Fiction on Repression • The Lumiere Review
'Smaller, Still' is out now! and a belated Eid Mubarak <3
My new(ish) piece ‘Smaller', Still’ has been published by the Lumiere Review, a publication I absolutely adore and am thrilled to be a part of.
It’s a YoungArts recognized piece first published in their 2023 Anthology! It’s a study on repression and memory after trauma, as well as a fragmented and surrealist narrative. The story features WW1, the years after the Industrial Revolution, and a young survivor going to university in the 20s.
Please go read it here! And for the very first lines:
We moved into the old servant’s quarters when the earth was still mothed and flowered. It was a faded place that kept a glimmer of its old heartbeat, a place where many people like us must have gotten down on their hands and knees. The summer we were there, my entire atlas was the green that lined the estate. If I’d lived previously, I didn’t know it then. My mother had taught me to cast things away, bring my hands up to my face and let the knowing shrink. The great war had just ended. I stopped tasting tin lids and started knowing quiet nights where the clouds passed peacefully.
I wrote it during my Adroit Mentorship over the summer of 2022, and quickly realized just how terrible I was at exposition. My mentor, after reading it, said “It’s lovely….. what’s it about?” To which my fellow mentee (Ange, love you) supplied their theory— centuries off from my envisioned setting.
Another highlight from peer review (provided by the lovely Tina Zeng):
I also got some comments from friends that I’ve loved reading, and have actually helped me realize things I didn’t recognize writing the piece:
Anyway, there’s been so much wonderful reception to this story that’s made it feel communal :) Thank you all & I hope you enjoy.