Small Spiral Notebook - Vol.3 Issue 2 - (Page 5)
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ROUNDABOUT by MIA ALVAR Under a salt-white sky outside of Bahrain’s only
airport, I scan the parking lot with my daughter Clara, waiting to be
picked up. Sunlight flashes off the cars and makes us squint. Only the
Arabic numbers, etched like knife strokes into license plates, hint at any
foreignness; otherwise these are the same Nissans and Chevrolets you would
find anywhere. I’d have hoped for something less familiar. Some
memorably alien sight to greet me right away, like a camel. At least the
weather’s different, I tell myself, suit and tie growing heavy on my
skin. We come from a tropical country, and in this hard new desert heat I
feel like earthenware left out to dry. From between the gleaming trunks
and hoods I hear my name. “Vic!” A familiar voice. And then my old
friend Ben appears, T-shirted and sandalshod, waving. We shake hands and
clasp shoulders. How long has it been? Almost ten years now, we determine.
He kneels to have a look at Clara. His graying hair has thinned a little.
Bahraini time is five hours behind the Philippines’—does this fact
make us younger now, I wonder? “I knew your mother,” Ben tells Clara,
then seems to decide against saying more. He leads us to a maroon Toyota
Cressida. WELL COME! reads a sun shade drawn across the windshield. The
brand-new car belongs to me: “A company perk,” says Ben, though I,
like any newcomer, don’t have a license to drive in this country.
Instead it’s Ben who drives us from the lot and airfield. Clara unzips
her knapsack behind us. The girl is six, but self-sufficient to a point
that is unnerving. On the flight—the first of her life, so far—she
somehow thought to save the food she didn’t eat: jam, a candy bar, a
plastic tub of crackers and spreadable cheese. There’s a rustle of foil
being torn open, and Ben glances in his rearview mirror. “Hang on,
Clara,” he says, “it’s Ramadan and all the Arabs are fasting.”
“Fasting,” she repeats. “Like forty days at Lent?” Warning : Unknown : The session id contains invalid characters, valid
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Small Spiral Notebook - Vol.3 Issue 2
Table of Contents
Roundabout by Mia Alvar
Caretaking by Besty Aaron
Wonder Woman Grew Up in Nebraska by Sarah Gerkensmeyer
Nightshade - an Excerpt by Susan Y. Chi
Dumpster Tuesday by Scott Snyder
Last Resort by Nova Ren Suma
Five-and-Dime Valentine by Felicia Luna Lemus
The New Children by Kira Henehan
Get Away, Little Man by Brian Joseph Hurley
Small Spiral Notebook - Vol.3 Issue 2
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