Trade You For the Beans

by Kehkashan Khalid

When Mammy drops me off to school on the hottest day of the year, no one bullies me. I stand there in the schoolyard, letting her I love yous wash over me, and when she drives away, I close my eyes.

It’s okay Asghar, I tell myself. They’ll punch you a few times, and when you don’t react, they’ll get bored. You can handle that.

But nobody comes. I stand there like an idiot with my eyes closed and my sweaty fingers gripping the spine of Grammy’s copy of Lord of the Rings until the bell rings. Nobody reads such old stories anymore, and they especially don’t carry them around like bricks. But I don’t want to download my stories into a cube that’ll summarize them for me. I like the rustle of the pages and their musty scent and holding them impossibly open with a thumb while I eat and read at the same time–Grammy would turn over in her grave, Asghar! Mammy would say. Grammy liked her books to look all perfect even after they’d been read. Too bad she left them all to me, who likes to make notes in the margins and leave big ol’ mango stains on the pages. It’s like they hold a little bit of who I am. And they’ll hold it long after I’m gone. It’s the closest to magic I’ll ever get. (Continue Reading…)