Issue 33 | Part 2: The Better Nadine | by Swati Sudarsan photograph by Michel O’Hara
"As Nadine took in the Other Nadine, she was overcome by a near-hallucinatory amount of self-consciousness..." | The second installment of a four-part novella.
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Part 2: The Better Nadine by Swati Sudarsan | photograph by Michel O’Hara
As Nadine took in the Other Nadine, she was overcome by a near-hallucinatory amount of self-consciousness. She could feel the loose hinges of her mouth, yet could not find a way to keep her jaw from gaping.
A bit of drool dribbled down her chin.
“I’m here to help!” the Other Nadine repeated, a bit more forceful this time.
The bleach-white smile remained frozen on her face, the teeth so clean they reflected the glow of her porcelain skin. Her eyes were alert and bright, her nose perfectly unsubstantial.
Nadine knew she should be questioning her eyesight, her hearing, or even her mental stability, but she felt only an unquenchable desire to peer into a mirror, side by side with the Other Nadine.
Was that really how she looked?
She felt a lightness in her knees, like the skin had lifted from her flesh and cold air was running through the gap. Then came a sickening thought: What if she was the type of person who believed everything she was told?
Read Part 2: The Better Nadine.
Swati Sudarsan is an Indian-American writer who grew up in the Midwest. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her work is published in The Rumpus, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Catapult, Denver Quarterly, and The Spectacle, amongst others. She was the 2023 recipient of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Katharine Bakeless Nason Award in Fiction, and has also received funding and support from the Tin House Workshop, the Kenyon Review, Kweli Journal, and more. She now lives in Brooklyn with her black cat Toothless.
Michel O’Hara is a writer and photographer living in Los Angeles, CA. Her most recent poetry can be found in One Art Poetry, The Rising Phoenix Review, The Blue Route, and The Sucarnochee Review. Her photography has been included in exhibitions at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Los Angeles Center of Photography, Lightbox Photographic Gallery, The Curated Fridge and PhotoPlace Gallery. Michel is currently pursuing her M.F.A. in Poetry at Antioch University Los Angeles.
Swim around in Issue 33.
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