A starting point
In getting our website off the ground in Spring 2024, we decided to start by publishing some of the works of our own members. Unlike our future publications, we decided to go theme-free. Read our stories on friendship, grief, crushes, and everything in between.
More coming soon...
“I always understood people, not things”
Nandini Ganesh
since middle school, she’s always wondered about the mechanics of washing machines and the nuts and bolts of elevators. how helicopters work, who invented cheese, how to change a tyre–these things never made sense. these things never had explanations, they just were.
and so she grounded herself in the unmechanical side of life.
for some reason, she knew feelings, thoughts, emotions, like no one else. understanding the bittersweetness of nostalgia–a half-forgotten melody, the ache for home in a stranger's eyes–was her second nature. she understood from a young age that empathy wasn’t as simple as stepping into someone's shoes–it was wearing the sweater that smells of someone’s partner. using the perfume someone’s mother used to wear. listening to the songs someone loved to sing. you could say her mechanical blind spot always lost to her emotional antennae.
as unmechanical as she was, she had always understood the nuts and bolts of people.
Crush Cycle! From Your Local Expert: That One Perpetually Single Girl
Ananya Devanath
Stage 1: A small inkling. It comes out of nowhere, I swear. That little “oh” my heart makes as you laugh at something stupid I’ve blurted out. But I ignore it and smile back, mildly confused by the tightness in my chest, at the sudden urge to make you laugh over and over and over again. How very, very strange.
Stage 2: Denial. Know thyself — and I do! I don’t actually want you, you see. This is surely the result of some dumb ingrained need from my ever-malnourished external-validation-seeking ego. You’re nothing more than an easy distraction from the mind-numbing drudgery of this gray corporate life. And you winking at me from across the room, well… that doesn’t mean anything either. Even if it is slightly endearing. Slightly. But it doesn’t matter because I don’t care. I really don’t. I… really shouldn’t.
I’ve never been a good liar, have I?
Stage 3: The falling. Now this…this is the very essence of it all, isn’t it? That unsteady pitter-patter in my chest when my phone lights up the room at 2 AM. The haunting lurch in my gut when someone mentions your name. But it’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing and I’m getting wasted every weekend just for a plausible reason to send you a drunk text. It’s nothing and I’m telling you my worst fears over coffee on a random Tuesday. It’s nothing and I’ve spent hours masterminding ways to accidentally run into you. My day is measured by the number of times you smile at me and I hate you for it. You’re the last face that swims across my vision as I stare at the ceiling, willing myself to sleep; the first name I hope to read on my phone when I open my messages in the morning. And I’m… so far gone.
Stage 4: Surely you feel it too. Why else would you put up with all of this? At least, that’s what my friends tell me as I detail every interaction we’ve ever had together. I’ve gotten so good at crafting this fantasy of us, of dropping just the right hints for them to excitedly piece together the exact conclusion I’m fishing for. So much of me starts to feel that we’re inevitable — it comes together so beautifully in my mind. Is it so cruel, rearranging this story to be a little less ambiguous, for your feelings to be a little more sure through my voice? And maybe — just maybe! — you’re sitting in your room, so far away from me, surrounded by your own friends, doing the very same thing.
Stage 5: First sign of trouble. A slight hesitation before you look at me. You’re ebbing and flowing, my love, and it’s all I can do to keep up. Maybe I’ve lost all self-respect, but I live for this nauseating rollercoaster we’re on. My heart plummets with every minute you take to text me back; every time you drift away again you take a piece of my soul with you. So I doll myself up, skip a couple meals, flirt with your friends; I do everything I can to win back that soft, sly smile. But try as I might, I cannot ignore the choking doubt and unrelenting questions that compound. Have I misinterpreted your quiet indifference as shy infatuation? Your civil politeness as a declaration of your unending, undying love? And, put simply, well…were you always so close to that other girl?
Stage 6: I come back down to earth. And I realize what a selfish, selfish thing it is to sit here and stare into your eyes; to silently will you to want me the way I want you; to give you all my love despite you wanting nothing to do with it. The delusion fogging my vision clears, and I find myself crying, curled into a ball in the middle of my room, half-folded laundry cast aside. It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic. I have to let you go.
Stage 7: I avoid you. I can move on, I know I can. My friends all think I have, anyway — I stopped talking about you ages ago. But maybe I’m lying to myself. I miss you. I hate the space I’ve put between us, hate that you won’t even acknowledge its presence. Do you even notice it? Do you even care? There’s some silly part of me that hopes you miss me too, that you’ll be throwing pebbles at my window in the middle of the night, rain pouring, music blasting, and then and then and then.
Jesus. This isn’t working.
Stage 8: Change of plans! Who needs feelings? I don’t give myself time to even think about them anymore. I distract myself with too many classes and fancy new projects and all my drama-loving friends. I flush you out of my life. Every time your face pops up in my mind I force myself to work until my head pounds and anxiety peaks. It’s perhaps not the healthiest move — but you can’t deny its effectiveness!
Stage 9: Time heals. It always does. One day I’ll forget your birthday and laugh, and all this painful, painful weight on my chest will dissipate. I’ll wish you the most wonderful life without a care in the world. And maybe someday, far in the future, I’ll let you know just how much of my heart you once held. We can even joke about it! Or something. Isn’t that what people normally do? This coward has never actually gotten that far.
Stage 10: I think you were my last chance. I give up. It… won’t ever work for me. I know that to my core. So I’m done with all of it, with love and hope and dreams. My spirit is tired, my eyes are run dry, my life is a chaotic mess. I could spell out this cycle in my sleep and I shouldn’t be able to, I really shouldn’t. My heart is in the pit of my stomach and it’s all I can do to stay afloat. I can’t do this again. I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I–
Stage 1: A small inkling.
glue.
Aarohi Vohra
a story inspired by “Glue Song” by beabadoobee
Nandini and I had been inseparable ever since freshman year, circa 2022.
But it wasn’t until late into one night in the winter quarter that we truly connected, on a scale more profound than I had ever associated with a friend. It was as though the universe had conspired to bring us together for a pivotal moment.
Nandini with her unruly curls and laughter that could light up any room, had always been my second self.
“It’s so stupid that I feel like I have to live up to this made-up standard of beauty constantly,” I confessed, my voice barely above a whisper, as I reached for her hand. “You make me feel like I can be myself, though. No pretense.”
She squeezed my hand gently, her brown eyes reflecting understanding and warmth, a soft smile playing on her lips. We talked at length about the societal constructs that dictated our perception of beauty. We talked about mutual feelings of inadequacy; of striving to meet impossible Eurocentric standards; of the urge to feel validated by a man.
“But maybe it’s time we redefine what beauty means to us,” Nandini mused, a wistful edge to her voice as she traced patterns on the carpet with her finger. In that moment we saw ourselves through each other’s eyes - resilient, intelligent, funny, and fiercely beautiful beings. My friendship with her is my sanctuary - I am not bound or restricted by anyone’s perception of me; it’s my safe haven.
“I’m glad we had this conversation,” Nandini said, breaking the silence that had descended upon us. “I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.”
I reached out to squeeze her hand. “I guess we really are bound together by glue, aren’t we?” I asked, referencing our favorite song.
She grinned, her eyes sparkling. “Always.”
Grief is love persevering and whatnot.
Nandini Ganesh
A Marvel quote that stuck with me years after. Afterall, grief is the bits and pieces of unexpressed, unfulfilled love that never got to feel another hug. Hear another laugh. See one more smile.
But that doesn’t mean it just sits in a dark cave at the pit of your stomach, wallowing in self-pity as it calendars the days gone without feeling that hug or hearing that laugh or seeing that smile.
It begins to stir.
It warily crawls out of that pit, up the spine, and into the mind. It fiddles with the corners of your brain and forces it to ask the same questions:
What would they do if they were still here?
What would they say?
What joke would they make?
And these questions - they save you. They quietly, slowly, save you.
This curiosity now stokes the once-dying flames of memory.
Grief, once a gaping hole, becomes a tiny glow. A spark of life.