{"id":3952,"date":"2019-05-23T18:50:42","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T18:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=3952"},"modified":"2024-05-06T01:19:43","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T01:19:43","slug":"black-hole-by-alex-khansa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/black-hole-by-alex-khansa\/","title":{"rendered":"BLACK HOLE by Alex Khansa\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

BLACK HOLE <\/span><\/p>\n

by Alex Khansa<\/p>\n

I pick up today\u2019s paper. There\u2019s a ring of light\u2014bright and blurry\u2014against a black backdrop. Headlines call it the first ever photo of a black hole.<\/p>\n

I know he\u2019d like it. He always had a thing for space, aliens, planets\u2014all that documentary nonsense on Netflix.<\/p>\n

When I see him, I hand him the paper\u2014wait for him to react.<\/p>\n

They tell me he doesn\u2019t remember who I am. His eyes say otherwise.<\/p>\n

They tell me he\u2019s somewhere else\u2014in the clouds, with the stars.<\/p>\n

He brings his index and middle fingers to his lips, inserting and removing an invisible cigarette bud from his mouth.<\/p>\n

And I wouldn\u2019t mind offering him one\u2014what difference does it make?<\/p>\n

But they tell me I can\u2019t do that. I can talk to him, they say. Sing to him, show him family photos.<\/p>\n

In the article, they say the black hole is so dense it sucks everything in, but they don\u2019t know how light escapes.<\/p>\n

And I tell him, \u201cIt\u2019s a mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n

I tell him, \u201cIt\u2019s like the sparkle in your eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

He smiles, and the way he does it, you\u2019d wanna believe he\u2019s smiling with you.<\/p>\n

Then, the article suggests that the light is all the things being sucked in. Never to be seen again.<\/p>\n

And here it comes again\u2014that dull gaze.<\/p>\n

So, I hold his hand. Grip tightly. Wait for that black hole to swallow us into the black pit of our next life.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Fajer Alexander Khansa was born and raised in Lattakia, Syria and Tokyo, Japan. He moved to the United States in 2005, where he completed his studies at USC. His writing has appeared in publications such as Tin House<\/em> and The Normal Schoo<\/em>l. He is a fiction reader for New England Review<\/em> and a 2019 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I pick up today\u2019s paper. There\u2019s a ring of light\u2014bright and blurry\u2014against a black backdrop. Headlines call it the first ever photo of a black hole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[425,359,377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary","category-family-story","category-father-story"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3952"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12889,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952\/revisions\/12889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}