Clair Kurt Cepe.docx

CLAIR KURT L. CEPE 7 KINGFISHER

‘The Office of Missing Persons’ by Akil Kumaraswamy (Lit Hub) SLIDE:1 “These young Tamil boys always getting into trouble. They don’t know how to be proper citizens,” the officer said and scratched something on the paper in blue ink. SLIDE:2

Jeganathan remembered his younger boy, Prem, shaking on the floor as they questioned him, his eyes flushed with tears as he cut through the bond of the womb and revealed the trip Jeevan had planned that night with Amutha to the local Shiva shrine, SLIDE:3 and before then all their meetings under the neem tree by the abandoned pharmacy, the way his brother unravelled her braid, tied her hair around his hand like a bandage. SLIDE:4 The officer asked for a description of the missing boy beyond the photograph. Jeganathan lifted his hands and attempted to re-create Jeevan for the officer, SLIDE:5 but under the dim fluorescent light, any conjuring was hopeless. In the end, the officer wrote: 17 years old, 181 centimeters, 76 kilograms, birthmark on right arm.