Tasty Tales of Transformation

  His eyes felt heavy, their lowering lids pulling down the weight on his shoulders. It was only ten minutes before his next class, so why was he stuck here in one of the campus corridors counting the passersby like sheep? Things would only be more stressful if he didn’t hurry. But he was wistful, and this hallway had been his sanctuary these first few months of his freshman year. Shifting his posture on the table to keep himself awake, James continued observing the crowd as if watching a play he longed to be a part of. Every person carried a story far more interesting than his own and carried themselves with a sureness he could never find. Searching within himself or planning ahead wasn’t his forte—hell, his working degree in marketing was a decision made on nothing more than a gut feeling. He seemed content wasting away as he had through High school, barely scraping by while wishing someone or something would sweep the rug out from under him, causing him to fall into the arms of a be

  Time seemed to slow down as Batu’s exhaustion hit its peak. Eyes surveying the veil of heat rolling like waves on the horizon, it felt ironic that this was one of the few formative choices he had made in life. He wouldn’t dare ask the others in the party, but it was apparent that they were lost. Lost in an unending desert that showed no signs of forgiveness. He asked himself for what felt like the hundredth time, “Why did I join this caravan?” The question felt profound, so unyielding it felt easy to blame it for the pounding in his head. But no, that was the unbearable heat. A more appropriate question may have been why he had stuck it out so long, a year having passed with many journeys under his belt. Men of all sorts from across East Asia came and went within their group, only a handful of veterans sticking around as the core. Their histories were unknown to Batu, but they were an unsavory group, beaten down and made angry by a life spent in hostile environments transporting the