Untitled - ScholarWorks Home - California State University, Northridge
Untitled - ScholarWorks Home - California State University, Northridge
Untitled - ScholarWorks Home - California State University, Northridge
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Below<br />
Madelena Montiel<br />
You are in a foreign city where the people speak your language, in a<br />
long narrow room you call home. It is as far away as you can get. You<br />
grew up with the oranges, where the sea was outside every window,<br />
but you came here to study marine biology, to immerse yourself in the life<br />
below, to swim with the dolphins.<br />
At night you ride your bike home from the beach. Along the dirt<br />
road, the locals have put out ruddy plastic bottles of vinegar-water to remedy<br />
jellyfish stings. Small inns line the waterfront - torch-lit, smelling of citronella<br />
and Coppertone, throbbing with house music. Surfers and scuba divers hang<br />
out next to VW vans, trucks and campers. As you pass, a man calls out in a<br />
German accent, "You wanna hang out?"<br />
"Next time," you say as you pass, and when you look back he has<br />
pulled off his shiny black wetsuit, revealing a body, naked and white as sole.<br />
You ride your bike into the city and up a hill to the boarding house.<br />
They say the building once belonged to the country's first prime minister. It<br />
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