Delusion A Collectio of Tale fro Your Trul B : Shafie Towhi

Table of Contents: 1)Artist’s Statement (pg. 1) 2)A Rainy, Late Night’s Stroll (pg. 2-9) 3)The Painting, A Knockoff?? (pg. 10-15) 4)Limbo (pg. 16-22) 5)Humility, or Something Stupid Like That (pg. 23-24) 6)Writer’s Notebook Section (pg. 25) 7)Blurb

Artist’s Statement: Delusions, the chapbook, is exactly meant to be everything you’re assuming it is to be reader. This very book is simply just a collection of a few fun stories that I’ve had the grandiose time of just thinking about. The book isn’t meant to be taken too seriously at times, and at other times, I hope you’re ensnared in my writing. For a better understanding, view this book as if I, Shafiel, am having a conversation with you. Maybe we’re sitting together right now by the window in a little, humble coffee shop having a nice conversation over brunch, something along those lines. The words on the page are meant to be read aloud, enunciated clearly from the deep recesses of your voice box. Take a little moment, and read aloud to yourself my words that I’ve placed in front of you. Only then would you understand my intentions in creating this book, in telling you the stories I want to tell, in simply just trying to have a conversation. Take my words into your head and hear me speak them to you, as then we’ll be delusional together.

Shafiel Towhid 9/19/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction A Rainy Late Night Stroll The smell of rain is called petrichor. It permeated my world: a blessing from the soil unto my nose, a marker of my sanity. In a world of complete silence, it was all that kept me grounded. Losing my phone, yeah, that sucks. Maybe I’m stupid, maybe I’m butterfingered, maybe I’m a victim. Did I care then? No, no I didn’t. I just wanted my phone back. Why is Apple so useless? No, of course not, it was just me, right? Isn’t this all of my own accord? Like, look: it had to be my pockets, of course, my dumb, loose pockets. It was because of that! It had to be! But then… Well, if they were my pockets, on “my” pants, wouldn’t this mean that all of this hubbub in this all encompassing thunderstorm, was just My fault? Where in this damn, damp, over-fucking bearing rainstorm is my phone? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shafiel Towhid 9/19/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction I hate running. But that night I became a trackstar. Maybe Usain Bolt can run, but he sure as hell wouldn’t break the sidewalk “speed limit” like I did. 15 times. 15 grueling rotations of running the same streets over & over & over again. I practically have that route memorized. There was no nook or cranny that could evade my eyes. In the deep pitch of the world, in all that was quiet and yet so, tranceful, I felt rain. Not the rain you’re thinking about, no, just “rain.” The idea, the concept that comes to you when you think of the word, your feeling. Petrichor: in the fresh AC wind you maybe can even smell it. The cool breeze, a blue-toned world, with the purest, crispest lines that ensnare your eyes. In the deep pitch of the world, this feeling of rain filled my body as I continued my search. A cold, pure emotion throwing, moving me forward. I was not filled with thought, or if I was, it simply was no more. As I felt just as a bug would have felt then, there was just nothing in my mind but one desire to find my phone. I scoured the same streets again and again, from trash can to trash can, dirt pile to dirt pile, just looking. From a bird's eye view, was I really that different from a cockroach, you know, the meager little bugs that run around your walls, the ones stinking up the place? Yeah, those bugs. Is that Kafkaesque? I’m pretty sure he said something about making a man a bug or something, right? I don't know, I forgot what it means. Oh well. I just need to get back to my phone. Just in any way. In this glistening, dewy, dark world.

Shafiel Towhid 9/20/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction I checked under the 2007 Nissan Altima. I foraged around the nighttime bushes. For a quick moment, I took a pause, & I even looked around in the shit-stained alleyway that bordered Grand Avenue & Vankleek in the solace of malignant mindlessness. If it wasn’t for the pure terror on my face, I would’ve surely been jumped that night. Think about it: a lanky, clearly lost brown kid with no one around him stumbling around the dimmest areas in all of Queens at 3 A.M. at night. From an outside perspective, I was practically lost in that late night, rainy fog. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Although my body may not have shown much, my face was a whole story book. My parched lips showed a clear lack of water in my system, ironic as that is running around in what I believed to be a monsoon. The only area where I could feel water was present was on my forehead, in the sense that I could feel the beads of sweat dripping down. I don’t remember my physical state too well, and you can’t really blame me there either. Would you have done the same if it was your phone? Would you have run the five miles I did instead of me? Would your legs have felt like lead blocks in the sea of doubt that filled your mind? Would the many monsters and beings and ideas and identities and all that makes you “you” have come together to

Shafiel Towhid 9/22/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction simply find a dumb piece of technology? Of course you would have. It’s human nature: that which is yours, you should keep. In a night befitting Edgar Allan Poe, I was nothing but his raven, quoth, “I want my phone back man.” There’s the idea that rain is soothing and all that, the prickle of raindrops meaning a calm day inside, chilling around, relaxing. It wasn’t soothing. I wasn’t relaxed. My mind was empty, yes, all I saw was white, yes. But none of that was because of the rain. I was stuck in my own mental limbo, a man trapped by his own vices, a child with just a bit more than a stolen lollipop. The only thing sweet was the aroma of decaying fruits I picked up in my hourly search of the grocery store parking lot. Now was I acting rational? Of course not, that’s a stupid question, shame on you reader. I was wholly irrational, a crazed beast, prowling his homelands, foraging. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I’m not a big “prayer” guy. God’s probably real and he definitely hates me, what’s new? Doesn’t matter. And I’m not gonna say this night was a changing point in that stance either, I don’t like stories with that cliche. “Oh I saw God’s light that night and he helped me find my phone, but more importantly myself…”, like shut up, who cares? No, I didn’t feel any of that. I felt the opposite actually. I could’ve scorned God for all that he did, all the naughty words and not-nice-to-say phrases in my head, I could’ve told him all of those, but that’s beside the point. That night, I felt as if I met a prophet.

Shafiel Towhid 9/20/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction Abraham. The man’s name was Abraham. About 6’3”, 180lbs, built like an undersized football tight-end, probably played college basketball at some point in his life (most likely in college now that I’m thinking about it). Great guy all around, just a genuine “man’s” man. I wish I asked him for more information about himself that night, who really was he? To me, he’s the closest thing I’ve seen to Jesus. As I was continuously stumbling around the horribly-lit streets, a genius idea came to mind: What if I just called my phone? Wouldn’t the ringer go off? In this quiet of a night, wouldn’t I hear something over the bristling of trees and pit-pat of the rain? It was perfect. I just needed to find a phone, and for once this whole night, not mine. I ran into Abraham as he was leaving this small restaurant that bordered the local fire department, on the corner of Grand Ave & Queens Boulevard. He was just leaving his abode for a few minutes, to pick up a few friends that were going to come over, for what I could assume only would be average late night bachelor activity, the usual. I asked him for his phone to call “somewhere”, as pedestrians late at night in unkind territories do. He obliged, and I called gingerly on a phone for the first time in what felt like a millenia. No call. Only ringing. No call. Only ringing. No call, only Ringing.

Shafiel Towhid 9/20/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction As I believe the original Abraham would have done, Abraham asked me just where I was as a lost “traveler”, as if I were one of those pilgrims going to pilgrimage, awkwardly lost in the miasma of a bad journey. And just as Abraham would have done, in the blink of an eye, he decided to help me search for my phone. Late at night, in the dead of the sun, I wasn’t alone. There he trekked with me, for hours on end, just searching alongside me. He too took in my fear, my aspirations, my goals. Not one word out of his mouth was dispiriting, every single syllable was meant to push me forward. He would not let me accept my reality, and for that I thank him. In the beginning, I believed he was just in a drunken stupor. There was no fathomable way that a man would just come to me in the deep of night and just help me. Right? Like, he had to have an ulterior motive, right? The first few ones that came to mind were kidnapping, and then murder. And yet, I didn’t see any white vans (aside from the parked ones we searched under), and yet, I didn’t see any knives or guns. Maybe it was a lack of what I couldn’t see, whatever it was hidden in his pockets alongside his phone. Now you can call me ungrateful all you want, but I even started having inklings that it was he who stole my phone in the first place. After a certain point (which I believe to be 4:30 A.M. or so), I just wanted someone to blame, someone who wasn’t “me”. Someone who wasn’t a dumbass, someone who didn’t drop their phone, someone I wouldn’t ever, EVER, remember.

Shafiel Towhid 9/20/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction I remembered at least to thank Abraham for that night. It wasn’t that I wanted to remember him, I didn’t want to remember anything from that damn night. It’s more that, as a Stuy kid, I biologically remember this stuff. Abraham is and always will be a man that will be ingrained in my head. I’m going to give you an above-average metaphor reader, get ready. In a few sentences, your mind will obviously be blown. Exploded, shattered into a million pieces. Kaboom! Trust. Wallahi. Your brain matter will literally go the whole nine yards, and don’t you dare doubt me. I won’t allow it. Anyways, here’s the metaphor. Now, imagine an open book, no words in it, completely empty. Wait no, run that back, that’s too good of a metaphor to shoehorn in just right now, trust me, I should probably rephrase it. Reader, let me read your mind for a second. I know it’s 0 but I might as well piece it back together (something, something Humpty Dumpty joke, put it together yourself reader, don’t make me do all the work), but this conclusion is going to be amazing. Look: Abraham was in a sense the first reader of this very essay, as I compiled to him every complaint, every bitching word, every single withheld idea and emotion, just as I did in the drafts of this essay. Abraham kept me calm that night. Not sane, but at least calm. I wish I could’ve thanked him more for that night, but the past is a bygone, and there’s not much use in crying over spilled milk. We didn’t end up finding my phone, but that night I did find some humility. The act of just placing your life on hold, to pick up on the trials & tribulations of another, that I feel

stood out to me. As my mind was then just a blank page, it was Abraham who wrote down my first few words.

Shafiel Towhid 10/20/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction The Painting, A Knockoff? There’s a serene beauty to silence. All is quiet and peaceful when the general masses shut the fuck up. There’s a reason humans fight for peace: so they don’t have anyone lying to their faces (albeit for politicians, but at that point it’s a part of the job). People hate it when someone tells them what to do; The soldier doesn’t necessarily love committing war crimes, but his commander sure does. Hell, I’m a perfect example: Ask my mom if I was rotten growing up… you wouldn’t really get a nice answer. Like, I genuinely despised listening to people. Personally, I feel like I’m God’s greatest gift, that's just an absolute. Like… nothing could ever harm me, right? I’ve thrown my fair share of punches, and I’ve received them too. To the gut. The sternum. There’s this one place, the solar plexus, get hit there and you lose all oxygen, free of charge. I’ve been hit there too. Middleschool was wild, yeah, don’t worry about it. Yet, even through all these punches, I’ve still grown obviously. Joseph Kim, I hated that kid, the most annoying midget you’d ever meet, trust me. That loser would talk all this crap right, with all that “I’m the real [insert racial slur]”, and “where yo momma at?,” (as the average Queens hood-rat would do), as if I wouldn’t drop him if he went even near sight-seeing distance from my mother. Well, that plan never came to fruition. I didn’t really need to drop him, COVID did it for me. This Joseph Kim, well, he wasn’t really all that. Metaphor time, Joseph Kim was a bitch, akin to a chihuahua barking way more than they could bite, although Joseph did do his fair share of biting (Scooby) snacks and all that. Anyways, after one round with COVID, Joseph collapsed, like the great Colossus of Rhodes (and yet still a loser), and I myself declared “victory”. Now, being me, the obvious greatest creation to grace this very planet since probably Jesus himself, well, I felt invincible. Well, that's also wrong. I knew I was invincible, it was just another absolute on top of me being the tallest & coolest person on Earth. I was God’s strongest fifteen-year

Shafiel Towhid 10/20/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction old, and to me he gave his silliest battles. Now, with Joseph Kim out for the count, it was time for Shafiel to step in. Honestly, during the beginning of the pandemic, I genuinely tried catching COVID, maybe to prove a point. To some degree, I found it funny, allowing myself to purposefully catch the Black Plague just to then laugh at the ills of Joseph Kim. There’s the stereotype that Asian people are simply comparers, masters of not-so-sweet similes. It’s completely true. I compared myself to Joseph Kim oh so much. To “beat” him at his own game (that I made up myself), I decided it was time for me to step in. I had to catch COVID. This momentous task, placed upon me by God, was going to be a struggle, and I chose to be David. Wait no, my journey would be more akin to Moses in a sense, as the first thing I did when I got up was split my hair into two parts, and brushed with a comb through a different set of waves. As usual, the toothbrushing continued, all the while I contemplated the enormity of just what I was starting on. The water splashed onto my face (skincare) as I stared off into the distance (of my bathroom window, I remember seeing a homeless person vomit for some reason, Queens is crazy) and I started planning out my mental map of the adventure. What’s the best way to catch COVID? I remember hearing it was airborne right?, Like I’d get it through snot or spit or kissing (though I didn’t really need to worry about the third option), and that would be it yeah? So, now where was the most packed area I could go to? Well that was a stupid question on my part, my fault, as after all, I did live in New York, the Big Apple of course. But that's the thing, at this point, it was more the Big Compost- no? Big Mulch? I don’t know, none of these metaphors are really that funny, so I’ll get to the point: New York was the Big Shithole. Akin to a toilet, the city wasn’t really all that. It seemed spotless, shiny, empty, and smelly. I had a better chance of actually catching COVID by

Shafiel Towhid 10/21/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction licking the damn toilet bowl itself (I’m pretty sure that was a Tiktok challenge or something too), and even that was too much for my pottymouth, please excuse my language. And yet, fittingly enough, it was when I took my mid-day dump that my magnum opus came to me. Times Square. It was perfect. The most rancid, vile place in all of New York. If Queens is considered the “melting pot” of the city, Times Square would be like the guts you threw out of the chicken before putting it in the stew: slimy & full of foreign bacteria that just multiply all over the place (Yeah, I saw some people doing the tee-hee there when I was around seven or so). That area was covered with filth and gunk and trash… and wasn’t even Staten Island! Anyways, I just had to go to Times Square right? If the pandemic was really as bad as it seemed, I would assumedly catch COVID immediately after I left my house and boom, it would all be over, yes? Foolproof plan I know, after all, I did think of it. So I wiped my bare bottom and began my quite questionable journey. Now, I thought I was a smart guy. Einstein or some nerd philosopher said (if I correctly remember) “The smart man doesn’t call himself smart”. I did. I was the smart guy, Einstein was the nerd. I was also the smart guy, the type teachers would call “alecks” or “wise guy”. There’s oh so much fun being petty, as I’m sure you all can tell from this very essay so far. Stomach emptied and hands unwashed, I stepped foot into the R train carriage as I continued forth with my pilgrimage. It took 16 stops to get to 42nd-Times Square, and by the time I arrived, it was well into the late night hours when the hoodlums and hillbillies and all those who strayed from the yellow brick road(train?) come out. I felt so powerful, going so far just for a dumb joke. If I had the commitment, the spunk, to go out this deep in the deep of the night, I had to be the most confident man on Earth.

Shafiel Towhid 10/24/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction I felt like the only man on Earth. I said earlier in this story that there was “a serene beauty” to silence, and then, standing in Times Square all alone with nothing but my thoughts (and gigantic ego), I understood what I genuinely meant. The closest comparison I have to the mood I felt was a void, or vacuum. It was as if all life was sucked out of the world. I completely forgot about trying to catch COVID as I began looking at the hulking behemoths around me. They were all beaming with light, shooting off into the sky cloaked in all the bright, neon lights of the latest ad commercials. In a world empty of sound and sun, my eyes were filled with light. I see the world largely through “frames”. The outer limits of my vision give form, a shape, to the size of the page I see. I view my world as not much but a grandiose sketchbook, with the outlines of peoples and buildings and life inking up the pages on my cornea. The very lines on the desk you may be sitting in right now, the lines themselves that designate your desk as a “desk” to your perception, are all the baselines in a portrait in which I would put color into. Look at the ceiling, at the windows, at the people next to you, at yourself. It’s all just lines and color, given form and shape and perception from our minds taking these values in so. Times Square was deafening. Death? No, I was simply taken, maybe not in the sense of just my breath obliterated, but also in pure reverence. It was a feeling I haven’t felt in a while, similar to what I would feel in my youngest years thinking about the possibility of just what’s to come. A moment, a pause, truly in what I felt just what it was to be.

Shafiel Towhid 10/25/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction The world was and always will be a portrait to me, and Times Square is my Mona Lisa. The world, the frames on the wall, the genuine blocks on skyscrapers that display to me an LED world all divulged together to create a genuine masterpiece. Every turn I took in that deep blue night, I was not dark, I was not lost of light – in the pitch blackness of night in which I was consumed by, the world was quiet and lit. Homely? No. It was surely venerable, though, walking around in empty space, no sound, all just my world to explore. There is a saying that the world doesn’t revolve around you. From my experience, it clearly does. Times Square was completely empty, void of all human life aside from the models that lit up the world with their overpriced smiles, and me, of course. I would make a joke about rats scurrying around like their human counterparts during rush hour, but even they stayed in their hidey-holes. I spent a full four hours just taking in the pure NYC experience, being a tourist in my own damn city. The idea that I was seeing a once-in-a-lifetime thing wasn’t really kicking in, or if it was, I didn’t fully grasp it then. I could continue this essay speaking about the eerily silent shops that surrounded me, or the clear lack of Elmos and Marios bugging me, or even the absurd absence of all that is green and not the Hulk. Hell, I definitely could talk about that absence of green, as not even the billboards plastered atop my concrete columns displayed any of that leafy hue. Ironically enough, in Times Square of all places, it was funny how there was no leafy shit either, but hey, I’d rather not be so loud in such mutedness. I decided then that that day, I had to experience all my visions completely sober, not one puff near me for the time being (even though now that I think about it, it most definitely would’ve helped me on my journey of catching COVID), and for that, I thank myself. As I’m able to recollect fruitfully – remember genuinely – I honestly do not have much left to say. I unfortunately didn’t catch COVID then, I’m sorry for leading you on reader (although, if it makes you

Shafiel Towhid 10/25/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction feel any better reader, I can confirm I caught COVID twice after, each time also obliterating my lungs in similar fashion to Joseph Kim, and for that I know now truly I’m victorious). After those very uneventful yet eventful hours, I took the R train home. I remember completely knocking out on the ride back, as all was taken out of me in the half-day or so I took to explore the “core” of New York City. To be deadass, I can’t fully promise you just how much of my story is real and how much is fabricated. I awoke from that nap thinking I just came back from Dreamland, and that I had done fuck-all all day aside from just wake up. To some degree, I don’t even know if I genuinely went to Times Square – I could have just completely whipped up this day in my memory. In a painting-sense, for all I know, I could just be the owner of a Monet knockoff. Funny enough, there’s a small inkling in the back of my mind that maybe, just maybe, I was loud, and maybe this very essay was just the grand delusions of an ADHD mind on just a bit more than Adderall. Perhaps in my drunken stupor, or in an effervescent high, or maybe just in a rush of pure adrenaline, I had made myself a story worth telling. What if I was the pathological liar and the victim? That would be funny. In a city, that as the cliche goes, “never sleeps”, maybe this whole story was just completely untrue; That as you now, the reader, have fabricated the “portrait”, a mental image, I gave to you all cometh from a sweet lie. To be honest, I don’t know all that, I just have to hand this essay in. ;).

Shafiel Towhid 11/21/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction Limbo I killed a bug the other day, flushed it down the drain in one fell swoop. In all honesty, I felt indifferent to just what I did, indifferent to the four seconds or so it took me to turn on the faucet, and the next five seconds it took for the bug to get swept away in warm-ish water. The three calories it took to end that cockroach were three calories that I didn’t care about, and yet it made all the difference for that damn bug. Buddy was probably hungry, or thirsty now that I think about it, and I gave it oh so much more water than it wished for. The sixth of a minute it took me to wash my hands was the very same sixth of a minute that dictated the death of that roach. Einstein talked much about the theory of relativity: “the more massive an object, the more it warps the space around it.” In the fair few milliseconds I brushed my teeth, all that is for at least one creature ended. Do the hands I call mine truly have so much power? Is my world really bigger than that of a bug’s? There’s that saying that your life flashes before your eyes before your demise, and in all honesty it could be true. A recollection of every memory, every experience, played back one last time through the vast universe contained within the borders of a miniscule insect brain. The echoes of a once past life, forever repeating over and over, like the broken cassette tape that rewinds every time it hits midway through the film. To “live on forever”. Limbo.

Shafiel Towhid 11/23/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction Walking around the world, in the confines of a brick & mortar building, lazing up and down the hallways. Existing, but no purpose. I see them around the hallway a few times, a few talking stages and a few friends I don’t know anymore like that. It feels like there's more than just a glass wall that separates us, a gut feeling brewing in the pits of my insides, anger? No. It’s like having butterflies in my stomach, but the logical conclusion of it. Once the butterflies have laid their eggs and enough time has passed for us to not have those talks again, I can feel the larvae in my stomach. Gnawing, eating away, and I, their host, the only one left to feel the consequences of my actions. My Limbo. My father is a humble man, but that’s not really the best way to put it either. Through the endless decadence of life, my father has been humbled. Growing up in a small farm in Bangladesh to the rich fields of a prosperous plantation, he’s seen the many, many sides of money. On the days he grew up hungry, without a morsel of bread or a grain of rice, he kept calm, telling himself one day he’d have it all. And yet, when he had it all, a wife to love, a son to raise, a house to abide, and a few acres of land to cultivate, he told me just how much he despised it. With prosperity came fear, With prosperity came sin. My father was consumed with pride, as he now had a family to be proud of. He became greedy, fighting day in and day out to give my mother and I stability that he only could wish for. He was overcome with lust, not for any sexual needs, but for the love & admiration one wishes for from their own

Shafiel Towhid 11/25/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction ménage. My father envied those around him, the men and women who had more money than they could ever flaunt, those who had to just worry about the clothes they wore in the morning and nothing else. He became a glutton for information, as a man who runs a small textile business needs all the ideas & innovations he can get to grow bigger. He’d take out all his anger in silence, as I’d often catch him standing outside in our front yard solemnly looking at the moon nightly. I asked him then, “why, why do you do this every day Aba?”. He would always answer me, “For you son.” And I, the sloth, would pay him no attention, and scurry off into the darkness of my room, and fall to sleep, dreaming. My Father’s Limbo. Do I really even think anything anymore? It feels like I do. I can feel the neurons firing throughout my brain, every small self-deprecation joke, or the occasional wave of feeling like shit. I would take IQ tests growing up, not because my parents wanted me to, or even to prove a point. I just wanted to see if everything up there was really functioning, that the pieces actually clicked together. My grandmother would talk to me about living a long life; the joys, gifts, and wisdom that comes with a plentiful existence. She never saw the horrors it gave to her, she never even understood them.

Shafiel Towhid 11/28/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction I saw a woman break down. Not in the crying sense either, as I only cried after. I saw her forget, forget the grandchild she helped raise. Forget the daughter, her daughter, she kept tucked under her arm as she ran away from the Pakistani “demons”. I saw her forget the people she gave a meaning, a life, to. All the countless moments she took out of her day to just prepare another bowl of rice, another plate of dal, to feed the homeless beggars she saw shunned out of society. My last memory I have with her was her fucking up my name. To the woman who gave me a face to go by, a name to call myself, I’m sorry I had to watch you forget me. My nani (maternal-grandmother) in her last few days would sit by the windowsill, looking at the birds and observing the little pond that sat way-side to our humble cement abode. I would often catch her staring at the young village boys & girls that would wake up early in the dark blue morning to go to primary school. She would always remain quiet, as if she were watching the Genesis of mankind. I would always sit by her, as even at the young age of eleven, I understood nothing was really permanent. Hours would go by, and we would do nothing but sit together quietly, just observing. I have an inkling now as to why she would do that. My nani had to have been jealous, and understandably so. I believe envy is a core part of what makes us “us”, and my nani was none the contrary. She envied those who were youthful, those who were “living life”, those who had a life left to live. I can only wonder how long she thought these thoughts, letting them brew and simmer in her subconscious for days, weeks, months, years. An eternity to her, as a pastor would say, “a woman caught in her own vices.”

My Nani’s Limbo. Shafiel Towhid 11/29/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction My mother has been a stay-home-mother for the past twenty years. Married off in 2002, and given a double-edged sword in 2005. She says she loves me, but her joints creak otherwise. She’s cooked enough to feed thousands, but I hear her stomach growl late at night. My mother’s a religious woman, but I yell at God for not giving her better. Ensnared in the politics and toxicities of a South Asian household, I’ve seen her lose 45 pounds over the years, and she hasn’t spoken a word. A fight against the impossible, the giving of your own life constantly to others, a selfless selfishness. The mentality it takes to brace yourself against the world is nigh-insane, to adopt a mindset that allows you to forever give up yourself for the life of another. My Mother’s Limbo. The very thoughts I’m typing in this essay I’m taking for granted. To perceive, “িচ া করিছ”, “to think” in my home language, it’s a privilege not given to everyone. Even now, my dadi (paternal grandmother) lays in the ICU, neurons firing only so hard. Her mind has been plagued with encephalitis, an inflammation of brain tissue, and it’s scary watching her talk. I see in the video calls I call her nightly that her mind isn’t truly affected, as she still has a sense of self. It's more that her body is starting to break down, at age 82, leaving an honorable woman trapped in her own body.

I wonder what she’s thinking about. Plastered to a beeping monitor, every pulse on the screen a reminder to her the futility of her own life. Surrounded by friends and family, and yet all they ask for is forgiveness. I’ve separated myself from religion years ago, as I’ve started to hate the selfish intentions behind so many of our human actions. My dadi is dying, and all everyone asks her to do is forgive them. Shafiel Towhid 12/1/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction Surrounded by droning mantras of prayers and tears, it must be hollowing. Everyone around you, those you’ve held close to your heart for decades, those who make you “you”, all expecting you to wither away, getting their last words in more for their sake than yours. It must be fucking heartbreaking. Caged to a bed, in the precipice between life and death, trying to comprehend, trying to simply “be”. My Dadi’s Limbo. My night last night was eternal, extending on forth forever. Infinity is an unimaginable concept, “perpetually on-going,” and yet every one of you has a memory you remember being in continuously. A loop playing in your brain, like that one song verse persistently echoing on & on in the recesses of your cranium. I felt entrenched in the miasma of the air, the daunting realization I was at the airport for what may be the last time I see my father as he is. The man who I call “Aba”, will return to me a warped man. I’ve never really thought about parental loss like that. Last time a family member died was my nani, back in ‘17, but even then I was too young to fully comprehend the concept of a goodbye. He stood by on one mission: to see his mother, one last time. Yet, with the state my Dadi is in right now, I know I’ll see a changed man when my father returns. Just seeing him at the airport was indicating enough: He was pacing back and forth quietly, beads of sweat

beading, the sunkenness in his face even more sunken. I already saw the beginnings of the hollowing of a man, and I have yet to see the hollow after the pain of inevitability . Limbo, Forever. Shafiel Towhid 12/2/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction Even now, as I sit in class typing this essay, trying to pass the class time occupied only by the voice of a droning sub, lost in the intricacies of my brain, I stay wondering. I’ve fallen deep into my dome right now, in that endless miasma that spreads all around the caverns of my dome, trying to futilely piece together the ideas and stories that make me “me”. I’ve fallen into that habit of daydreaming, passing the time minute by minute, until I realize it’s been hour to hour. The thousands of thoughts that flowed through my mind, the glimpses of those I’ve at least thought I’ve loved once, the people I’d rather say sorry to now than hello, keeps me lost in the vastness of my mind. I’m skittering around the crevices of my cerebrum, milking my thalamus of all the imagination it may give me. I’m a parasite to my own mind, stumbling around in there trying to find the next few words to put in this essay, or planning the key words and phrases I’ll use later in the day whenever I talk with a friend. I’m ensnared in my own little infinite cycle of trying to find what’s next, day-in and day-out. “An uncertain period of awaiting a decision or resolution.” “An intermediate state or condition.” Limbo.

Shafiel Towhid 12/14/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction Humility, or Something Stupid Like That Should I feel humbled for the life I’ve lived? It’s a serious question. Should I, as I forever contemplate, feel any sort of modesty for what I’ve made for myself? It’s not much of a stretch to say I don’t have all that much to my name, especially as of right now. I’m at the restaurant, posted with the gang, laughing along with the rest, but alas, I’m not paying any part of the bill. When everyone starts chipping in together, matching one another, there I am unrightfully taking in “my share” of the fun. Without a single gram of my effort put in, I reap all the benefits of my people. Now look, you can call me a leech. You can call me poor, or cheap; Hell, call me something else entirely, I just don’t care, they’re all true. Do I feel any remorse over being such a cheapskate? Fuck no, of course not. My wallet flows with wads of unimaginable amounts of cash, in the sense I can’t manifest, imagine a few bills into it. My net worth rivals my GPA, with a solid three dollars and twenty cents to my name. Now it’s not much to brag about, but nothing comes into fruition without hard work placed behind it. If I really tried, I genuinely believe I could make that number even lower. It takes a man to admit his bank account numbers to the public. It takes a Shafiel to laugh about them. If I had humility, I wouldn’t say I’d be able to “laugh” about my bank account per se. I'd surely giggle along if the topic were ever to be brought up, sure, but that’s really the end of it. If I were humble, I feel that the 808s I blast in my headphones wouldn’t be as punchy, the synths and waves not as groovy. My smirk wouldn’t be as devious, my hair wouldn’t be as poofy. My “character”, the Shafiel you all know (and hopefully love), wouldn’t be as much of a character. All’s that to say, I feel like this lack of humility is a core part of what defines me.

Shafiel Towhid 12/15/22 Ms. Pohan Creative Nonfiction Look, just because a person isn't humble doesn’t mean they’re on the total opposite end either. Like just because I’m not Principal Yu doesn’t mean I’m Moran you know, that even if I’m not Yang, I don’t have to be Yin. However… I choose to be prideful! It’s a core sentiment that keeps me moving on forward. I wake up every morning ready to be “head-ass”, a saying I’ve come up with. Now you might be wondering, “oh, so what does this ‘head-ass’ mean?”, and fret not, I’m here to explain. When a person has their head up their own ass, a human full of themselves, that is what it means to be “head-ass.” I choose to be headass, I choose to be grand! Now why do I do this you wonder? Why do I take such pride in being prideful? Why do I admit to being “head-ass?” It’s simple. Life is so much more fun now that I’m my biggest fan. There’s that one Kanye tweet: “sometimes I be talking straight to the mirror just to talk to a real one”, and I understand that one, truly. Who’s gonna be there when I’m all by myself, bored out of my mind, to help me become not-bored? Me, the fuck! Who’s gonna be the one to clean my dishes after I make a crazy omelet when my parents aren’t home? Me again. Even in the wildest of scenarios, in worlds devoid of all life, skies pitch black, all consuming, who’s gonna be the one telling me to take another step forward. Me.

These are the beginnings to the first essay I wrote, A Rainy, Late Night’s Stroll. This was the area where I really started thinking of how far I could take the whole Abraham and religious metaphors thing. It was that exact sentence, “and yet, Abraham was so much more”, that inspired me to go on the 8 or so page babble I did about losing my phone. I also feel like the first line, the thing about being humbled, gave way to my personal choice essay later down the line, as that essay was about humility. Overall, I feel like this was the solid start that I gave myself as a good chunk of writing to work off of.

Blurbs: In Delusions, Shafiel Towhid draws the reader in because of his interesting descriptions, and keeps them there through his expert storytelling. Towhid allows the reader to see the world from his perspective, one of both joy and deep thought. In A Rainy Late Night Stroll, Towhid presents a situation that almost everyone can relate to: losing their phone. After a stranger arrives to help, the reader feels a sense of companionship and an appreciation for those who are kind enough to help those in need. The feeling as if you are there with him coupled with the desire to turn the page and read on make Towhid’s essays near impossible to put down. He expresses himself through his writing, and through reading his essays, I truly feel that I know him better as a person after seeing his perspective on not only losing one’s phone, but life as a whole. If I had to describe Shafiel Towhid’s Delusions in one word, it would be shafiel-towhid. Every line in any of his essays is like a snippet of a conversation I hear from him. In The Painting, A Knockoff?, we get a taste and feeling of his distaste for a specific individual, and as one reads, it’s almost as if they wanted to tell Shafiel something mid-sentence. We get a raw yet refined glance into Shafiel’s inner consciousness as outlined in The Painting, A Knockoff?, his refusal of letting a numbered grade define who he is and his nonchalant attitude to describing his character is the type of voice that needs to be heard on any subway intercom. His prose, and his structure, is his. He doesn’t need a five paragraph structure, the structure needs him. No number on the scale of zero to one hundred or letter grade can show his character. Shafiel knows he is Shafiel, and he goddamn owns it.