{"id":4838,"date":"2024-12-01T18:15:03","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T22:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/?page_id=4838"},"modified":"2024-12-01T18:15:04","modified_gmt":"2024-12-01T22:15:04","slug":"2024-tether","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/fiction-archive\/2024-tether\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 Tether"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Robat, Nancy Nolet<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Tether<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Moh Afdhaal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

Eva\u2019s hand slips out of mine and sinks into the sterile white sheets and coalescing heart monitor beeps. As her fingers brush past in farewell, time swirls around me in terrifying eddies\u2014an old enemy.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am untethered, once again.<\/span><\/p>\n

I flutter aimlessly in time, whipped around by an invisible inferno that irons out the wrinkles on the back of my hand and rewinds my body\u2019s battle with gravity. It carries me to the beginning, where burning air fills my fresh lungs as I am born into the world conscious and frustrated. It launches me into the days of pimply skin and pubescent falsetto; days of lace-less shoes and barred windows courtesy of the misdiagnosis of my memory of the future as delusion. It holds me hostage in the days before Eva, taunting me with the echoes of a love I am yet to experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout my confusion, my erratic journey through time, I curse it, blame it for my despair; for wrecking my present with the knowledge of my future. And when I finally break, an eternity\u2014twenty-five years\u2014an instant\u2014later, it picks me up and hurls me at the gnarled roots of a giant fig tree.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the fig tree life becomes laminar. I know where I am\u2014when I am.<\/span><\/p>\n

My tether, my Eva, appears, seemingly out of thin air, folds her flowery skirt behind her, perches on a mossy overgrown root, and doodles on her green leatherbound sketchbook.<\/span><\/p>\n

She remains unaware of my presence until an aimless bee puts her off balance and she is grasping at the air where my hand would meet hers. She grabs onto it like my life depended on it, and holds on for thirty years, unintentionally taming my turbulent path through time into uninterrupted, unidirectional bliss.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And when she has to once again sink into the sterile sheets and coalescing beeps, my old friend, time, presents me with the choice of living on with her memory or reliving my memory of her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t hesitate a moment to let time swirl around me; wring my mortal form through its agonizing passage. I dream of the eventual moment when it would take pity and lead me to the gnarled roots of a giant fig tree; where Eva would appear, fold her flowery skirt behind her, perch on a mossy overgrown root, and tether me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Moh Afdhaal is a writer from Sri Lanka. His stories have appeared in MYRIAD, Tasavvur Nama, Simultaneous Times Podcast, and more. When he\u2019s not exploring the fictional possibilities of the world around him, he works at his day job as a civil engineer. He can be found on Twitter: @mohwritesthings<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nancy Nolet relocated to Baltimore to obtain her philosophy degree at UMBC. Alongside her multi-decade real estate career, she is pursuing her Master of Fine Arts at Towson University. For many years, Nancy explored various forms of artistic expression, but it was during a mixed-media workshop in her mid-twenties that she discovered her true artistic medium. Her work examines the interplay between raw materials and man-made industrial objects by constructing whimsical sculptures from salvaged materials. Drawing inspiration from the Surrealist and Steampunk movements, she aims to ignite curiosity through compelling representations of the world’s mysterious, bizarre, and formidable creatures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tether By Moh Afdhaal Eva\u2019s hand slips out of mine and sinks into the sterile white sheets and coalescing heart monitor beeps. As her fingers brush past in farewell, time Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":590,"featured_media":0,"parent":1301,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/590"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4838"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5243,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4838\/revisions\/5243"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}