Each night Leela screams but no sound broadcasts. Each night presses its flesh into the cavity that
once was Leela. Each night blooms into an ordinary day.
Tears brimmed with surprising speed. He was my child. He was tangled into me. His name, his cry, his colic, his anger, his thieving, his running away, his wildness—all tangled into me.
In another world, death happened and the stars kept shining, the sun rose and set, the rain fell at the designated time, and dried soon after. Anything out of the ordinary was just that, an aberration that must be shoved under the carpet. But my mother’s death was different; the world had cracked open with us.
“..word of my infamy had reached all ears among the Scholars, as had my frustrated vociferations when asked by kindly, wispy-haired professors why my work could not keep to the standards of my peers. (‘My work is wholly original and inventive, far superior to the derivative schlock or regurgitated waste those you applaud produce.’)”