“Promise” by Yash Seyedbagheri
Photo Credit: Vitaly Gariev
Promise to judge fiction for the Midnight Marauders contest in 48 hours (they pay $25 per story; rent’s coming soon). Promise your sister, Nan, you’ll critique her story. Promise to take Anastasia to the movies. Promise; it’s the right thing. But promises also give you something to do; they’re immutable, as Mother always says—said.
After offering comments on two stories, Dad calls. You’re in the middle of offering feedback on a third: I love the grocery list’s role in illuminating the narrator’s desires for luxury; but what are the roots of this underlying need? Is it a need for stability that her mother’s abandonment denied her?
He needs you to review a brochure for his realty company. Dictate edits. If he emailed instructions, you could dispose of this in twenty minutes. But he spends ten minutes debating whether the term “sky blue” is cliché. You want to tell him to be decisive, but can’t. You hate impatience; you’ve been on its receiving end. And Dad won’t take refusal for an answer.
Offer suggestions for color nomenclature. Azure. Cerulean. Baby blue.
Then Nan wants to know how fast you can offer feedback.
“Soon.”
Dad calls again; he wants to rewrite that brochure. He’ll call, not late, around nine. He has meetings first, which means looking at porn. Better than dating.
Meanwhile, you have fifty-four Midnight Marauders submissions.
Just as you tell another author This story is suffering from too much felicity. When in doubt, kill the dog, Anastasia asks about the movie. She loves Russell Brand.
The promises have swollen like some balloon, on the precipice of popping. So, you say, “I can’t promise.”
Anastasia crumples; you try to offer comfort. You need to make another promise; Mother would insist. Meanwhile dark relief keeps rushing, rushing, rushing.
Artist Statement
I like to poke holes at various norms and societal expectations in my stories, be it “bootstraps theory” or the battle between ethics and cold pragmatism for job seekers. And in this case, I thought about the idea of making promises. To be frank, while this story is not autobiographical, I did think about the number of promises I’ve made in the past, especially the ones I’ve been unable to keep—with disastrous results. I thought it would be interesting to parlay this idea of promises and the pressures they inflict on the person making them into a work of fiction, and thus, this story was born.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” “Tales From A Communion Line,” and “Community Time,” have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. His work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and Ariel Chart, among others.