Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana by Edited by Anil Menon and Vandana Singh Page A
Tags: Fiction, Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, USA, israel, cyberpunk, Anthology, Women, UK, Magic Realism, India, gender, Feminism, Thailand, Holland, sri lanka, Surreal, ramayana, abha dawesar, rana dasgupta, priya sarukkai chabria, tabish khair, kuzhali manickavel, mary anne mohanraj, manjula padmanabhan
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opportunity.”
“Wait,” the Russian says, looking around. “The voucher can probably be arranged.”
“Oh, how nice,” I reply. He hands me an encrypted chip with his information, tellsme to get in touch within the week. I get up and kiss the Russian once on each cheek. His eyes are an icy blue.
“I look forward to working together,” he says.
While I’m walking away from the table, I see Val looking down at me from his office, his arms folded across his chest. He’s just a silhouette and, for a moment, I imagine I can see all the ants behind him, burrowing into the syntheticsand in his walls—imagining they are doing the work for a reason, protecting the queen, their own epic played out as part of our fake one. Val shakes his head at me. I smile up at him, thankful. I can’t remember the last time someone actually looked out for me. Then I turn back to the floor.
Tania glows in front of me, her costume shooting out holograms of herself reflected over the room, sowe can only see her image if we tilt our heads up. The ceiling has clouds projected over it to make it seem like we are in the jungle, that we are all dreaming the same dream somewhere. I stop and look up at her image flashing.
Suddenly, she is in front of me, her golden costume covered in tiny beads of sweat that the latex breathes out from the heat of her body. I hear the crowd stir, evenin their sluggish Lust haze, because the Deer never usually touches the floor. Tania smiles at me with her crooked incisor, mischievous, daring. She starts dancing with me and I move with her. Before the crowd swallows her up, I see the Russian out of the corner of my eye, standing with the men he works for, the men I might soon work for. I see Val above us, watching all the pieces of his universe.And then, I just close my eyes, and dance, the glow from Tania’s costume flickering behind my eyelids. The music flowing through us, the vines of the fake trees climbing towards the sky.
Making
Aishwarya Subramanian
Months from now a god will casually touch a squirrel. A deceptively human gesture of thanks, his touch will burn through it and alter its very squirrelhood; searing the marks of his fingers onto the backs of all squirrels forever.
Mythili has been touched by agod. He has given her no ornaments, but has traced lines around her neck that glow like chains of gold, anklets for her feet, a line of light that sweeps up into her hair. He has drawn bracelets round her wrists (his hands gripping them tightly, thumb and forefinger just about meeting at the point where she can feel her pulse). These are the marks he has made deliberately but everywhere he has touchedher she is radiant. His lightest touches have dappled her skin with brightness. Wherever she stands she will always look as she does now in this forest under these trees, patterned with leaf and sun.
Yet it is she who looks at him. Her husband’s long eyes are shaped like lotus petals. His skin is so much finer than her own that the blue tracery of his veins comes through. He is leaning againstthe wall of the shelter he coaxed the trees to form in this glade where it is always breezy and mild. When he hums to himself tiny flowers spring up out of the earth in response. He smells of earth and herbs and the very trees yearn towards him,bending their heads closer to the ground to be as near to him as possible. Mythili recognises that feeling better than anybody.
They are being watched.Brother and sister hide in the bushes. When they leave, the grass where they stood is brown and dead.
Meenakshi in her workshop crafts a body fit for a god. Limbs long and smooth, skin petal-soft . The feet are long and narrow, the hands small but with long nails. The hair is copper (they must stay true to their roots) and as it captures the light of the forges it glows. She cannot helpbut wonder what it will look like when the man in the forest has laid his light-giving hands upon it. Underneath the hair a
“Wait,” the Russian says, looking around. “The voucher can probably be arranged.”
“Oh, how nice,” I reply. He hands me an encrypted chip with his information, tellsme to get in touch within the week. I get up and kiss the Russian once on each cheek. His eyes are an icy blue.
“I look forward to working together,” he says.
While I’m walking away from the table, I see Val looking down at me from his office, his arms folded across his chest. He’s just a silhouette and, for a moment, I imagine I can see all the ants behind him, burrowing into the syntheticsand in his walls—imagining they are doing the work for a reason, protecting the queen, their own epic played out as part of our fake one. Val shakes his head at me. I smile up at him, thankful. I can’t remember the last time someone actually looked out for me. Then I turn back to the floor.
Tania glows in front of me, her costume shooting out holograms of herself reflected over the room, sowe can only see her image if we tilt our heads up. The ceiling has clouds projected over it to make it seem like we are in the jungle, that we are all dreaming the same dream somewhere. I stop and look up at her image flashing.
Suddenly, she is in front of me, her golden costume covered in tiny beads of sweat that the latex breathes out from the heat of her body. I hear the crowd stir, evenin their sluggish Lust haze, because the Deer never usually touches the floor. Tania smiles at me with her crooked incisor, mischievous, daring. She starts dancing with me and I move with her. Before the crowd swallows her up, I see the Russian out of the corner of my eye, standing with the men he works for, the men I might soon work for. I see Val above us, watching all the pieces of his universe.And then, I just close my eyes, and dance, the glow from Tania’s costume flickering behind my eyelids. The music flowing through us, the vines of the fake trees climbing towards the sky.
Making
Aishwarya Subramanian
Months from now a god will casually touch a squirrel. A deceptively human gesture of thanks, his touch will burn through it and alter its very squirrelhood; searing the marks of his fingers onto the backs of all squirrels forever.
Mythili has been touched by agod. He has given her no ornaments, but has traced lines around her neck that glow like chains of gold, anklets for her feet, a line of light that sweeps up into her hair. He has drawn bracelets round her wrists (his hands gripping them tightly, thumb and forefinger just about meeting at the point where she can feel her pulse). These are the marks he has made deliberately but everywhere he has touchedher she is radiant. His lightest touches have dappled her skin with brightness. Wherever she stands she will always look as she does now in this forest under these trees, patterned with leaf and sun.
Yet it is she who looks at him. Her husband’s long eyes are shaped like lotus petals. His skin is so much finer than her own that the blue tracery of his veins comes through. He is leaning againstthe wall of the shelter he coaxed the trees to form in this glade where it is always breezy and mild. When he hums to himself tiny flowers spring up out of the earth in response. He smells of earth and herbs and the very trees yearn towards him,bending their heads closer to the ground to be as near to him as possible. Mythili recognises that feeling better than anybody.
They are being watched.Brother and sister hide in the bushes. When they leave, the grass where they stood is brown and dead.
Meenakshi in her workshop crafts a body fit for a god. Limbs long and smooth, skin petal-soft . The feet are long and narrow, the hands small but with long nails. The hair is copper (they must stay true to their roots) and as it captures the light of the forges it glows. She cannot helpbut wonder what it will look like when the man in the forest has laid his light-giving hands upon it. Underneath the hair a
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