Realities of Life: aaduna spring issue excerpts from Flo, James, and Chaya

OK. Let’s get real. 

aaduna contributors grab and hold you; wrap their arms around your shoulders, and travel with you as you go through the twists and turns, ups and downs, roller coaster ride of reading their words, following their themes, internalizing their content.  Here are excerpts from three writers who will engulf you in their creative aura.

Flo Au (photo provided)

Flo Au resides in Hong Kong and has earned two master degrees.  Currently, she is studying for a third graduate degree in Literary Studies.  Interestingly, aaduna will present another story by her in the summer 2017 issue.  To whet your appetite, here is a brief part of the opening paragraph to her piece, “The Motorbike.”

I knew they did not like him. They thought he was unconventional. No, unconventional was a more polite word. They used words like indecent, wayward, abnormal in their conversations. They talked. Not in front of him. Perhaps sometimes. They pretended to discuss their work but when they saw him, their voices subsided into whispers and their eyes avoided his. He knew it was about him then. He was the devil they were speaking of. Like them, he pretended.    

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James Paul Dunlap (photo provided)

 

James Paul Dunlap is a mysterious figure who entices and engulfs when you least expect it.

Here is a brief introduction to his work, “An Evening with Spiders.”

A waitress drops a glass but it doesn’t break.  It only makes a hollow clunk sound.  There is the hiss of human chatter sort of like a wave that is always approaching but never crashing ashore.  The buffet smells of cheap hormone-infested chicken, likely desiccated down to a leathery brown lump.  In the kitchen two people are interfacing in Spanish.  The young girl behind the register blows an amniotic pink bubble which soon pops.  The lighting about the dining area is dim but the restaurant is fenestrated well enough.  And so.  The gray of autumn illuminating the sad faces of the sad people.  These are the things Andrew notices.

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Chaya Bhuvaneswar (photo provided)

Chaya Bhuvaneswar resides in Newton, Massachusetts where she constructs stories that extols the complexities and wonder of human relationships.  Her aaduna editor told her, “Your imagery is so strong that it places the reader in the story, not as casual observer, but as an unnamed character-- just out of view.”  Here is the opening to Chaya’s “The Life You Save Isn’t Your Own.”

By her forty-third birthday, Seema Venkatramanan had almost stopped minding that she had messed up her life. By then her wrong decisions had all bloomed like seeds. They’d flowered into vines that bound her tight, without the titillation of some fifteenth-century naked satyr-nymph, S & M scenario.                                                                  

            First, in college, making the mistake of thinking that she didn’t love him enough, and that they would never be alike enough, Seema had broken up with her tall and handsome white, blue-eyed boyfriend, who promptly found Indian Girlfriend the 2.0 Version – smarter and calmer, with prettier tits and less traditional parents. This decision led to seven years that Seema was alone, followed by a quasi-arranged marriage with an alcoholic engineer who’d been in love with his ex, too, for all the years they’d tried to make it work.

STAY TUNED.   aaduna spring 2017 issue is launching soon!

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aaduna - a timeless exploration into words and images - is a globally read, multi-cultural, and diverse online literary and visual arts journal established in 2010.  Visit us at www.aaduna.org where we put measurable actions to our words.

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