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Indefinable

There’s a song for this weather, and the tunes can’t be played,

As the instruments and lyrics are unknown.

How is it even a song?

But you’ll find me somewhere along the thought of it.

I’m dancing somewhere in between the header and bibliography

Of your novel.

Trust me, I’m right there.

  I imagine myself an angel without wings,

Only with a wand and eyes half shut;

Bearing the eyes of all animals on its head,

And scavenging the jungle like an elephant.

 Sometimes I walk on the tight rope between the ocean foams and

The desert sand,

While I realize neither do I need tickets for it nor an itinerary for happiness.

 You’ll run your fingers through the fences of your old neighborhood

And it will smell of pines and mountains since it would be raining,

And I will be right in front of you.

With horns on my head and paws in my hand.

I’ll bear wings on my back too, jiving to the rhythm of the wind.

You’ll be fumbled.

 Sometimes I’ll be a freckle on a smooth skin,

A stain on a clean silk,

Or a rose on an infertile land,

And when I’ll be a tall tree in a small garden,

You would run out of words to describe me.

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Rebel Poet

One day he will sing his song.

And the words will drip from his lips,

Ripened with strength.

Strong plants will grow from the seeds

His aging hands are sowing.

He will hold your broken hand

In his mouth like a wolf,

Then tell you what you write is admirable.

He will spin a mountain out of the dust

Your bones turned into.

Then tell you what you are made of is intense.

 And when an oak tree will stand proudly

While flaunting its branches,

He will be its long roots, sinking into the earth.

He will slither to his home deep within the ground

While growing far more

Than the oak tree.

And when he will sit on his throne inside the earth,

One lingering fox will wonder

What’s saving the tree from wilting.

Just like an unruly mob wonders

How a poet can hold their feet captive

While writing from a cave.

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To My Future Self

Yes you,

Hiding under hope.

Come out of the rug.

You’ll suffocate in there.

The emptiness will choke you

And clear your ribcage.

 When I’ll be a gravel lying mercilessly by the mountains,

Spin me into rocks, or

Mountains eventually.

And if my bones start to rot,

Take them to carve sculptures that stand with pride,

Don’t let it rot to dust.

 Make a place for yourself among the sea  

Of fighters with swords,

Battling to reach the mountain top,

With horses and spears.

 I’m sure you’ll call up the cavalry of herons

To lift you on the top

With swollen chest,

Unscathed and undrained.

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To All the Blues

You make a whole ocean;

Beautify the earth’s face,

Separate continents-

The peaceful kind of separation,

Bear the islands; of rocks and snow,

Let the gannets and herons hover over you

Like you are the mother luring them with jewels.

 You reign over the heavenly body;

Glorify the mob of skyscrapers,

Embrace the gleaming lanterns,

Soothe a poet’s soul,

Paint yourself with the cavalry of clouds,

Bask beside the sun that breathes fire.

 You inject your shades into someone’s iris;

And bloom an ocean for eyes,

Make your presence felt in a maiden’s embroidery

Cradle the peonies,

Slither from an artist’s paint-drenched brushes.

 You’re an Alchemist,

A magician,

You’re  blue.

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Of Existence

There will be a time when your soul will be crossing the troposphere,

Forsaking the land where you breathe now;

Like skydivers in reverse.

And you will have wings for hands,

Drifting far away from the war zone that you were born into,

Jiving to the rhythm of the wind.

 So spill the words storming inside you

While the light in your eyes is still unfaded,

And the bones of your ribcage are still unbroken.

Let them glide down-                                                                       

Like an avalanche

Through the quiet mountains.

Cover everything.

Let the silence know that you exist

As fiercely as possible.

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The Sea Dog

SHAH TAZRIAN ASHRAFI

   Daunting slashes of lavender light lit up the moonless night sky that only sobbed loud. The long, azure body of water curled into a colossal arch form with a raging motive of claiming the seafarers. The wooden vessel was under the sea’s clasp, as if the sea grew big hands and thumped its body like it would’ve broken a door to jewels. The rain, the waves, and the lightning exuded the music of destruction and fused together in an attempt to crumble the ship into floating chunks of woods.

“The animals fell into the sea, Captain Francis!!” Ophelia cried as she held onto a pillar while constantly having her head banged against it.

Captain Francis couldn’t hear what Ophelia said as the storm was deafening enough already.

“Everyone rush to the sailors’ cabin now!!” he shouted as some tough veins exhibited around his jugular region while he laced his fingers strongly around the helm.

Ophelia came in minutes after and equipped the captain with some support as she held onto the other helm.

“Where are Morgan, Blackbeard, and the rest?” Francis shouted in Ophelia’s ear as the sea demanded only its voice be heard.

“I don’t think they made it. The cages of zebras, horses, and tigers, they all fell into the sea too!! Ophelia screamed in Francis’ ear as a reply.

Francis’ hand turned numb since he put all his energy into the helm for dodging the waves that didn’t calm. Ophelia, however, kept steering hers with fragments of hopes fastened around her soft hands.

“Captain, I don’t think I can continue. It’s flustering. One wrong move, and we are under the blessings of the mermaids,” said Ophelia while adjusting her iris firm to the window as her forehead painted some lines on it.

“Did Sir Henry make it?” Francis asked while pressing his left hand with the right as an attempt to elevate the numbness.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s still sleeping in his cabin,” replied Ophelia while having her focus firm on the pounding waves.

Francis immediately rushed out of the room to Master Henry’s cabin, as if he brimmed with hopes while Ophelia had her hands glued to the helm.

He held onto the strong pillars and handles hammered to the wooden wall to make it to the cabin instead of letting the motion pummel him down into the ocean like a perpetual succession of fists. 

Drenched and gasping, he loudly slammed Master Henry’s cabin door with a barrel while crying out his name loudly. His white skin turned pink. Suddenly, the ship swayed to the opposite of Francis’ position, and he somehow managed to grasp the cabin’s metallic handle while the barrels along with some broken pillars rammed into the railings. Minutes later, Master Henry opened the door slightly, and his aged voice demanded, “Come in!!”

Francis rushed inside and got on his knees. “We need you master Henry. Only your hands can help us escape this calamity,” pleaded Francis while kneading Henry’s wrinkled skin.

The master stubbed his cigarette on the ashtray while his smile broadened, signaling his consent, as a locket slung from his neck, which boasted the words “Sea Dog” on its rusty metal plate.

“Aid me to the helm, Captain. We have a storm to dodge,” asserted the Sea Dog in the lit of his elderly timbre, as if confidence exuded from his skin.

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Of Lust

Shah Tazrian Ashrafi

Anwar used to roam around the village with a lump of air in his shrunken stomach since the Temples had their doors closed for an aimless gypsy who bowed to no entity. It was raining, and the village smelled of pines and damp earth. Anwar gaped his mouth while gazing at the moonless sky that stood responsible for the midnight downpour. As he sought refuge to a pinewood from the penetrating rain, as if it rained ice cubes, a blood-drenched, rusty knife arrested his attention. Someone had probably left it there. But what was it used for? The question remained unanswered.

As Anwar’s hands trembled, he grabbed the knife so that he could put an end to the mundane ordeal of being a penniless soul. Blinding beams of electricity lit up the sky lavender in short intervals while Anwar laced his fingers tightly around the knife. Before gashing his left wrist, he made a small cut just to befriend the minor pain that was to turn major after he cut it deep. Right then, a cavalry of pigeons flew through the colossal pines as their wings exuded ten fresh Irrams- the currency that boasted the king’s visage and some heavy digits. After remaining immobile in jolt for some fleeting moments, he quickly gathered the notes that were scattered all over the place while blood dripped from his wrist.  He seemed to have forgotten the pain that was harvested in his wrist. As if the pain was there, but his senses didn’t accept it back. As it took quite some time for the raged rain to calm, he counted the Irrams and contemplated whether the cut made it all possible. So he took the knife again, and this time, he didn’t quiver and made a small cut again. The herd of pigeons flew through the pines for another round, blessing him with ten more Irrams that exuded from their wings. Now it was clearly engraved on his head that every time he made a cut, he was to receive some money worth a handsome value.

The next day was unlike every other day when he had to beg under the ruthless sun to quench his thirst and sate his hunger. The fortune he stumbled across the previous night was enough to buy a horse along with a house and a whole day’s meal from the King’s market. Anwar had a roof to rest under and grains to appease his hunger that day. As a week flew by, he ran out of money. So he bolted towards a cave with the fortunate knife. This time, he gashed his legs, and the same pigeons stormed the cave, leaving him 60 valuable notes. As his legs bled like ink flowing from a perforated pot, he tore his trouser and wrapped the cloth on the affected region in an attempt to halt the hemorrhage. The same continued weeks after weeks while he grew weaker. He involuntarily ignored the pain though, as money was more important.

One sultry morning, as Anwar rode on his chalky horse’s back with an elegant attire, a crier’s blooming voice echoed throughout the area,

“The highly esteemed king has decided to renounce his throne. Rush to our gates with 1200 Irrams before the sun sets; for the king would gladly put on your head his bejeweled crown!”

As he tugged the leash of his horse, the hunger to grab the King’s throne drove him to the horse buyers’ market, where he sold his horse for 100 Irrams. The ocean was halfway there to claim the star so he darted home, took out the knife from under his bed and stabbed his legs twice. After that, he drew a long, deep scar with it on his left hand as blood sprinkled from his limbs.

While the pigeons stormed his backyard with the price of the kingdom, he fell to the mosaic floor of his room, and the floor wore his dark blood. As he tried to tear his garment to cease the bleeding, the pain held his nerves captive, and he couldn’t budge anymore. He went numb. His vision became blurry, and he struggled to keep his eyes wide open so that the angel of death couldn’t tear his heart out in wroth for not pledging allegiance to the appropriate deity.

The hourglass implied the passing of an hour since the ocean claimed the sun and the angel of death claimed a soul while a loud voice cried,

“All praise Hamza Ali, our new king!”

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The Novice Fisher Boy

Shah Tazrian Ashrafi

  The Hujur’s strong fingers laced around a hazel bamboo cane were enough to captivate the whole room in half a day long chanting. The pupils in light blue Jubbas and chalky topies exhibited a mob in rhythmic motion while being glued to the wooden benches, uttering holy words in one breath. They memorized the foreign yet familiar verses on a daily basis. And God helped those who failed to recite a page or two while standing on the exhausted stage. Hasan, however, had the privilege to escape the blows of canes from big hands every time, as he volunteered to ache his neck till midnight under the clasp of mosquitoes and tawny hues of a slouching bulb.

Hamza was a gypsy rambling about the village mundanely in a skeletal body. Sometimes he slept on the stony, circular platform under the oak tree in front of the Masjid while sometimes he found solace under the tent of garlands beside the Mandir.

On a sultry Monday, Hasan was sitting beside the once worshiped Haor of his village equipped with a fish net and a hook. It was on the verge of becoming a ruptured land since the sun grew crueler after every rise. So Hasan’s Abba had all the reasons to rise euphoric every time he caught a big fish like Rui or Katla since most of the time, their cadavers floated in the water and all he got were fingerlings. Hasan was fiddling with the hook after placing it in the murky water with a hope of catching a big fish on his first attempt. The Haor was halfway there to claim the sun and no tail dared to trap itself in his hook. So he headed home with a pace rather fast and satiated his hunger with two fried fingerlings hidden under a stack of rice and dense lentil that his Amma served.

“So Rashid was talking about you,” said his Abba while chewing the delicate skeletons of the fries.

“What did he say?” Hasan inquired midway of taking a morsel.

“You’ve been roaming around a lot with that gypsy, haven’t you?” Abba asked in a rather disgruntled tone.

“He’s a nice boy. I find nothing wrong in him,” replied Hasan while lowering his gaze.

His father’s knuckles clenched and veins almost came out of his skin, but he managed to cool down.

“Look, son. You are a smart child, and soon you are to become a Hafiz by the grace of The Lord. It hardly suits you to befriend that aimless soul who bows to no entity. It’s in your betterment to leave his side,” Abba advised calmly and drank some water.

“But..”

“The kids of this village throw stones at him, and the priests spit on him. You wouldn’t want to be his accomplice, would you?” Abba cut him.

But Hasan had a heart to follow. So he ignored his Abba’s words, and after fajr prayer, he went fishing with Hamza, bearing the fishing hook on his back, when the sun was yet to rise. Abba’s voice didn’t float around his nerves as a warning.

“I’m planning to leave this village,” Hamza whispered in Hasan’s ear all of a sudden as they sat by the Haor with the fishing hook on Hasan’s lap and a rusted scuttle on the bit of land forgiven by the grass of its surrounding beside Hamza.

“Why?” Hasan grew bewildered as his left eyebrow elevated.

“The people here despise me, and lately, no one has been serving me food. I’ve been scouring the leftovers from the Mandirs,” replied Hamza while gazing towards the somber sky.

“I’ll serve you food. Don’t leave please,” Hasan pleaded as some lines emerged on his forehead, being worried of Hamza’s plight.

“I know it would be difficult for you to sneak furtively in the kitchen and pass me some food since your parents must despise me too just like everyone else,” he said before bursting into loud laughter.

A cat had gotten Hasan’s tongue then. He couldn’t think of a consoling reply.

“Place the hook in the water. My stomach is shrinking, and it’s inviting a fresh fish,” requested Hamza, “You have prayed to your Lord just a while ago so you might be lucky.” Hamza fussed with it for an attempt of catching a Rui. The hook remained under the water as both of them were lost in each others’ worlds. An hour or so after the sunrise, something was trapped in it, and it was comparatively heavier than what he could perceive a small fish. It was a big fish for sure.

Both of them grew rapturous as Hasan placed the hook on his lap and freed the briskly moving fish. Hamza quickly fished out a compact spade from his muddy trouser and cut its gills. His hands turned crimson as blood sprinkled from inside the lines of its many silver scales, and the fish stopped moving.

“Well done, Hasan!” Hamza exclaimed while his eyes crinkled, and a smile played at the corners of his mouth.

“I don’t know how it even happened. It was only the third time I went fishing,” Hasan replied with a jolt.

At that very blessed moment, Hasan was supposed to be memorizing a fragment of the holy book under the emerald showered Minar of the Madrasa like a balloon inhaling helium. But the joy of catching a Rui made him shun the pain that the canes might inflict.

“Abba and Amma must have gone to the field. Come to my house, and we will fry this fish for lunch,” Hasan uttered with rejoice.

A smile habitually bloomed dimples on Hamza’s cheeks.

After entering the neat kitchen, Hasan put his weight on Hamza’s interlocked palms since his short height made it difficult to take the sooty pan from the rack. Hamza’s white palms turned red, as if it was angry to bear someone’s weight. While Hasan fitted the pan on the earthen stove, Hamza brought a jar of Holud Gura after an expedition to distinguish it from the other spices lined on the rickety rack. Under the blaring sun, Hasan fried ten pieces of Rui, and the lunch indeed was a sumptuous kind for both since each of them devoured five pieces with white rice, watery lentil and dried chilies, leaving its skeletons isolated in the earthen bowl for some cat to feast on them.

Their stomachs bloated after feasting on Hasan’s success, and Hamza looked somewhat odd since an inflated stomach didn’t go too well with a skeletal body. Hasan could fathom from Hamza’s face that it was more of a feast for him since all this village gave to him were stones. As the prayer call was minutes away, they both lay on the grassy lawn behind Hasan’s house for a short nap.

“Hasan, weren’t you supposed to visit the Madrasa today?” Hamza uttered abruptly as the matter suddenly struck his head.

“Yes Hamza. But it won’t bother me for today, at least,” responded Hasan as he winked his left eye with a grin.

“Please forgive me, Hasan, since I can’t save you from the actions they may take against you. If God sits on his throne somewhere in between the clouds, He’d surely bless you. And though I don’t put my forehead on any entity’s feet, I’ll pray for you with whatever godly letters run into my lips,” swiftly assured Hamza while bearing Hasan’s hands, as if he were begging for mercy.

“Calm down, my friend. If it weren’t you, would I be able to catch a fish that big?” Hasan grinned with a pacifying notion that calmed Hamza’s simmering guilt.

“So when are you leaving?” Hasan’s thin voice queried.

“After you catch another big fish before the sunset,” Hamza replied- his smile broadened.

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Cabana And Carafe

Shah Tazrian Ashrafi

  Beams of sunlight collided with our faces while you locked your fingers into mine. Our palms were pressed against each other’s like two galaxies embracing themselves to become one. It was 9 in the morning, and we were heading to the cabana that overlooked the ocean some 3 feet away from our porch. I took off my slides. You were barefoot. After some fleeting moments, we sat inside the cabana with a carafe filled with crystalline wine, just like we did on other holidays. Suddenly, my skin started darkening, and your polished nails turned crimson from sheeny as the cavalry of clouds painted the sky somber, signaling the weather’s incoming rage. Then we headed inside the house as high hopes of enjoying a perfect holiday seemed to leave us like an arrow leaving its prey. We waited almost three weeks for that day. We both loved relaxing under the cabana with carafes filled with freshly squeezed juice on a sun-drenched holiday while the salty oxygen coated our skin.

“Not today at least,” you mumbled as a lump of disturbed air encompassed your edges.

Right then, the callus of my index finger fondled the skin under your lips.

“What?” you inquired as your left eye brow elevated, and lines were painted on your forehead.

“It’s the pomegranate juice stain,” I uttered.

You turned away and pressed your smooth palms against the nippy glass while your eyes stretched to the unfair mob of clouds beseeching to free the sun as a hostage. You were disgruntled. As if it exuded from your bones. It’s acceptable. I understand. Papers and pens had claimed us, and we breathed codes and inks for a month. So we had all the rights to be exasperated.

“Please don’t put on a sad face before I leave for Prague. It breaks me,” I uttered while lacing my hands around your waist from behind. You were still facing the sky, as if you held a long time grudge against it.

“I can’t withstand a month apart from you. Do you have to leave tomorrow?” your voice shrank as your words captivated my tongue while you turned towards me suddenly.

I had nothing to say. Pools of tears were storming behind your pupils as I fathomed.

“I hope the Almighty showers our backyard with pigeons that would turn their feathers into money, and they would never run out of feathers,” I whispered into your ear in a rather distorted voice.

It was an attempt to burst myself into laughter hoping the corners of your eyes would crinkle while an exhibition of pearly white teeth would’ve captured my attention. But you didn’t laugh. Neither did I. You headed upstairs in a rather clumsy pace. You were annoyed.

“Come upstairs, and pray for those pigeons,” your irked voice glided through the stairs from upstairs.

It was about time to take the primary step of finding my way out of the endless chasm of white bed sheet for the next day. The glass staircase turned chilly since it was raining cats and dogs, and I felt like staying awake while packing my bags for the 5 AM flight, but I hit the pillow instead.

An alarm screeched from my left. My blurry vision witnessed your lively face.

“How come you’re up so early?” I inquired.

“I can’t be buried in your arms and forget that you have a flight to catch. Also, it’s not early. You have to get up,” you babbled those words so fast that I had difficulty to fasten them around my ears. And you broke into a piercing mirth after that, filling my lungs with the air of contentment.

“I made you breakfast,” you mumbled from behind while I took the lilac bottle of perfume to envelope my skin with.

You considered that bottle lucky. You didn’t know why. Neither did I.  Maybe your conscience had its own set of reasons.

“Sure. I need to have breakfast quickly or else we might actually have to implore for those pigeons,” I chuckled while kneading your palms.

You chuckled too.

The stars didn’t show up yet, and it was still raining which rinsed the chances of sharing a drink under the cabana for one last time before I left.

“I better find you online all the time,” you hissed into my ear keeping your chin on my shoulder as the chauffeur was heaving the loads through the front door.

I smiled and kissed your forehead before I got into the ebony vehicle, which was under the clasp of rain drops. It seemed like a dramatic scene as the car drifted away from the house, and my eyes were stuck on the porch’s view where you were standing. I couldn’t perceive the image of your face to see whether you had put on a dull face. We both were magnets, and the car was the propelling force that soared our distance until we weren’t magnets anymore. We became two different poles.

One month had flown like an airplane flying across different continents leaving mountains and oceans behind.

It was Sunday. I took my cumbersome bags from the carousel standing before it for 15 minutes. While I proceeded to the exit of the airport, I hoped to see your face amidst the portion of crowd, who were waiting for their relatives. You had texted me you would be there, and we had planned to bask under the cabana until the salty waters claimed the sun. But my iris failed to capture your eagerness to witness my newly grown beard. Mostly, my round face.

As I made it to the exit being bewildered, my skin received a vibrating sensation that was generating from inside the left pocket of my sable suit. I fished it out, and all I could notice was some unknown number ringing. Habitually, I swiped over the green button and…

“Hello, are you Mrs Madaya’s husband?” the feminine voice over the phone inquired.

“Yes,” I replied with a cloud of confusion over my head.

“You need to come visit the town hospital right now. Your car lost its breaks, and your wife needs surgery,” the voice babbled, followed by a sudden hang-up.

My bones began to shiver as if it would’ve cracked like a mountain during an earthquake, and the thin voice over the phone thumped my lungs like it was a thick body’s ritual.  It was all too sudden and difficult to process. I hurried my pace while my legs were still shaking, and when I reached the hospital, you were under the mercy of the machines, entangled with wires that frightened me since childhood. I rested my sweaty forehead against the door, behind which the doctors wore armors to win on a battlefield. Tears trickled down my cheeks as if I were a 5-year-old boy whose toys had just been snatched by his strict father. And I kept screeching until I collapsed.

Two months passed. So did eight sun-drenched holidays.

Now, the cabana is a temple of melancholy, and the carafes are piercing fragments lying on its wooden floor mercilessly while I am a peasant trying to catch the wind that is filled with your pacifying scent. Probably, it’s now crossing the calm air of the troposphere with full pace to infinity like dropping missiles in reverse.

And yes, I am a peasant.

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Not Another Ailing Teen Novel

SHAH TAZRIAN ASHRAFI

   Boasting the #1 New York Times Bestseller tag on its cover, Everything Everything has lived up to the quality it promised. The book has intrigued me with its distinct and “out of the box” storytelling approach. The story mainly deals with love, faith, and the beauty of finding solace in things as they are in hard times.

Scribbled by Nicola Yoon, the story revolves around one 17-year-old Madeline, who has been diagnosed with a rare form of disease called SCID (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency) or “Bubble Baby Disease”, which has unknown triggers with severe repercussions. As the world outside is filled with foreign threats (viruses, allergens, and deadly airborne bacteria) to her compromised health, Madeline hasn’t left her sanitized home for seventeen years. In order for people to visit, they have to endure a thorough decontamination process in an airlock. Her world consists of her doctor mother, Pauline, and her nurse, Carla. As the new neighbors move in next door, Madeline regularly observes them from her window, and her focus typically is more on Olly, the son, who later befriends her while they both bond with each other over IM. As their tie strengthens, Madeline’s desire to risk everything for breathing in the natural world outside escalates, landing her in conflicts with her shielding mother.

The characters have been finely suited as Olly portrays a true lover’s role while Carla sketches the purpose of a fun-loving and supporting nurse. As for Madeline’s mother-Pauline, the character maintains a strictly protective side of a doctor parent, painting herself the main hurdle between Madeline and Olly’s interaction.

The plot augmentation tactic has been subtly constructed by the author as the want of knowing the final outcomes of the heroine’s coveted action keeps soaring. The story’s big plot twist that came out of the blue effortlessly implies the need of doing so to wrap things up easily. The vignettes, illustrations, and charts sprinkling throughout the book appease the readers to have a better insight on Madeline’s fantasy. And the IM format chat sessions that flow through quite a handsome number of pages convey the beginning of a complicated romance between her and Olly to its readers well, fitting Yoon’s lyrical debut novel in a remarkable setting.

Combined with curiosity inducing events and a distinct story-telling, the book will leave you keen for its blockbuster adaptation that has been released on 19th of May, 2017.

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Poignantly Focusing On Cognitive Issues

Movie name: Still Alice.

Release date: December 5, 2014.

Cast: Juliannae Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart.

  Shah Tazrian Ashrafi

 Alice Howland, as sketched by Juliannae Moore, a linguistic professor at Columbia University stumbles across a dreadful revelation that takes a harrowing toll on her career, family and personal life. She perceives the gravity of the budding issue after her 50th birthday, when she forgets a salient word at one of her seminars and further gets lost during a jog on campus. Fretting about such events, Alice decides to get a check-up done, and her doctor reveals that she’s been diagnosed with the early onset of Alzheimer’s, which is appalling in Alice’s case since her age is quite early for the disease. As her memory begins to erode (at a less rate in the initial stage), she constantly challenges herself with word games and many other memorizing exercises, and she sets personal and familial questions on her mobile phone that she answers everyday, which signals her anticipation of losing core memories. The occurrences augment while she keeps getting lost in a rather habitual surrounding, and the story proceeds with the evolving of devastating mental upheaval of the thought of losing her cognitively deft self and personality. Alice finds it quite cumbersome to adapt to such contradictory changes, knowing once she was very quick-witted and linguistically skilled, and now she is just as drained, often feeling foreign in familiar surroundings.

 The film features occasions from Alice’s forgetfulness of petty things to major things, and it induces the perception relating to a wrecking intellectual decay. Some bonding scenes are also witnessed in the film when Alice’s youngest daughter Lydia (Kristen Stewart), rectifies her almost desolate bond with her mother throughout her struggles that impressively becomes the depiction of a stirring “mother-rebel” relationship. Other than that, her husband’s (Alec Baldwin) sympathetic disposition towards her dreadful change is also something that keeps the viewers glued. Overall, it’s admissible that the whole family together conveyed a healthy response which should be expressed by every family members towards such patient to let them feel secured.

 The movie, based on Lisa Genova’s 2007 novel of the same name, helped Moore, who illustrated Alice Howland, earn an academy award that she dedicated to Richard Glatzer(the film’s director) who died of ALS in March of 2015. The remarkable thing is that Richard Glatzer made the movie while going through painful phrases as Alice and resorting to similar aids.

 “Still Alice” is a potentially worthy drama centering Moore’s subtle role playing, adding touching sentiments to the film. It’s going to glue you to the screen for sure since the happenings represent the mundane routine and emotional state of a person who has been diagnosed with an early onset of Alzheimer’s. Someone taking care of a patient who has this disease will note the unusual exhibitions that the film features extremely relatable. In my opinion, no other movie could epitomize the contradictory life happenings of such patient more dramatically and honestly than “Still Alice”, and it’s safe to say that I didn’t find any loose ends attached to this movie. And you too can opine such once you watch it since the plot solemnly focuses on the responses from an Alzheimer’s patient’s surrounding; be it family or workplace.

All in all, “Still Alice” portrays what consequences mental decadence invites and how it impacts the close ones while adapting to a major change. It also puts emphasis on the fact that cognitive disorders aren’t mere myths. They exist and need to be identified positively.

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(via "To an Alzheimer's Child" by Shah Tazrian Ashrafi)

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Leaving the signs of morning before the darkness approaches