Portrait 1: A Painter Who is Obsessed with White

Catherine Hobbs

Flakefloconflakefloconflakeflocon. Like a mare’s tail... [Rattle. Clack!] ...then a wing brushing the pane. The snow deepens (now even deeper) in the street below me. On the sidewalk, a transport driver is trying to push my neighbour in her wheelchair from his minivan to her front door. He slips. I worry for a moment but then I see her husband coming out to help.

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The Divine in You

Reshmi Hebbar

Swami Sukathaya, the holy man and lecturer at the Hindu temple summer camp, lived only fifteen minutes from Pallavi Reddy’s home in Monroeville. Every time he was invited to come for dinner, their Amma would spin slowly out from her tightly wound spool of daily concerns--their homework, their intake of fruit, their teeth and nail grooming. Ravi, stop the bathrooms--go and dust the blinds! Arjun, change the trash quickly! Pallavi, finish chopping the potatoes! Pallavi and her siblings would pound around the house in loud and whiny protest.

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