EDUSHER

  I still have that rock from Kerala. It’s sitting near my window right now beside an old pen that doesn’t work and a tangled charger I keep promising myself I’ll throw away. The rock is small enough to fit inside my palm. Dark grey. Slightly rough on one side. Completely unimpressive to literally everyone except me. I picked it up during a trip last year after one of those sudden Kerala rains that arrive like someone overturned a bucket across the sky. You know the kind. The roads go glossy. Tea shops start smelling stronger somehow. Everybody suddenly walks faster except the dogs, who continue existing like philosophers. I remember bending down near a riverbank and picking up this random stone because I wanted to “take something memorable home.” Which is funny, honestly. Human beings are weird collectors. We travel hundreds of kilometers just to bring back objects our future selves will eventually dust around. For months, that rock meant nothing. Then one afternoon I was cleaning...