A Corner in My Soul

By Saju Abraham

There's a corner in my soul that I call my own,

That I turn to when I'm faced with hamlet's dilemma,
That signals when I'm at the crossroads,
That leads me by hand when I'm lost.

There's a corner in my soul that's my very own,

That lifts me up when I'm down,
That rushes in solace when sorrow strikes,
That soaks up my tears when I need to cry.

There's this hidden corner in my soul,

That gives me breathing space when life sucks,
That gives me company when lonely,
That's always by my side rain or shine.

There's a corner in my soul that I call my own,

That introverts and lets me bask in glory,
That never robs me of those rare moments of joy.
That let me be me.
 To God Belongs What He Has Taken

By Jensen Beach

Marie buys her morning coffee at the convenience store on the corner of her block. One of
the men who works there is named Ahmed. He is Iraqi. When he laughs, which he does
often, his enormous belly shakes. She likes Ahmed. She’s been buying her coffee from him
since she’s lived on this block, almost two years. In a week, the sale on her apartment, her
first, will be final, and she and her daughter Tove will move in with Lennart. Marie has been
marking this change by counting down the days until she will no longer buy her coffee from
Ahmed’s store. Lennart’s grandfather died two weeks ago, and Lennart inherited the big
apartment on Kungsholmen. There was room for all of them. Sometimes Lennart says he
wants children of his own, but Marie isn’t sure she wants to go through raising another child.
Counting the years she was traveling and Lennart was abroad with work and they were not
together, she and Lennart have been in love, more or less, for fifteen years.

It’s a very cold Monday in April. She goes to the store to buy her coffee on her way to work.
She purposefully avoids the pastries aligned in neat rows in a glass case near the register.
Her hands are cold and her fingers ache. She wraps her hands around the warm cup.

There is a new man behind the counter, whom she has never seen before. This new man is
not as old, nor is he as fat, as Ahmed. He does not have the same kind eyes or funny,
toothy smile. “Where is Ahmed?” she asks the new man.

“You haven’t heard,” he says.

“No,” she says.

“Ahmed died on Saturday,” he says. “To God belongs what he has taken.” He points to his
chest. “Heart attack.”

Marie touches her fingertips to her throat. “Oh no,” she says. “I’m so sorry.” Just above the
man’s left nipple, the outline of which she can see very clearly beneath his shiny red shirt,
he is wearing a nametag that reads, Ahmed. Below that, the name of the store in tight
embroidered circles. This must be Ahmed’s son, she thinks. “Were you,” she says, “I mean,
are you related to him? I’m so sorry,” she says before he can answer.

“No no no,” the new Ahmed says. “I only work here.” He smiles. Marie smiles back. Then
the man turns serious. “He appreciated all his customers,” he says. It’s a strange thing to
say, and the way he says it sounds rehearsed and stiff.

“I liked him too,” Marie says. She tries to pay for her coffee but Ahmed puts his hands, palm
down, on the counter. “A thank you,” he says. The doorbell jingles and a new customer
enters the store. It’s another regular, a woman Marie recognizes. Marie is struck by a
sentimental jolt. He’s dead, she nearly says, nearly takes the woman by the arm. He’s gone.
It’s the sort of tidy, packaged emotion one sees on television or in films, nothing more than
a suggestion of real emotion. The feeling darts through her and passes quickly.

Maries sees the woman daily at the store. And they often take the same train into the city.
The woman gets off one stop before Marie, at Odenplan. She’s never talked to the woman,
though once they sat across from each other on the metro and shared a smile when a
young man sitting next to Marie said loudly into his telephone in a voice almost spilling over
into a sob, “I don’t want to fuck you and forget about you either!” Marie also sees the
woman some evenings at the park near the shopping center, where the woman often
comes with a dog, a large one, a Great Dane, Marie thinks, that trots along obediently
behind the woman. She has seen the woman buying cards and flowers at the florist in the
square close to the metro station. She’s never seen the woman with a man, nor another
woman for that matter, but she has seen the woman arm-in-arm with a much older woman
at the pharmacist, at systembolaget, at the post office, once at the supermarket. Marie has
imagined a life for the woman, of course. Aging mother, no children, good job, civil servant
perhaps. She travels frequently to places Marie has always wanted to visit, countries that
are warm in winter—Chile, Vietnam, or Papua New Guinea.

Marie is standing in the way of a third customer, who, she sees as she follows Ahmed’s
gentle nod, is trying to pay for a bottle of water. “Excuse me,” this third customer says.
“Sorry,” he says and pushes, politely, past Marie to the counter.

Perhaps they even look alike, this woman and Marie. Marie watches the woman at the
coffee station. The woman turns to retrieve the milk from the cooler. In profile, they are
different. The woman is far more delicate-faced than Marie is. She is taller, broader across
the shoulders, but even in the coat she is wearing, obviously thin. Thinner than Marie. The
woman is pretty, and in spite of herself, Marie feels a little embarrassed to compare herself
to the woman.

The third customer takes his change from Ahmed. He stiffly places the bills in his wallet and
the coins in the coin pocket on the front of his wallet. By the time he has finished this, the
woman has approached the register to pay for her coffee. The train Marie has planned to
take leaves in ten minutes. It’s an easy walk to the station, and she prefers to wait here,
where she can shorten her time spent in the cold. The outdoor platform is raised, and the
wind, directed by rows of tall apartment blocks on either side, whips and stings its way from
one end of the platform to the other. Marie moves close to the door but does not leave.
Outside, there is still ice and a thin dusting of snow in the shadows. She’s going to miss this
neighborhood. It has been good to her and to her daughter. Her father thinks she’s making
a poor decision moving in with Lennart. She’s crazy to sell her place and get out of the real
estate market. Every time they speak he tells her this. Reinvest whatever money you make
on the sale. Buy a new apartment with Lennart, a house maybe. It’s silly to work so hard for
something and then give it up just like that. He often frames his concerns for her personal
life in economic terms. In truth, she appreciates his advice, though she tells him, as often as
he offers it, that she is old enough to make her own decisions. This is what she is supposed
to say, and so it is what she says, though she wishes she more often did what she wanted
rather than what was expected.

Marie hears the woman say, “I’m sorry to hear that. Ahmed was a sweet man.”
“He appreciated all of his customers,” Ahmed says, and as he did with Marie, refuses to
take the woman’s money.

As the woman passes Marie, they share a crisp smile.

Marie steps out into the bitterly cold morning after the woman. It’s a bright clear day, a
winter day even though it is already spring. Marie slows her pace to follow the woman.
There is a fast-moving line at the turnstile, and they arrive at the same time. Marie indicates
with a hand that the woman should go ahead. The woman retrieves a Metro newspaper
from the vending machine and continues down the platform until she stops near the
midpoint. It’s crowded here in the mornings, at the middle of the train, and not ordinarily
where Marie waits. Today she does. The woman unfolds the paper and begins to read. It
shakes in the wind, the top of the pages folding over her hand. She tries to snap it back into
shape but finally gives up and tucks the paper tightly between two slats on a wooden bench.

“That was very tragic,” Marie says, surprising herself. She wants to introduce herself to the
woman, lay bare the wonder between them, the way their lives have orbited so closely for
so long; and now, tragically, but not overwhelmingly so, they have met here at the occasion
of the death of such a kind man. This is something they share. She wants to talk with the
woman, ask about what sort of life, if any, the woman might have imagined for her. Would
the woman have conjured up Lennart, or Tove? By some indefinable ability to see patterns
and cause and reason where there may be none, would she have guessed at any of the
details of Marie’s life? How much of another’s life can we rightly assume when it is seen
only in passing?

The woman looks at Marie, and it occurs to Marie that the woman does not know that she
has also been told about Ahmed’s death, and also that she may assume that Marie was
referring to the newspaper and the wind and the paper’s current place on the wooden
bench. “I’m sorry?” the woman says.

“Ahmed,” Marie says, “the man who owns the shop. He died.”

“Right,” the woman says. Marie feels her disappointment in the woman’s lack of sadness
plainly in her chest. It’s a hollow feeling, not physical exactly, but tightly woven inside her
body. “I was sorry to hear that. Do you know how it happened?”

Marie hesitates, brightens at the opportunity of the woman’s question. “Heart attack,” she
says a little too hopefully and takes a step closer to the woman.

“That’s terrible,” the woman says. “He can’t have been very old.”

“To God belongs what he has taken,” says Marie.

“I suppose,” says the woman, blinking. “I guess I don’t know what that means.”

Marie picks up the woman’s newspaper and puts it in her purse. She does this loudly,
deliberately. The woman looks at her. “I’ve seen you,” Marie says. She feels her face flush
with embarrassment but cannot control herself.
“I beg your pardon,” the woman says.

“With your mother,” Marie says. “I’ve seen you with your mother. That woman. Is that your
mother?” Once, when Marie was a child, she pinched her sister as hard as she could until
her sister began to cry.

The woman looks at Marie with a strange expression, turns her body to face Marie and
says, “My aunt, actually.”

“She looks like you,” Marie says. “Or you her, rather.”

The woman stares at Marie. In the woman’s face Marie can see as clearly as if the woman
had spoken the words out loud that the woman is scared of her. Marie smiles at the woman
and turns away from her. This is the polite thing to do, she thinks, the proper thing.

A man pushing a baby carriage is pacing back and forth along the platform. He has passed
twice already. The baby is crying, and the man is obviously nervous about this. He stops,
not far from Marie, and puts a hand in the carriage, firmly rocking the baby side to side.
“Shhhh,” he says. “There’s nothing wrong, be quiet.” The baby is not crying loudly, and with
the wind and the murmur of conversation and the static of the approaching train it is hardly
possible to hear the baby at all.

[clear-line]
 A Letter from an Unborn Baby

Hi mom! How are you? I am doing just fine, thanks. Only a few days have gone by
since I was conceived and I am now growing in your tummy. To tell you the truth, I
can’t explain how happy I am to know that you are my mom. It also makes me proud
to know that I was conceived out of love. I’m sure I am going to be the happiest baby
alive.
Mommy, a month has gone past and I have started to notice how my body is
forming. I know I am not much to look at now but just wait and see – I’ll make you so
proud! Even though I am feeling happy, I sense that something is wrong! You seem to
be having strange thoughts that leave me restless and worried; but I am sure
everything is going to be okay! Don’t despair!
Two and a half months have gone by mom, I now have hands that I can use to play
with.Oh, I am so happy! Mommy, please tell me what’s wrong? Why are you crying
so much lately? Why do you and dad argue every time you meet up with one another?
Don’t you guys want me anymore? I’m going to do everything I can to make you
want me…
Three months have now past mom, but you still seem to be so sad. I am not sure what
is going on… I am so confused. Today we went to see the doctor and he booked an
appointment for you tomorrow. I don’t understand why I am feeling so good and you
aren’t mom!
Mommy, where are we going? What’s happening? Mommy, this is not normally the
time that you take your afternoon nap; don’t lie down. Besides, I am not tired! I still
want to play! Uh!!! What is this thing doing inside of my house?! Is it a new toy?
Hey! It’s sucking up my house…
Please… don’t tug at me! No… don’t hit me! You’re hurting me! Can’t you see that I
am still small?! I can’t defend myself! Mommy!!! Stop them – that’s my hand!!!
Mommy, my leg… they are ripping it out!!! Defend me, mom!!! Help me,
mom!!! Tell them to stop, I promise I’ll stop kicking them if they do. How is it
possible that someone can be doing this to me? Oh mommy, I can’t go on anymore…
h-he…lp me…
Seventeen years have gone by since you made that fateful decision. Now you still
suffer over the very thought of it. Please don’t cry… I know you’re still hurting but
you are not alone. Mommy, if you are still sad, you can visit Rachel’s Vineyard. They
give you a chance to get away from all the daily pressures of work and family, and let
you focus on the hurt you’re feeling. They provide a safe and comforting environment
for you to find forgiveness and reconciliation. It is a 3-day retreat and I know it will
take a lot of work and courage to go through. But, mommy, I know you can do it.
When you are ready, just contact info@rachelsvineyard.sg. They will take very good
care of you.
Remember that I love you and I’ll be waiting for you with open arms.
Love you lots,
Your baby.
 Dead Men’s Path

By Chinua Achebe

Michael Obi's hopes were fulfilled much earlier than he had expected. He was appointed headmaster of
Ndume Central School in January 1949. It had always been an unprogressive school, so the Mission
authorities decided to send a young and energetic man to run it. Obi accepted this responsibility
with enthu siasm. He had many wonderful ideas and this was an opportunity to put them into practice.
He had had sound secondary school education which designated him a "pivotal teacher" in the official
records and set him apart from the other headmasters in the mission field. He was
outspoken in his condemnation of the narrow views of these older and often lesseducated ones. "We shall
make a good job of it, shan't we?" he asked his young wife when they first heard the joyful news of
his promotion. "We shall do our best," she replied. "We shall have such beautiful gardens and everything
will be just modern and delightful . . . " In their two years of married life she had become completely
infected by his passion for "modern methods" and his denigration of "these old and superannuated people
in the teaching field who would be better employed as traders in the Onitsha mar ket." She began to see
herself already as the admired wife of the young head master, the queen of the school. The wives of the
other teachers would envy her position. She would set the fashion in everything . . . Then, suddenly, it
occurred to her that there might not be other wives. Wavering between hope and fear, she asked her
husband, looking anxiously at him. "All our colleagues are young and unmarried," he said with
enthusiasm which for once she did not share. "Which is a good thing," he continued.

"Why?" "Why? They will give all their time and energy to the school." Nancy was downcast. For a few
minutes she became skeptical about the new school; but it was only for a few minutes. Her little personal
misfortune could not blind her to her husband's happy prospects. She looked at him as he sat folded up in
a chair. He was stoopshouldered and looked frail. But he sometimes surprised people with sudden bursts
of physical energy. In his pre sent posture, however, all his bodily strength seemed to have retired
behind his deepset eyes, giving them an extraordinary power of penetration. He was only twentysix, but
looked thirty or more. On the whole, he was not unhand some."A penny for your thoughts, Mike," said
Nancy after a while, imitating the woman's magazine she read. "I was thinking what a grand opportunity
we've got at last to show these people how a school should be run." Ndume School was backward
in every sense of the word. Mr. Obi put his whole life into the work, and his wife hers too. He had two
aims. A high stan dard of teaching was insisted upon, and the school compound was to be turned into a
place of beauty. Nancy's dreamgardens came to life with the coming of the rains, and blossomed.
Beautiful hibiscus and allamanda hedges in brilliant red and yellow marked out the carefully tended
school compound from the rank neighborhood bushes. One evening as Obi was admiring his work he
was scandalized to see an old woman from the village hobble right across the compound, through a
marigold flowerbed and the hedges. On going up there he found faint signs of an almost disused
path from the village across the school compound to the bush on the other side. "It amazes me," said Obi
to one of his teachers who had been three years in the school, "that you people allowed the villagers to
make use of this foot path. It is simply incredible." He shook his head. "The path," said the
teacher apologetically, "appears to be very impor tant to them. Although it is hardly used, it connects the
village shrine with their place of burial." "And what has that got to do with the school?" asked the
headmaster. "Well, I don't know," replied the other with a shrug of the shoulders. "But I remember there
was a big row some time ago when we attempted to close it." "That was some time ago. But it will not
be used now," said Obi as he walked away. "What will the Government Education Officer think of this
when he comes to inspect the school next week? The villagers might, for all I know, decide to use the
schoolroom for a pagan ritual during the inspection." Heavy sticks were planted closely across the path at
the two places where it entered and left the school premises. These were further strengthened with barbed
wire.

Three days later the village priest of Ani called on the headmaster. He was an old man and walked with a
slight stoop. He carried a stout walkingstick which he usually tapped on the floor, by way of emphasis,
each time he made a new point in his argument. "I have heard," he said after the usual exchange of
cordialities, "that our ancestral footpath hasrecently been closed . . . " "Yes," replied Mr. Obi. "We
cannot allow people to make a highway of our school compound." "Look here, my son," said the priest
bringing down his walkingstick, "this path was here before you were born and before your father was
born. The whole life of this village depends on it. Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit
us by it. But most important, it is the path of children coming in to be born . . . " Mr. Obi listened with a
satisfied smile on hisface. "The whole purpose of our school," he said finally, "is to eradicate just such
beliefs as that. Dead men do not require footpaths. The whole idea is just fantastic. Our duty is to
teach your children to laugh at such ideas." "What you say may be true," replied the priest, "but we
follow the prac tices of our fathers. If you reopen the path we shall have nothing to quarrel about. What I
always say is: let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch." He rose to go. "I am sorry," said the young
headmaster. "But the school compound can not be a thoroughfare. It is against our regulations. I would
suggest your con structing another path, skirting our premises. We can even get our boys to help
in building it. I don't suppose the ancestors will find the little detour too burdensome." "I have no more
words Co say," said the old priest, already outside. Two days later a young woman in the village died
in childbed. A diviner was immediately consulted and he prescribed heavy sacrifices to propitiate an-
 cestors insulted by the fence. Obi woke up next morning among the ruins of his work. The beautiful
hedges were torn up not just near the path but right round the school, the flowers trampled to
death and one of the school buildings pulled down . . . That day, the white Supervisor came to inspect the
school and wrote a nasty report on the state of the premises but more seriously about the "tribalwar sit-
uation developing between the school and the village, arising in part from the misguided zeal of the new
headmaster."
 The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
 Young Adult Science Fiction in the Post Human Age
By Jeffrey S. Kaplan

In “Is He Still Human? Are You?”: Young Adult Science Fiction in the
Posthuman Age," researcher Elaine Ostry analyzes science fiction texts,
written for young adults, which deal with the tenets of our new biotechnology
age: cloning, genetic engineering, prolongation of life. Specifically, these new
engaging reads for young adults discuss the ethics implied in the study and
practice of biotechnology—such as the creation of a super class of human beings
and the delicate crossing of the boundaries between human and animal, and
that age-old fascination, human and machine. Ostry concludes that most of
these contemporary adolescent fictional texts place "nurture above nature" and
promote a safe and traditional vision of humanity.

Still, danger lurks. As Ostry writes, the potential of biotechnology to

change human form is ever present in young adult literature that recently has
seen science fiction come to life. What their parents and grandparents had
always thought of as science fiction, says Ostry, are now realities or possible
realities. Everything from artificially created limbs to designer babies is very
real for today's adolescents, bringing into question the eternal question, "what
does it mean to be human?" After all, if biotechnology can change the human
form and mind, and machines can become a reasonable part of the human
body, then the term post-human body or "techno-body" is a distinct entity.

Clearly, scientific advances have changed the map of young adult

literature. After all, if we as a society are altering our definition of what it
means to be human, we can only begin to understand the relevance of our
desire to truly understand ourselves in light of our newfound technology.
Today, thanks to advances in DNA labeling, we can determine much of a
person before he or she is even born, or created by other means. And most
science fiction for young adults attempts to mediate the post-human age to
young audiences. What are the pros and cons of cloning? Of what value is the
human versus the new, "improved" human? And how can young people really
know what it means to be fully alive if all they know are people who have been
genetically engineered?
 The Treasures of The Deep
By Felicia Dorothea Hemans

What hid'st thou in thy treasure-caves and cells?

Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious main!
-Pale glistening pearls, and rainbow-colour'd shells,
Bright things which gleam unreck'd-of, and in vain!
-Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy sea!
We ask not such from thee.

Yet more, the depths have more!-what wealth untold,

Far down, and shining through their stillness lies!
Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold,
Won from ten thousand royal Argosies!
-Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful main!
Earth claims not these again.

Yet more, the depths have more!-thy waves have roll'd

Above the cities of a world gone by!
Sand hath fill'd up the palaces of old,
Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry.
-Dash o'er them, ocean! in thy scornful play!
Man yields them to decay.

Yet more! the billows and the depths have more!

High hearts and brave are gather'd to thy breast!
They hear not now the booming waters roar,
The battle thunders will not break their rest.
-Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave!
Give back the true and brave!

Give back the lost and lovely!-those for whom

The place was kept at board and hearth so long,
The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom,
And the vain yearning woke 'midst festal song!
Hold fast thy buried Isles, thy towers o'erthrown-
But all is not thine own.

To thee the love of woman hath gone down,

Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head,
O'er youth's bright locks, and beauty's flowery crown,
-Yet must thou hear a voice-restore the dead!
Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee!
-Restore the dead, thou sea!
 Slow Dance

By David L. Weatherford

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round,

or listened to rain slapping the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight,

or gazed at the sun fading into the night?

You better slow down, don't dance so fast,

time is short, the music won't last.

Do you run through each day on the fly,

when you ask "How are you?", do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed,

with the next hundred chores running through your head?

You better slow down, don't dance so fast,

time is short, the music won't last.

Ever told your child, we'll do it tomorrow,

and in your haste, not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch, let a friendship die,

'cause you never had time to call and say hi?

You better slow down, don't dance so fast,

time is short, the music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere,

you miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
it's like an unopened gift thrown away.

Life isn't a race, so take it slower,

hear the music before your song is over.