There Are Deities in Wilson Library: A Fictitious but Not Untrue Story
Trying to live right is a sick game.
By Srihita Raju with art by Natalie Williams
The Dakota people call the Mississippi River Haha Wakpa or Wakpa Tanka. I’ve lived here my whole life, but never had much of an appreciation for The Big River before coming to campus. Today my father called me to ask if I could file for an extension to pay this semester’s tuition fees. It was higher than we expected. He’s on a business trip this week, and doesn’t have a lot of time, so I said I’d deal with it all. He does something with computers, and thinks I should too. The walk to Bruininks is an anxious but familiar one. At least I get to look at the river.
My bed frame was built by a prisoner. I intern at a local museum, the same local museum I’ve been to many times throughout my childhood. My project today was calling donors to get funding for a community outreach program we want to do. The man who works at 3M donated enough to fund half of it. He didn’t even ask for the theme, which, for the record, was a “paint like Georgia O’Keefe night” for people of all ages. This internship is unpaid, and my parents don’t know about it. They’d be confused about why I’m spending so much time in a position that doesn’t pay me, and has nothing to do with my major. Well, it used to do with my major, but I recently switched from Art History to Economics. Truthfully, I do enjoy some of my new classes, and I’m still minoring in Art History, but I miss having my days consumed by it. Yet, even more truthfully, I have been much more at ease since switching.
Seattle, where the average house price is $750,000, has the third biggest homelessness population in the United States. My aunty lives there, and I visit her every summer. She’s the finance director for a tech start-up, and I think her husband does something with real-estate. I’m planning on visiting them over winter break, so I’m working extra shifts every Tuesday now to try and save up. I was late today because our professor took too long to explain the assignment. But I’m here now, and luckily there aren’t too many customers, although, the tips would be nice.
There are deities in Wilson Library. After work I walked to Wilson Library, and headed down to the sub-basement. The South Asian statues, a part of Weisman Art Museum’s collection, is in an almost humanless room, save a janitor who was wiping down tables in the back. I wonder how they got here? Whoever said stones can’t swim has clearly never been to a museum, I think to myself, smiling in a way that tugs at my lips wrong. The statues are surrounded by books about everything there is to know about the subcontinent. Journals, documents, photographs. In glass, a statue of a Hindu Goddess, hailing from a now demolished temple in India, is captured. I pull out a chair from a nearby table and sit down near her. I used to dream about re-curating the South Asian Art exhibit at the MIA, but they don’t have too many South Asian pieces that aren’t on display. And no new ones, although that’s actually a good thing, I suppose.
I don’t think it is appropriate of me to ask a question for which I do not want to hear the answer to, but I persist.
“Am I a good person?”.
She doesn’t move. Not one way, nor the other.