Every friend group has the friend who everyone hits, and for us it was Tommy. He wasn’t even our smallest friend. That was Jean. But Tommy received our violent affection. At the bar, Lisa kneed Tommy in the gut and then elbowed him in the back because she got bored waiting in line for the bathroom. Tommy held her drink and salvaged it during the attack. The bouncer wanted to break them up, but it…
(Source: “Feel Small” by Fabrice Le Coq; image blurred and text added)
Hi everyone! Here’s a quote from Craig Fishbane’s short story, “Ambassadors in Exile”, which was originally published by Bartleby Snopes. A longer excerpt is under the cut. If you’re interested in hearing Craig read another piece, check out episode forty-two of our podcast here.
Darshan glanced at the photograph of the driver on the dashboard. The caption stated that Malik Islam was prepared to assure his guests of a fast and pleasant trip to their chosen destination. Before that trip was to begin, however, Malik unleashed one epithet after the next until the engine finally came to life.
"Cheap American piece of shit," he said. He gestured toward the temple before pulling away from the curb. "So tell me," he said in a more conciliatory tone. "Is that where you pray?"
"Something like that," Darshan said. He was rummaging through his attaché case, hoping he hadn't forgotten to pack his iPod. He had learned long ago that you had to be prepared when hiring a car inside the Beltway. All of the drivers felt that they were hosts of their own personal talk show. And they assumed that their passengers were in fact celebrity guests who couldn't wait to promote their home towns or reveal what petty neurosis had lead to strains in their marriage. Darshan gathered that he had been booked to discuss his faith in a segment titled: Desi Men in the District: Cosmopolitan or Cow Worshippers?
"Tell me," Malik said. "What is it that you pray for?"
Darshan sighed. All he had packed was a laptop, a yellow legal pad and a self-help book recommended by his meditation instructor.
"I don't really pray for anything," he said. "I'm just looking for a few minutes of silence."
Darshan pulled out the legal pad and turned to a clean page, hoping the driver would take the hint.
"You mean you don't ask God to give you anything?" Malik asked. "Nothing at all?"
"I just want to clear my head. If I can forget about my problems, that's enough."
"But don't you want anything from life?"
Darshan tore off the page and folded it into three columns.
"Of course I do," he said.
As he had explained to his meditation instructor, Darshan hoped to experience true emptiness, the moment when he was no longer the eldest son of Ramesh and Kriti, second generation Indian-American and pride of the Rangan family. The instructor kept insisting that it would be helpful to give up these expectations and simply concentrate on breathing, but that was never sufficient. Darshan wanted to step out of the temple one afternoon and know what it felt like to be someone else.
"But how can you get what you want if you don't ask for it?" Malik said. "It's like when you're a child. You have to tell your parents what you want them to give you."
"Isn't that a little simplistic?" Darshan asked.
"Son of a bitch," Malik shouted.
The mirror was drooping out of position again. Malik pulled next to a hydrant to tinker with the frame. When it would not stay in place, he reached for the duct tape and a box cutter on the passenger seat. He cut two long strips and leaned out the window to fasten the mirror.
"Those bastards in their BMWs," Malik said as he eased back into the street. "They think they can do whatever they like. I tell you, there's no respect for private property."
"Or privacy," Darshan said, leafing through some calculations he had made on the previous pages of the legal pad.
"There is no such thing as privacy when you drive a car," Malik said. "You live your whole life in front of your passengers." He gestured at the calligraphy on the visor. "Even when I pray."
Darshan could all too easily picture Malik at prayer while on the job. He saw every detail--head bowed, eyed shut, both hands clutching the wheel as a laundry list of requests was whispered towards heaven: a new carburetor for the engine, a new dress for the wife, new sneakers for the children. Each and every petty need enunciated like a brave but modest child, the requests a thing of beauty in their humility, a delicate song of worship and desire that would only come to an end when Malik veered slightly into the opposing lane and plowed directly into the headlights of an oncoming sixteen-wheeler.
RIFT is coming to Kindle soon! And lots of other news...
RIFT is coming to Kindle soon! And lots of other news…
*Happy to announce that RIFT (Unknown Press), co-authored with Robert Vaughan, will be available on Kindle soon. Will keep you posted!
There’s been a flurry of press for RIFT recently, in the form of reviews (Change Seven Magazine and Goodreads), two interviews (Midwestern Gothic and Bartleby Snopes) and research notes at Necessary Fiction. If you’re interested, please follow the links below:
The page is http://www.bartlebysnopes.com/stories.htm; scroll down to the bottom of the page and you’ll see a poll where you can vote! My piece was called, “It Can, It Can, It Can”– lemme know if you figured it out, and thanks!
