Blow My Mind

--Reginald J. Dawson II

A letter to the one I love.

This is an actual letter I typed to my husband on our first anniversary, and he opened it on our second anniversary. That's the way it works. We write a letter for our future selves. Unfortunately, my past self wasn't very aware of the function of the comma. 

--Jasmine Dawson

The Auteur Strikes Again

The Grand Budapest Hotel 

            Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel is rhythmic, entertaining and star studded. Something of a departure from the intimate Moonrise Kingdom (2012) Anderson’s Grand Budapest goes way beyond huge and into the uncharted territories of gigantic. The most immediate and most noticeable aspect of the film is just how many stars he’s managed to fit into ninety-nine minutes. The old collaborators are all there, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and of course Bill Murray.  Then there are a few faces that we don’t see that often, Jeff Goldblum, Ralph Fiennes and Willem Dafoe. However, one of the most interesting casting decisions would have to be Adrien Brody as the proverbial bad guy.  Brody has it all; the crazy haircut, the sinister walk and the quick witted potty mouth. Granted his quips border on homophobic at times Brody brings a life to the film that goes beyond his sinister black leather jacket. He’s vulnerable at times and says the funniest things at the most appropriate moments. It’s all about pacing in Anderson films and for the Grand Budapest he hasn’t changed a thing. The film goes from slow and contemplative then crescendos to staccato almost erratic with huge chase scenes and shootouts.  At the core of all of Anderson’s films, however, are the characters. They’re always slightly off but extremely bright. They’re underdogs either trying to make a name for themself or avoid a situation that just so happens to be bigger than them.  Ralph Fiennes finds himself in the middle of a murder mystery in the fictional Republic of Zubrowka, a mountainous Eastern European country strife with conflict and poverty.  The plot may sound a bit ridiculous but Anderson grounds the story with lovable and at times idiotic characters.  Ralph’s character, Monsieur Gustave, can hardly carry on a secret affair with Madame Desgoffe, Tilda Swinton, let alone pull off a successful caper or murder. The characters’ short fallings and inabilities is what make the crazy Anderson ride worth it.

            The cinematography while similar to all of Anderson’s past collaborations with cinematographer Robert Yeoman, ASC, is also a departure from Moonrise Kingdom. While Moonrise was captured in Super 16mm the filmmakers went bigger to 35mm for this outing. Anderson insists on film for its’ grain and texture. His films are always reminiscent of old photographs and that’s no different in The Grand Budapest Hotel. The iconic whip pans and center-punched compositions are all present. The auteur does it again with this picture. For those into quirky indie feeling comedies The Grand Budapest Hotel is definitely worth a watch.

--Darius Dawson

Anaya

           Ajaya hung. She hung from the silver showerhead, while water dripped down on her brown skin, and mingled with her tears. She hung while her baby girl leaned against the bathtub edge on her wobbly, unsure legs. She hung while her first mistake, Anaya, wailed and stroked the smooth, cool surface of the tub.  Ajaya hung while those deep brown eyes stared up at her from the floor. She hung while her sari soaked with her involuntary despair, clinging to her legs like the little boy she wished she’d been blessed with.

            Ajaya hung while he smoked a cigar in the doorway idly twisting his wedding band around his finger. Ajaya hung while her second bundle of gloom lay swaddled, writhing in the dampness of the bathtub floor; yet another mistake. 

            She hung while the silken belt tested the limits of the skin on her neck and slowly sliced its way deeper and deeper. Ajaya hung while her toes, slick with her urine licked the sides of the tub, as they tried to support her weight. She hung and hung and hung. She hung until spit bubbled from her mouth with her failed attempts at pleas for help. She hung until there was nothing left no husband, no children, no mother, and no father. Ajaya hung.

            Fanish watched. Fanish watched while his hopes and dreams strangled to death. He watched as what was supposed to be his gifts for all his unyielding servitude to the God of fertility, Lakumi, cried up at their mother. He puffed the cigar Nandi had given him on what should have been the happiest day of his life and ignored the screams of the useless newborn. Nandi had three boys, three healthy strong boys, and all Fanish had were two worthless mouths that could bring him no happiness. Fanish watched as Anaya cried for her mother. He watched as she kept glancing back at him while her mother flopped against the shower wall. He peeled himself away from the doorjamb, walked across the expanse of the bathroom and stepped into the tub. Fanish faced his wife, their noses nearly touching. He watched as her brown eyes bulged even wider with the threat of his proximity. Fanish smiled around his cigar and removed it from between his teeth. He tapped the end of his cigar and the ashes fell upon the newborn at his feet while his wife slipped from this world into the next. Fanish watched.

            Anaya wept. She wept as the man stared down at her, but she didn’t know why he made her feel so frightened. They were always in the same room with the bright yellow floor and the tiled walls. She was sure she had never been in this place before, but yet it felt so familiar to her, like she belonged there. Anaya wept and gasped in a panicked breath as the man disappeared and reappeared right in her face their noses nearly touching. Anaya woke up with a scream just as their eyes met.

            Anaya sits up in her bed and looks around. She realizes she’s not in theb right smolderingly hot room with the man’s unflinching gaze. She’s in her bedroom. Anaya breathes. She takes a deep breath, in through her mouth, and out of her nose. The air feels fresh and clean.

            “I’m in my bedroom, my bedroom is in my house, my house is in Vancouver, and...” Anaya sighs takes another breath and says, “my family is from Vancouver.” She repeats this to herself several more times just as Doctor Baiter suggested. She repeats it until she’s sure that when she places her feet on the floor it won’t be yellow tile, but an ordinary brown wooden floor, a floor that marks her home as a cookie-cutter suburban house.

            She knows that when she gets out of bed she’ll walk down the hall and pass all the photos of her brother, Jacob, her dad, Jonathan, and her mom, Linda, at her fourth birthday party. Then she’ll pause right before the stairs begin and stare hard at the photo of the young, beautiful Indian woman wrapped in the gold and fuchsia sari. Anaya will stare hard at the picture until she can see her reflection in it. Then she’ll kiss the beautiful lady and wish her a good morning.  She’ll continue down the stairs to where her adopted mother will be waiting with the rest of the family for breakfast.

--Jasmine Dawson

Untitled Memoir

Memoir

Note to the reader: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” Leo Tolstoy.

            I am nine and asleep in the room I share with my sister. We’ve always been roommates even though she’s twelve now and desperately wants her own space.  Our twin beds lie adjacent to each other with a nightlight dividing the space. The nightlight is mainly for my protection because at nine years old the dark still makes me a bit uneasy. That very nightlight nearly ruined our small family before this night even began. You see, my sister accidently placed her blanket over the nightlight while she was sleeping and slowly the little light used for safety became a hazard. The bulb burned a hole through my sister’s green floral-patterned blanket and began to eat its way across the bed. Being a light sleeper I smelled the smoke and woke up before the fire could really take off. After that night we pushed our beds a little further apart but always in perfect symmetry via our mother’s instruction.

            I never really mastered the art of sleeping. I would toss and turn while ghastly creatures would conjure their way into my room and leave me paralyzed with fear. That very night I am visited by a coven of witches who brew up spells in their cauldron while I stare in heart wrenching terror. The night goes on and we sleep through the sound of my parents arguing. The clamor isn’t uncommon and has never caused us any alarm before. But tonight is different. I can hear my mother’s voice; it is coming from the guest bedroom next to my room. Her voice is wrapped in a thick emotion that I don’t recognize as fear until later. 

            My sister wakes up and instinctively I know she’s going to the bathroom. I follow along not really wanting to be alone with the witches in our room. This is why I followed her out into the hallway not because we were conjoined twins and shared the same bladder, but because she was my source of protection.

            I pad out barefoot into the hallway in my long pajama shirt and cotton underwear to find the door to the guest room ajar. Through the opening I can see my mother lying on the bed with the covers slightly drawn. My father is leaning over her and she is muttering something but I can’t quite make it out. I use the bathroom after my sister and the next thing I remember I’m in the back seat of my mother’s best friend’s car and we are in the parking lot of a grocery store. I hear my mother and her friend talking. My mother’s friend keeps urging her to go to the hospital, but my mother keeps refusing saying she doesn’t want to take us there in the middle of the night. My mother says this all in between sobs.

            It’s not unusual for me to see my mother in some form of despair. Usually these moments involve a glass of boxed wine or a well-placed pair of dark shades.  Finally, her friend gives up on the notion of the emergency room and resolves to ask her if she wants some Neosporin from inside the store. She warns my mother that if she doesn’t put anything on them that they’ll scar. My mother must’ve complied because the next thing I know I’m inside the grocery store with my mother’s charismatic friend and she’s explaining that the best grapes are the large purple ones with the seeds inside them and they are even better with salt. I remember my dad always joking that for such a skinny woman she was “always fucking eating.”

            I never thought of my family as unhappy. Sure my childhood came with a multitude of challenges but at that stage in my life I thought they were normal problems. The most hellacious task I ever accomplished in my life was learning my times tables. Now keep in mind I’ve always been a “bright” child but times tables just seemed impossible for my eight-year-old mind to grasp. My father gave me from the time it took him to go to the store and get another beer and come home to memorize everything from 1 x 1 to 12 x 12. Needless to say between my nerves, the fear of gettin’ a beaten, and triumphing third grade math I failed and was ready to meet my maker. I walked into our downstairs den attached to my parent’s room and prepared myself for a one-on-one confrontation with my father’s extension cord. But to my surprise my mother was sitting on the couch. She listened to my pleas for mercy because I was trying my best. For the very first time I cried on my mother’s shoulder and she warded off my impending throttling, as my father raged in the background “can you believe this shit!”

            One afternoon during a routine investigation I discovered some pictures of my mother in a metal box under her bed. They were in a neat stack beneath her gun with its pink grip. The photos were various images of seemingly random parts of her body. As I continued to stare my mind finally allowed me to make sense of the illusion. My mother’s perfectly hued golden skin was blotched by rabid, bloody flesh.

            I learned later on that week when my mother sat my sister and me down that they were getting a divorce. I asked about the photos and she told me, in her unceremonious way, that he wrapped his fist in a washcloth, lit it on fire, and beat her with it. At the time I thought this was an odd reason for my parents to get a divorce because my father doled out discipline unabashedly. Being beaten on a regular basis was as normal in my house as Sunday dinner. 

            As a child I’ve always applauded my mother for having the strength and courage to walk away from a life she so desperately wanted to be functional. But now as an adult I wonder why she waited so long and if there were more details to the events of that night. As the expression says “there are three sides to every story: his, hers, and the truth.

--Jasmine Dawson