"My body shakes with a million different fires. Feet that look like yours warp and the corns split so you see craters of infinite variety, some pus-filled Lake Toba. The weakness in my limbs, the thick..."
- Jinat Rehana Begum
"Scar tissue — it’s a new layer of tender skin, lightly covering the wound. Still a vulnerable spot, the slightest little knock might tear the skin so it bleeds and the remembered ache from the old wou..."
"You know all those bad girls who take off their selendang and put round their neck like fashion-show? One day, when the wind is very strong, the selendang will catch the wind. Then it will swing up an..."
"Anger ignites fires or do fires ignite anger? Did the dispossessed, their rage burning within them for years, finally strike a match to enlighten an oblivious region of their dissatisfaction? Or were ..."
"Somewhere beneath the surface of this body, a fire, maybe even several fires, are burning. The flames within me are licking away the moisture, feeding on my blood so that my body resembles a land stru..."
"Pride. The worst kind of fire. It starts somewhere below the gut, creeps through the liver, climbs quietly up the heart, and moves into the lungs. You never notice it until it’s too late. It’s uncontr..."
"I think there’s something wrong with my lungs. Maybe I have an allergy or hay fever. I think it might even be a fracture they forgot to fix. I worry about it a lot. I can picture the broken rib impali..."
"They want me to contain the raging fires within me. They need me to appreciate glowing embers, to understand that even weak flames need to be managed with a lot of careful planning."
"But what is the point of buying vegetables in plastic bags? Everything from the supermarket smells of plastic. Everything from the market smells like it’s supposed to."