Issue 24 Essays | The Common

The Desire Tree

October 31, 2022 Essays, Issue 24, Issue 24 Essays

By the time the car stops at the end of the dirt road, we’ve been jolting along for an hour. Before us is the banyan tree we have come to see—its giant trunk surrounded by hanging roots, its distant crown shutting out the sky.

It is summer in Kerala, and the world is liquid and shimmery with heat. The roads and fields are parched, waiting, suspended in a burning delirium for the moment the monsoon will break. My aunt Sudha and I have just driven through miles of sun-blasted paddy fields, but the abrupt immensity of the tree makes the light feel shadowed, as if dusk has fallen at noon. A hushed feeling comes over me as the dark, looming presence asserts itself.

Perfect Storms

October 31, 2022 Essays, Issue 24, Issue 24 Essays, Podcasts & Audio

By ALEXANDRA TEAGUE

The Common Magazine · “Perfect Storms” by Alexandra Teague

The Jungle Cruise

My mother and I are on a chlorinated river that’s somehow simultaneously the Amazon, Congo, and Nile, floating languidly so we don’t run into the boat in front of us and “don’t scare the wildlife”: the kind of joke the Disney guide, in his safari hat and over-pocketed explorer outfit, keeps making.

Which One is the Lifeline?

October 31, 2022 Essays, Issue 24, Issue 24 Essays, Podcasts & Audio

By ALEXIS M. WRIGHT

The Common Magazine · “Which One Is The Lifeline?” by Alexis M. Wright

I could tell you,
If I wanted to,
What makes me
What I am.

But I don’t
Really want to—
And you don’t
Give a damn.

—Langston Hughes, “Impasse”

There are two cops from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department standing in my grandmother’s kitchen. We are all gathered around the kitchen island silently negotiating the power dynamics. Two Black women, two White cops. The cops have come to collect the details for the report, but I’m doing most of the talking. Grammy bears witness.

Reading the Ashes

October 31, 2022 Essays, Issue 24, Issue 24 Essays, Podcasts & Audio

By ROBIN LEE CARLSON

The Common Magazine · “Reading The Ashes” by Robin Lee Carlson

I walk slowly, each step sinking a little into the ground. With every footfall, a puff of ash curls upward, dusting the top of my boot and disappearing into the soft stillness of the day. It is a clear day with no clouds, but the air around me has a gentle haze, a film that sometimes resolves into particles, pinpoints of ash in a slanting ray of sunlight. It has been two months since the fire, but the rising ash and the smell of smoke are strong, stinging the back of my throat and settling into a familiar ache in my temples.