Seasons of Love
by Jasmine G.W.
Diterbitkan Desember 2024
Disunting oleh Anh Thu Truong Nguyen & Fairuza Hanun
Short story collection, 93 halaman
dalam Bahasa Inggris
ISBN: 978-623-7716-92-1
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Tender and emotionally-charged, Seasons of Love presents four stories that dives into the nuances of human connection.
A fairy cares for a romance scriptwriter, who is struggling with dissociation and compartmentalisation. A missing soldier attempts communication with their lost comrade. A grandmother finds herself at a fraught point in her relationship with her teenage granddaughter. A war nurse searches for new meaning in her ravaged home, as she rediscovers human warmth in her unexpected companionship with an orphan.
In this soulful mix of speculative and contemporary fiction, Jasmine GW takes us through the multiple times, spaces and facets of love and inquires the human ‘being’ that requires us to care.
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hello, goodbye
day one
Hello, is this thing on? Okay, here goes. Scouter #113 here and this is a twenty-four hour check-in. Head is intact. Body fully-functional. Right leg broken.I’m currently standing in... somewhere in Jakarta, or what it used to be. All I can see now is sand... and sand... and more sand. Oh, and I found remnants of cans and shredded paper bags. There were no leftovers of the usual brightly colored fruits nor meat or oils - the Scavengers must’ve gotten here before I did.
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There was a landslide. The biggest one I’ve ever seen. I was leading the group when the rocks went tumbling down over our heads. Rocks, dirt, sand. Even now, I can still taste the dust. Ptui! Sorry. Needed to get that out.
I was out for a moment. Then, I awoke. Pain started from my leg and pulsed across my whole body. There were wailings. Scouters’. They were a choir of chaos. It was as if this was their last cries, and they didn’t want to waste a drop of their voice. The cries were of demise at first but they turned hopeful. A second later, I heard them too; Officers’ sirens. I listened. I screamed. They didn’t hear. They didn’t care.
You know this, right? Scouters die all the time. Though as soon as the sirens died and I was all alone, I knew I was no longer a Scouter; I was a dead man. No longer chained, no longer enslaved. I was free, and my possibilities are endless. My leg was still broken, though. I tried walking but when I leaned over to the broken side, my whole body screamed in pain. That’s where my broken hoverboard came to be my walking stick.
My backpack survived, so did Snake. He’s slithering around each pocket, hissing at any rough motion my body makes. I can tell that he’s hungry, but I’m rationing. My growling stomach and ringing head seemed to agree with him. Oh, he’s staring at me now.