The Long List Anthology Volume 7, page 3
“What was that? It tasted familiar.”
“Well, mister expert, you’ll have to wait and see.”
So I watch her set the pot on the stove above the lowest possible flame and plop in a few heaps of ghee. As it melts and simmers unevenly in the pot, she picks up the blender and begins scooping the paste out. The warm ghee spatters on the backs of my hands as the first few clumps land in the pot.
My arm will no doubt be sore the next day, because for a while she just leans on the counter and stirs every few minutes, keeping the darkening paste on the bottom from sticking to the pot. Eventually she stops to add sugar, mixing it in evenly before flipping the paste over and pouring the rest of the sugar in. Once the white crystals disappear into the paste she scoops a spoon full out and closes my eyes as the warm sugary sensation hits my lips. I’m flooded with images of Tupperware decorated by cold and soggy deep-fried finger foods and heavenly sweetened desserts. But, it’s all dammed by the memory of Karla’s voice asking the question, “Why can’t you just bring me home for Eid, like a normal person?”
“Ammi’s just not well,” I had said, opening one dish and lifting it up. What dish was it?
“She’s well enough to have cooked all of this,” Karla had said, gesturing to the to-go holiday foods.
I plunged a spoon into the Tupperware and scooped up something and shoved it toward Karla’s mouth. “Just try a bite.”
Karla rolled her eyes and opened her mouth. Then, when the taste soaked into her tongue, she opened her eyes wide. Her eyes rolled again, but with pleasure this time. “What the fuck is this?”
“Chanay-ki daal ka-halwa,” I say into the AirBody UI.
“Very good!” Meena stabs with her standard tone of condescension. She pours another can of condensed milk in and continues stirring. “Gustatory memory.”
“What?”
“Taste. It’s got a peculiar way of triggering memory and emotion, don’t you think? More so than other senses. Taste links us directly to our gut, where our deepest unfulfilled needs keep us hungry. Your gut tricks your mind into thinking you’re getting what you want, when it’s really just using you to get the—” she scoops up another bite and I feel my eyes roll back into my head “—mmm. The sweet halwa.”
She opens my eyes and looks down at the bright yellowy paste.
“But, I remember this being brown whenever my Nani made it.”
“Haan beta, just wait,” she says as she preheats the oven to 400 degrees. When the oven beeps she slides the pan in and sets a timer for fifteen minutes.
“Acha beta, what kind of formal wear do you have?”
“Formal wear?”
“Haan, kurta pajama? Shalwar kameez? Whichever you’d like to call it.”
“Uhhh . . . ”
“Oh, of course. Well, at least put us in a pressed pant-shirt,” she says handing me back control.
“Sure,” I say, heading back to my room to pull out some blue slacks and a new red and gray striped shirt I haven’t worn yet.
I stand before the mirror making final touches when she pings for control back.
“Well at least you’ve got some color in your wardrobe.” She picks up a pen from my dresser and writes down an address on the price tag I just ripped off of the shirt I put on. “I need to go here.”
“Sounds good to me,” I say as I feel her pass control back.
As we make our way out of the city and onto the I-95 I glance at the sign for BWI Airport. The last time I was supposed to go to BWI was the last time I was supposed to see Karla. She had been away for work for a week and I was on my way to pick her up when I got a call from Ammi’s doctor. My mind went single track and I skipped the exit for the airport and drove straight to the hospital in Philly where Ammi was taking her last breaths, alone. I made it in time to say goodbye, but not much else.
Karla only called once that night. I stayed in Philly for six days and when I got back my place was emptied of Karla’s things, which was most everything. If I had called to let her know what was going on, she would have understood, would have come up to help. I never figured out why we played this game of chicken. We’d done it before. But, this time we both ran off the cliff and it felt right to let things rest at the bottom of the canyon rather than pick them up and rebuild.
I pull up in front of the house and step out of the car, grabbing the dish of halwa along the way. The magenta sunset laces the gray house like a mesh dupatta. There are a lot of cars parked on the driveway and a bluster of muffled laughter coming through the windows of the brightly lit living room.
As I get to the front door I hand back control and immediately feel my heart rate spike. She stares dead ahead, frozen still.
“Are you alright?”
“Haan, I just—”
The door swings open to a woman dressed in a gray and blue shalwar kameez. She’s still looking at her guests behind her and laughing. Her smile sticks as she turns to look at me. Her purple-streaked hair’s tied up in a bun. She’s probably a little younger than Meena, maybe late forties? I study her face to see if I can parse a family resemblance to Meena’s profile picture.
“I’m sorry, can I help you?” the woman asks, leaning against her door jamb.
I can feel Meena trying to push the air through my larynx and out of my mouth but it’s sealed shut. Instead, she just lifts the dish of halwa and opens it.
The woman leans forward and inspects the congealed brown paste. The sunset breeze blows a warm waft of the dish’s scent into my nose.
The woman looks back at me, but her eyebrows are strained around her eye sockets now. Without a word, she takes a step back and slams the door in my face.
Meena stands there for a minute in my shaking body, with the halwa still cooling in the open air. She flattens the lid back onto the dish and lays a card on top of it. She puts the dish down gently onto the frilly brown “Welcome Home” mat. She picks up a small white rock from the side of the porch and places it on top of the card to keep it from flying away, before turning back to the car.
As soon as I feel the first tear hit my cheek she stops.
“Beta, take us home.”
The tears stop as I take control, but I can still feel the strain in the back of my throat. This is the first time I’ve wondered what happens when people hand me back control temporarily. Do they come back to life in their homes? Is she convulsing over her toilet, vomiting up as much of the regret as possible before curling into a ball of tears on her bathroom floor? Or is she lying peacefully, letting the tears soak into her veins until the pain passes.
Once at home she requests control and immediately goes back to the cabinet in the corner, pulling out the bottle of whiskey and pouring it into a chipped glass she finds in my drying rack. She carries it in my shaking hands and walks to the armchair that faces the window. As the final moments of sunset fade away, I can see her staring back at me in the reflection of the window.
She holds up the glass and stares into the brown liquid as she swirls it around.
“Beta,” she says aloud. “How do you decide which one is right for you?”
“What do you mean?” I respond, echoing in my own head.
“Which drink? How did you know it was whiskey? Not Beer? Wine? Cocktail?”
“Well, I drink them all, so—” I hesitate, uncertain of where this is going, “—but I don’t drink much.”
“Haan, beta, whatever.” She smirks at me in the window and swings the whiskey full down my throat. I turn down the sensory suppression and feel the initial hit seep into my blood and loosen my muscles. She picks the bottle up from the table and pours another shot.
“Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine, just need to process a bit.” She lifts the glass, but sips at the whiskey this time. I assume the first time was purely for shock value.
“What’s your deal?”
“My deal, beta?”
“Don’t beta me, I’m a grown man.”
“Haan,” she pauses, scanning my sad apartment, “of course you are.”
“Why are you here? Who was that woman?”
“Just an old acquaintance. It’s not important.”
“Then why me? Were there no other, more appropriate hosts available?”
“Appropriate how?”
“I don’t know, an older woman, someone more fitting your background?”
She laughs. “My background? Beta, you were the only ‘Urdu speaking’ host of Pakistani origin whose listing authorizes sexual behavior during a visit.”
Before I can respond there’s a knock at the door.
“Were you expecting anyone, beta?”
“No.”
She sets the glass down and goes to open the door. There is the woman, still in her gray and blue shalwar kameez, holding my dish with one hand and one hip. I watch my eyelids wrap around the woman in the doorway and make a shape I haven’t seen them make in months.
“Is it still you, Meena?”
Meena nods, my larynx suddenly sealed shut once again.
“You think you’re quite clever, don’t you?” The woman walks into the apartment and slides the dish onto the counter. She pulls the lid off, revealing at least 2-3 servings worth gone. “I’m going to eat the rest on my own as well. I’m not sharing.” She smiles as she pulls off her dupatta and throws it at me.
Meena catches it and laughs, finally loosening my throat. “Haniya, I—”
Haniya leans in quick to shut up Meena with a hard kiss that sends a chill down my spine and reverberates through the hairs on the back of my neck.
It’s been a while since I felt a kiss like that. In fact it’s just flat out been a while for me. I wonder how long it’d been for Meena and which matters more or if they’re additive and while I try to figure that out they stumble onto the couch and eventually roll onto the floor.
I shut my visual feed off, turn the sensory suppression back up, and do my best to give them some privacy. I won’t lie, I didn’t expect this guest to be the first to avail this “amenity.” But, I can’t entirely say I’m surprised. Meena has a determined bitterness that obviously guards something terribly sweet.
When I notice my heart rate begin to drop, I turn my visuals back on. They’ve made it to my bed. Meena’s lying on my back with Haniya’s head resting on my shoulder. The room is quiet except for the sound of calming breaths.
“Come back,” Meena squeezes out between breaths and into Haniya’s hair.
“As what, my love? Your assistant? Your cousin’s friend visiting from the states? An NGO worker there for training that you’re just showing around? What will you have me pretend to be this time?”
My throat locks up again as I feel blood rush to my cheeks.
Haniya sits up and lets my blanket fall off of her as she stands. She looks back down at me with a slight smile. “It was nice to see you again Meena. I’ve missed these stunts of yours.”
Meena just stares up at the ceiling while we listen to Haniya get dressed, slide the Tupperware off the counter and back onto her hip. Meena closes my eyes when we hear my apartment door open and shut. I’m certain she’s going to start crying again, but she just takes a deep breath and speaks.
“You’ll feel it one day.” She rolls into sitting position at the edge of the bed and looks in the mirror. “The desire to go back to when you were uncertain about who you’d turn out to be. When you lived foolishly thinking you could be something other than what you became in the end.” She lifts my right fingertips to my forehead, twice, with a gentle pseudo bounce and says, “Thanks for the company, Arsalan. Khuda-hafiz.”
As my limbs tingle back to me, I pull up Karla’s contact. While I mull the idea of calling her, I get an alert in my periphery from AirBody about a new request. I stare at Karla’s picture for a moment before closing her profile and pulling up AirBody. I’m certain I’ve already become who I’ll be in the end, so I might as well let everyone else be me for a little longer.
* * *
Sameem Siddiqui is a speculative fiction writer currently living in the United States. He writes to explore the near future realities people of South Asian ancestry and Muslim heritage will face in the coming centuries. His stories explore issues of migration, gender, family structure, economics and space habitation. He’s attended the Tin House and FutureScapes workshops and his stories have appeared in Clarkesworld and ApparitionLit. When he’s not writing, Sameem enjoys reveling in fatherhood, watching 90’s Star Trek or Avatar: The Last Airbender and tinkering with data and music. You can find him on Twitter @s_meems or at sameemwrites.com.
The Eight-Thousanders
By Jason Sanford
Short Story Long List
He spoke once, the words whispered by frozen lips on a face so frostbitten he looked like a porcelain doll. I found him below the summit as our expedition bottlenecked before the Hillary Step on our final ascent of Mount Everest.
And above the bottleneck, more climbers. Dozens of people snaking to the top in their insulated red and orange and bright-color parkas and boots and backpacks.
As if the mountain bled a trickle of rainbow-neon blood.
I leaned against a rock overhang, numb and cold and exhausted and focused only on climbing higher. I thought the man sitting under the overhang dead until I saw condensation rise from his lips. Spindrift snow danced around him.
“Don’t let me die,” the man whispered.
No one else had noticed the man. Or they’d ignored him like all the dead bodies we passed on Everest.
I waved for Ronnie Chait, my boss and our expedition’s leader. Ronnie stumbled over in his red high-tech coat and pants. He was attempting his fifth summit of Everest and his first without a supplemental oxygen system. Back at base camp other expedition leaders had grumbled about Ronnie leading people to the summit while not using oxygen. But no one dared confront Ronnie. He was one of the richest men in the world and known for both his love of mountain climbing and his hard-ass attitude toward business and life.
Ronnie knelt before the freezing man.
“He’s too far gone,” Ronnie said. “Must have been up here overnight.”
More climbers stepped past us. The longer we waited, the longer it’d take to summit. In one of Ronnie’s viral TED Talks he’d recounted what he’d learned during decades of venture capital and mountain climbing. How rescue was impossible on Everest. How if you died on Everest your body stayed on Everest.
His point was to live your life as if every day was Everest. That you couldn’t rely on others to save you.
“Nothing to be done, Keller,” Ronnie said as he laid his hand on my shoulder. “We can’t help him. But staying here will keep us from reaching the summit.”
Ronnie’s eyes hid behind his sunglasses, but it felt as if he glared into me. As if this moment decided my future with him. I owed my career to Ronnie. He was helping me reach Everest.
He turned and climbed up the ropes, daring me to back out.
I hesitated. The freezing man looked at me with a desperate gaze. I remembered my little brother’s final hours. How I’d wished I’d been there with him.
I couldn’t leave this man to die alone.
Could I?
Nyima Sherpa, Ronnie’s main guide, hiked over. Nyima rubbed the man’s legs and arms, trying to return circulation, but his extremities were already half frozen. We tried to help him stand, but the man couldn’t move.
“He’s nearly dead,” Nyima said.
I should have felt something, but didn’t. I was exhausted and numb, not merely my body but my emotions. I knew logically that this was because my oxygen mask and cylinder couldn’t provide enough air to be clearheaded in the mountain’s death zone. But even knowing that, I didn’t care. All that mattered was to keep climbing.
“I’ll stay with him,” a voice said above the hiss of my regulator.
A short woman stood beside Nyima. She wore a parka so faded the red was nearly pink. Her insulated pants and boots were black and also faded while mountain goggles covered the top of her face in one big rainbow-reflecting lens. An older-style rubber oxygen mask covered her mouth, nose and chin, ensuring no skin was exposed to the sun or the cold. But the line leading from the mask dangled loose, unattached to any oxygen canister.
“Truth,” the woman said. “I’ll stay. Continue your climb.”
Nyima stared at the woman through his icy goggles. His oxygen mask shivered as if he couldn’t gasp enough air. He muttered something in the Sherpa language before grabbing my arm and hustling me to the line of waiting climbers.
When I glanced back the woman knelt beside the dying man in the shade under the rock overhang. Now out of the dazzling sunlight, she removed her rubber oxygen mask and gloves, revealing deathly pale skin. When she opened her mouth, I saw large fangs. She leaned against the man and whispered into his icy ears while gently running a finger along his neck.
“Keep climbing, Keller,” Nyima yelled. “Just climb, damn it.”
• • • •
For the last decade I’ve reached toward Everest. Summiting larger and larger mountains. Exercising daily. Working forever-long hours for Ronnie’s venture capital company. Begging for a taste of the stock offerings in the new tech start-ups he continually funded and spun off.
Because it wasn’t good enough to want to climb. You had to have the means to climb. And that’s what working for Ronnie gave me.
Not that I hated Ronnie. Working for him was like aiming for Everest—it didn’t matter what we created, only that we reached the top. And in our spare time we bonded over mountain climbing. Tech bros convincing ourselves it was our genius and hard work which carried us here.
