds since her last call, while the on-screen graphic transitions from green to amber, about to turn red. With a sigh, she rolls her neck and stares at the blue icon that says ‘Free’. In her last review, concerns were raised about her performance statistics. She can’t delay. Her mouse twitches, and she’s back in. ‘You’re through to Sandra, how can I help?’ she says, answering the call. Mr Jones is annoyed that he’s waited twenty minutes to get through. After apologising, she completes authentication. ‘What’s going on with my Dire ..read more

As in life, the dead also showcase their inequalities. When I say the dead, I mean the dead bodies, the cadavers. I became aware of these inequities in a strange way when I joined medical school. It was on the stone tables of the anatomy dissection hall that I first noticed these differences. In elementary, middle and high school I don’t remember lagging in studies or sports. I was not one of the top students; you could say that with confidence. I was average, probably, or perhaps slightly above average. There were a few students who were highly talented and excelled in whatever they did – whe ..read more

I was in the air when she died. Gliding over the Black Sea, too far above the clouds to see the glistening blue breaking up hours of land mass beneath my feet. Struggling to sleep with a deflating neck pillow and a restless mind. I was three hours into my first leg when she drew her last breath. The air stewards emptied my uneaten meal into the grey bin as her soul emptied her body. I wouldn’t know this until I connected to Wi-Fi in Dubai and my phone started vibrating. A beating heart in lieu of the one growing cold in her chest. I realised before I opened the messages. Dad answered on the fi ..read more

I get Math and English. History. Even Music. But teaching grade 8 Science needs a PhD. I’m scanning phrases like, ‘Water is critical to life’, ‘Water systems influence climate’, and ‘managed sustainably.’ Why don’t I have a cat to hug at times like this? I clearly need one. Maybe I should see my friends more. Or try dating. But who has time? A sample issue jumps out at me: (c) The Protocol for Safe Drinking Water in First Nations Communities addresses drinking water concerns. Various government agencies and interest groups have different perspectives. Oh, I bet there are different perspectives ..read more