Arch R

“Captured dead or alive” by Arch R

There are those who worry about the end of their lives because they think they haven’t lived life yet. Some who worry about the pain of death. And then those who worry about who they leave behind and how they will get by. Then there are those religious ones, who imagine they will find their reckoning in front of a God that will show them the tally book. Christians worry they will be sent to blazing fires in the earth’s core; Hindus worry about being born again as a beetle, and Muslims that their souls will be tormented in the afterlife. I ...

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“Free therapy” by Arch R

“No, I mean it! No sex for a month,” I announce to my therapist. She is the fifth one I have cycled through in just as many months.. My work benefits entitled me to 25 free sessions a year and maybe just as many therapists. I had always been meaning to give therapy a try, but it either felt too expensive or too indulgent, which I guess is the same thing. But when I read about my new company’s benefits, I ran out of excuses. Each of these women schedule a Zoom call through an app, spend thirty minutes of the time reading out questions from ...

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“Moms and dresses” by Arch R

Submitted to Contest #230

Bindu checks her watch again; it had only been four mins since she last looked. She readjusts the strap so the watch would fit more snugly on her wrist and the studded C would gleam for a momentary adrenaline jolt. Didn’t work. Her topor-soaked eyes trace the glimmering aisles, everything a blur of textures and colors like in a psychedelic-induced dream. Staring out the front of the store, she sees a woman and a girl admiring the cerulean-colored dress on the busty silver manequin. The woman’s eyes travel down the length of the dress and the...

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“Phase two” by Arch R

“Well, for starters you would have to get rid of these terrible bootcut jeans, get a keratin treatment to tame that frizzball on your head and…,” she paused for emphasis, “...it goes without saying that your unibrow isn’t doing you any favors.” Lindsey flipped her golden strands that framed her delicate nose and ice blue eyes as a final flourish. Maya felt her face rise in temperature starting from the ears, like an ink blot spreading in water. It wasn’t that anything Lindsey had said was news to her; she had long stared at herself in the ...

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“Surrender” by Arch R

“I know something is wrong but I am not ready to let go yet,” Anna searches the old man’s face with her eyes. He doesn’t give much away as he glances down at Phulka who was resting on his paws, his eyes closed yet exuding more than the old man’s. Anna places one palm in front of Phulka’s nose as she had done countless times over the last few weeks. She had been suspended somewhere between expecting the worst and refusing to accept what was in front of her. She felt the warmth of Phulka’s breath on her hand but the effort was undeniable. Anna...

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“A war not fought” by Arch R

At the mouth of town, there is a sign that seems even larger because nothing surrounds it but dusty flatlands on either side of a dusty flat road. The sign is faded as if forgotten, but it seems equally plausible that the sign has fallen prey to the same fate befallen on the town itself, and the surrounding towns like it. Time has not been kind to this part of the world; it’s evident in the shuttered shops and the barren fields. But what the sign lacks in polish, it makes up for in character. On it is a portrait of the town mayor, a portly...

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“Sparkly dress” by Arch R

“I am not a chocolate person,” Delia declared before taking a sip of her dirty martini. The pungency of the olive brine hit the roof of her mouth and she felt the relief seep through to her head. It had been a long week and a stiff, extra dirty martini was the perfect antidote. “You don’t like any chocolate at all?!” Sahil seemed perturbed by the idea. “Well, I like white chocolate.” “That’s not chocolate.” “Exactly.” Delia took another sip of the martini to calm her pulse that was already ticking like a time bomb. She usually made...

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“Hungry Hippo” by Arch R

Submitted to Contest #132

I stared out of the white window of our living room onto the front yard of our neighbors across the street. Not that we could call them neighbors since we haven’t met them yet. Well, we had, but just the mother, who, given she had two kids the same age as me and my brother, seemed very curious about the newcomers at her children’s school. She regarded us with the air of interlopers and seemed genuinely perplexed by our names when she asked for them. “Amrita and Akshay” we had politely replied to which she brightly retorted that she would cal...

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“White buds” by Arch R

Submitted to Contest #131

Lucy looked at her watch for the third time in under a minute. It wasn’t midnight yet. She took another gulp from her glass of steaming liquid and paced toward the window. She peered out, her eyes catching the fullness of the moon. Her street was as still as a lake on a windless day. She could hear her own heartbeat in the silence. She glanced back down at her watch and sucked in sharply seeing the two hands pointing toward the top. It was time. She straightened her lilac dress dotted with white buds that she had bought for this occasion a...

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“Paradise Bound” by Arch R

The bus clinked and moaned with the effort of taking on more people while fewer people got off. I shuffled myself to fit between the overweight, rudy man wearing a Cubs cap to my right and the woman with a gregarious hunch hauling a sack of what looked to be potatoes to my left. I suspected my Spanish wouldn’t suffice for a conversation with her, and the man to my right knew less than I did. So I looked in front of me at a man seemingly in his twenties with a shock of hair that held my attention. He wore aviators that blocked half his face a...

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“Along the way” by Arch R

Simmi pulled out the crumpled notes from my waist belt and eyeballed them quickly before shoving them back in. She wasn’t sure she had enough for the train ride but if needed she could fish into her backpack for the tidy notes that smelled fresh from the bank. She’d just have to find a way to do it inconspicuously. She looked out at the train platform, the fervor of activity belying the early morning time. But in India it seemed places never slept. It was almost like all the time zones of the world happened in India because someone was alway...

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“Alcohol counseling” by Arch R

Submitted to Contest #102

Anika slouched down further into the chair, focusing her eyes on the bookcase on the far end of the room near the door. The bookcase was so stereotypical - with the DSM-III, a few other medical textbooks, bookends that spelled the owners’ initials, a snow globe and a paperweight- that she almost laughed out loud. Unsurprisingly, the person who occupied this space day in and day out had no imagination. That person sat in front of her now, her body rolls taut against her black and white printed v-neck dress, her eyes looking expectantly at Ani...

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“The telling mirror” by Arch R

Submitted to Contest #101

The mirror had grey specks that had settled after swirling in the morning sun. And a few smudges of fingers that imprinted nothing but their desperation; the same desperation that stared back at her. The morning light was now long gone and along with it any premise that today might be different. The day was a monochrome of virtual meetings and emails. Everything had been accomplished by the taps of fingers that elucidated sense as they ran across letters and numbers. They didn’t seem connected to any other part of her, the words not imprin...

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“A Brazilian Stampede” by Arch R

Submitted to Contest #96

“The plan, if you can believe it, is to sleep on Copacabana beach on New’s Year’s night,” Samy chuckled to the stranger. The stranger who might have been processing the words slowly because it wasn’t spoken in his native language furrowed his brows to form a teepee on his forehead. But when he responded it was clear he had understood, “That is not a good idea. It is quite crowded there, not safe to sleep.” Samy shrugged her shoulders and responded in her usual nonchalant tone of deferring problems to later in time, “Yea we will figure it out...

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“Anti-prodigal journey” by Arch R

Submitted to Contest #95

I’ve left home. I am now six thousand miles away from my parent’s grasp. My parents and their overbearing love which felt less like a cocoon and more like a blade that sharpened a pencil to a point, chipping away at it to achieve a semblance of perfection. The anti-prodigal journey has been winding. First, the northern pilgrimage after living in the South for a few too many years. And what a Mecca at that: New York City, the pinnacle for those who want to get lost in a crowd. Not caring is the currency of the city. No one cared what I did ...

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