It Goes Like This by Shome Dasgupta

It Goes Like This

I am on the brink of extinction—a strange breeze ventures in, a dizzied morning—a duck here and a duck there, sprinkling sounds of beaks which drift away with the ripples, such ingredients for cinematic echoes. A hush, indeed—so tumbling memories—never a stroll, knock upon the back of my skull, but I find ways to never turn around. Incessant taps—I know that familiar pattering, and I know to lift my tongue only to the knitted skies ahead. Oh, that single cumulus—oh, that drifting boat rocking, as if lost but on it goes into an air so naked, I press my hands against my cloth. If I turn around—so if I turn around, ripped and shredded canvases, left with scars for palettes and splintered brushes, frayed with hollow ghosts, mouths so deep, to enter in meant to never come back, and so angelic are the days to lead me to keep walking, however if I stumble, nonetheless to keep leaning toward the duck here and the duck there—such trumpets to dine my weathered throat. I recognize no one but strangers—I find myself in such strange lands where step upon step lead to more unknowns, knowing that is the entrance into fear and I’ve learned to let the fear settle in, to let the fear diffuse through my thoughts because there’s no other way. So such strangers—let them be, let them heal, and I listen and I cry for in the tear of a mother, the voice of a father, a brother’s embrace, the palm of a friend, I recognize myself as a stranger who wants to know more about a song which lifts me from staff to staff until I’m just a note waiting to float away toward the soft of a sky, welcoming and blinding, and I fuse myself and let my eyes stay closed for the possibilities are much like the wing of this duck and the wing of that duck and so I dance on the land of a leaf and let the sun twirl me into a ripple of this pond.

Originally appeared in Ligeia (2022)

The story behind the story:

“It Goes Like This” was written when I was sharing long portions of the day outside—particularly at a nearby park full of ducks and geese. I was feeling vulnerable at the moment, and I realize that much of my flash memoir or creative nonfiction relate to my sobriety, and with it, comes new feelings and thoughts and frailties. These are sentiments I feel regularly upon entering this new life, feeling like a stranger in my own head. The title of this piece and bits of the narrative itself are heavily influenced by Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah”—a favorite song of mine, and it’s one of the few songs that I’ve carried with me from my life before rehab to my life in sobriety.

Shome Dasgupta is the author of The Seagull And The Urn (HarperCollins India), and most recently, the story collection Atchafalaya Darling (Belle Point Press), and the poetry collection Cajun South Brown Folk (Belle Point Press). His writing has appeared or it's forthcoming in American Poetry Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, New Orleans Review, The Emerson Review, Jabberwock Review, American Book Review, Arkansas Review, Magma Poetry, and elsewhere. He lives in Lafayette, LA, and he can be found online at www.shomedome.com and on Substack at@shomedasgupta.

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