A Record of Her Impending Youth
AN EXCERPT FROM A SURREALIST FICTION ABOUT A GIRL RAISING A LITTLE SISTER, ANNISA, AND THEIR MOTHER.
… “After she was born, Annisa’s crib was put in my room so she could bond with her big brother. I liked her, in the way the aunties on the street liked her and fiddled with her pigtails, in the way dogs and cats and the fish in the pond liked her; in the way Mama sort of did.
When my grandmother died last year, Mama and I continued to live in her crooked house by the riverside. The inside smelled like incense sticks—smoldering leaves and sandalwood. Our mother left the incense burning in a big brass pot on the altar. The scent reminded me of temples and funerals. We burn paper money for grandma every year, at the same spot where we scattered her ashes and set ablaze the tangle of ventilators and breathing tubes Mama said our grandmother didn’t need anymore.”…