This article has been removed from the Frankly Speaking website at the request of the President of Olin College. The publication team would like to further clarify the circumstances of this removal. 

Why did we choose to publish the article “I Still Believe in Olin”? 

We want to remind our readers that Frankly Speaking does not endorse the opinions expressed in any particular article. We are dedicated to sharing all perspectives of the Olin community, including and especially those that highlight difficult issues that affect the college at large. We believed that the article would spark important conversation among students, staff, faculty, and administration. The inclusion of anonymous sources in this article was a deliberate decision made to protect vulnerable parties from retaliation. 

Why did we take it offline?

The article made serious allegations against an employee, and we recognize that the anonymous survey reports included in the article did not present sufficient evidence to conclude that the employee definitively violated policy. While we stand by our decision to share this information with the Olin community, we also acknowledge that this sensitive information should not be publicly available on the internet.

At the same time, we are disappointed that the college reacted to the publication of this article with an immediate request for removal instead of expressing concern for the allegations brought to light. Olin College must ensure that members of the community are able to bring forward concerns without fear of retaliation.

We want to be clear that the removal of this article from our website was not because of pressure from administration. However, the request gave us an opportunity to reflect on our role in public discourse. Our responsibility as a publication team is to ensure the integrity of claims, especially given their severity. These allegations could not be verified with the degree of certainty necessary to disseminate them widely on the internet.

Sincerely, 

The Frankly Speaking Publication Team

Statement from the Lucy Platt ‘25, author of the article:
President Barabino once said, in her letter Lessons Learned from Trombone Shorty, “Let’s all do our part to practice what we preach, to do what it takes to make the world better, and, as the lyrics suggest, to earn our right to complain.” I feel that I embodied this and the spirit of Olin. To all those who feel hurt, silenced, or scared, my door is still open and Outlook calendar is still to date.

This article has been removed from the Frankly Speaking website. Statement can be viewed here: https://franklyspeakingnews.com/2024/12/notice-re-volume-17-issue-3/

It feels like most of Olin’s recent full-system change prioritizes money. I’m here with some thoughts on what we could do about our financial crisis.

Sell naming rights

Our college is named the same as Babson’s Olin Hall because the money came from the same rich dude with an ideal. So far, we only have names on Milas Hall, the Norden Auditorium, and the Miller Academic Center. Sure, that’s three people important in the founding of Olin – nice and personal. But we could totally sell out.

Let’s have a McMoneybags Campus Center. Jane Smith Dormitory. Company Name Chem Lab. We already installed a bench named after the repeat Scope sponsor Santos. My time touring colleges taught me that rich people like having their names on buildings. Hell, it even works for the car-based project teams: donate enough and your (personal or company) name goes on the vehicle.

We can get super petty with it. Comparatively small donors can get little plastic plaques on a dining hall chair. If we set a capitalistic, money-first goal, we could divvy out plenty of real estate. Who doesn’t want to live on a campus inundated with names of people and corporations far wealthier than we’ll ever be?

Profit from our fancy equipment

I’ve heard people touring the shop spaces jokingly ask if they could use them. I bet some of them would pay money for that. What about the labs? They’re not all in use 24/7.

People could pay a subscription fee for access. Make a complex calendar of when classes need things. Even after setting an expectation that students get priority over subscribers, I think there would be takers. 

What about our SCOPE sponsors? Instead of selling seniors’ time and labor, can we do physical work for them? Better yet, can we do it on free student labor in exchange for course credit? Olin has high-spec equipment that we’re not using to their monetary potential. We could sell scans on the SEM or parts made on the waterjet (which already takes work orders), the CNC machines, and even the 3D printers.

Different student demographic

Leadership, I see your idea of 600 students and raise you the idea of any student over the age of 25. I don’t know of a single Oliner who wasn’t in the traditional college age range. Let’s advertise to people in their 30s looking to change careers, to 60-year-olds who are retired and have time for college. Charge them all full tuition like state schools do to out-of-state students.

Olin could use the age diversity. What little we have now is the occasional grade-skipper who’s extra young. I see a divide between ‘students’ and ‘grown-ups’ (that calling our professors by first name doesn’t change). Personally, my high school karate classes helped me learn how to befriend and respect adults as equals rather than superiors. I think that benefits me, and I can tell that hasn’t clicked for everyone.

Non-matriculated options

Olin classes are unique! Experimental! Hands-on! Cross-disciplinary! Non-traditional! Exclusively for Oliners!!!

So let’s burst the bubble. Let people come to take one class. Make their tuition disproportionately high because we’d be ‘increasing professor workload’ (the goal here is to make money). I think this would get tons of engagement from people who want to experience an Olin class for themselves, from people who want to learn a one-skill-one-class like coding in CompSci, from some company sending a cohort to take CD and change their approach to product design.

It could even tie into the Summer Institute, where we pull in professors from other colleges and teach them how to be more like Olin. If part of Olin’s mission is to put our version of teaching out there, let’s share that exact teaching with more than 100 students per year. Oliners would benefit from learning to work with people who aren’t all up on the Oliner high horse. Do any of us remember how to work with non-engineers? I don’t.

Blaze of Glory

If we’re so financially done for, let’s just admit that. Stop trying to pull money from higher tuition payments, and let’s go down like a phoenix. Declare an end date for Olin College and increase our annual spending so the endowment lasts just long enough. Leave behind a way smaller pool that pays one person for an extra few decades to send out our transcripts or whatever else we need to prove we went to a real-but-dead college.

Committing to spending the endowment would open up money to do so many important things. They don’t have to be complicated: take on fewer students and go back to full-tuition scholarships. Pay faculty better. Add more professors, more wacky and interesting classes, more funding to do research and co-curricular projects.

What do I want to see? Use the endowment to commit to another round of ‘experimental’ college. Have a fresh partner year to ideate what we want Olin to become in its final years. Rewrite our curriculum from zero based on student and faculty input. Olin’s rhetoric claims to be ‘redefining engineering education’, but our definition hasn’t changed since 2006. CALL seems to be a sad attempt to renew that experimental drive from the top down. I think instead we need to commit – as a whole community – to burn Olin down and rise from the ashes.

If you find this discussion-worthy, the FS editors can share my contact.

I’m sitting in the backseat of my family’s minivan, dozing off as my parents make some light chatter in the front. When all of a sudden I’m jerked awake as the car swerves frantically to avoid colliding with someone who was in too much of a rush to kindly provide a blinker.

And somewhat uncharacteristically, my dad drops a casual, 

“Jo kuch bhi hota hai, acche ke liye hota hai. Destiny hai”

“Whatever happens, happens for the best. It’s destiny”

That’s just what we humans do. We’re born to make sense of the world around us. Even when things are shy of disaster, we find a single puzzle piece slotting into place by pure coincidence…

And we call it destiny.

I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon for a Babson class this semester, and I swear it’s relevant to The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals. The book’s main character, Christopher, opens his story saying: 

“…when I first met Siobhan, she showed me this picture:

and I knew that it meant ‘happy’… she drew some other pictures

but I was unable to say what these meant.”

I love theater for many reasons. The first is because I get to make heightened expressions to convey characters’ feelings to the audience. A simple smile goes unrecognized because of how far the audience sits. Instead, a performer must convey a more pronounced emotion—elation:

Without context, these expressions look exaggerated, uncanny, or even grotesque – but in order to effectively communicate the story, it is necessary. 

It’s often said about musicals, “when your character cannot express their feelings with words, they sing.” It’s a sweet sentiment, but if you don’t relate to emotions the same way, the experience can feel uncanny. The aliens from The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals weaponize songs, lighting, and most interestingly, their facial expressions, to sell their otherworldliness. The aliens, like actors, are unnervingly over-expressive. Professor Hidgens questions how the aliens could wordlessly choreograph their song and dance. Christopher, similarly, asks how we could relate to each other so seamlessly just by using the shape of our face. The people in Christopher’s story operate under an unspoken assumption that their mode of expression is not only normal, but correct, excluding those who do not understand. The aliens in TGWDLM make that assumption explicit.

The most interesting line in TGWDLM to me is from the song, “Let It Out”, when Paul sings solo, “I’ve never been happy. Wouldn’t that be nice?” When he makes that proclamation, I don’t see a man who isn’t happy. I see someone who has been given a definition of happiness he cannot attain. Paul has never “been happy” because the world around him invented a concept of happiness that doesn’t apply to him. In the real world, it enforces conformity, and the contagion in TGWDLM repurposes the aesthetic of happiness to convince everyone to join the hive. 

The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals speaks to the social understanding of health and wellness. This perspective suggests that wellness is oriented around being a productive worker. Imagine ADHD not as a unique inability to focus, but instead a natural state of being that has only been given a diagnosis because the world forces adults and children to primarily work at computers.

When the hive entices the world to consume its ‘blue shit’, it reminds me of the mood-stabilizing drugs I took when I was 10. The pills came in shades of green and blue. My friends from back then have said it made me look like this:

The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals argues that separation from the neurodivergent self is inherently violating. We are genetically reconstructed from the inside out, given new personas that others will find palatable. Some people are forced to take medicine or receive surgery so they can conform to the standard of “normal”. For many of us like Professor Hidgens, the resulting identity is worth that pain. It is a worthy second chance. For others, like Paul and Emma, with this conformity we see the death of unique, interesting, authentic, and happy experiences.

Lily Jiang – Fate, Follicles, and Friendships: A SoftSys Saga

There once was an Aditi Vinod.

She came to Olin to code.

On Discord she called

To tell me she was bald

And to that I said “I already know.”

By chance, in sophomore spring

We needed a SoftSys team.

As we looked around,

By fate (it seems) we found

Two others with domes that gleamed!

More follicle-challenged than Aditi and I,

Richard and Luke held their heads high.

A perfect addition

To our team’s composition,

And our knowledge – an abundance to apply.

Through segfaults and memleaks we’d fight,

But our bond kept our spirits alight.

Though others had hair,

We didn’t despair

Despite finding a load-bearing print statement that night.

wtf

Now seniors, the friendship remains strong.

In this group, we’ve found where we belong.

Through all of the years,

The laughter and tears,

The bond of baldness will be lifelong.

---

Richard Li – Baldpost A: the sad one

He lost everything so fast.

Well, it began slowly; he could almost delude himself that it wasn’t happening. It’s easy to ignore things when you’re a successful engineer raking in money. Indeed, it started very slowly. He started talking to his friends online more. She started to spend more time at work. His comb slipped slightly faster through his hair. Surely not. Surely it couldn’t be him. The Witten family wasn’t notorious for much, but their famed impeccable hairlines were considered the envy of the neighborhood.

He only gave her pecks now. When was the last time they had made out? Had sex? Even held hands? The corners of his hair line began to fall back. She still made him the soup the way he always liked. They still laughed together on occasion. Then it came out in clumps.  His shower drain seemed to be clogged with hairs every time he was done. He used to insist on communication in every altercation. Now, he yelled. Forcefully. Aggressively. Lovelessly. He began to find hair on every article of clothing he owned. Every time he scratched his head a few more strands would fall out. She slept in another bed. She used to turn down business trips, but now was in Seoul or Paris every other weekend. They fought when she came back — he knew she was sleeping with some guy in Paris. She turned her location off. Did she think he was stupid?

Before he knew it, nothing was left. He ran his fingers through his … there was nothing to run his fingers through. He woke up one morning to a note on the opposite nightstand and a still perfectly-made, icy-cold left side of the bed.

---

“I have to go. I’m sorry it had to be like this. I’m sorry I’m not strong enough to stand in front of you to tell you this…”

---

He sat up. The moonlight reflected off of his shiny scalp and practically blinded him in the vanity mirror opposite his bed.

---

“…I’ve met someone else in Paris, and I’m flying out tonight. Don’t come get me…”

---

He couldn’t even stop it. The tears began to well up in his eyes. He had been waiting for this day, even dreamed about it on some unfortunately bitter occasions. But now that it was happening, he really couldn’t believe it. She had actually let him go.

It took him a while to wake up that morning. Good riddance, he thought to himself. He was miserable in the relationship. He knew that. Yet his red-rimmed eyes betrayed a deep pain he could not explain. In his mid thirties, here he was, wealthy and successful by all accounts. He still was the pride of the Witten family. He saw this coming a mile away. If she didn’t do it, he would’ve in a couple of weeks. How could he possibly feel like this? He sat down on the curb, frustrated, with his head in his hands. His head… He rubbed his temples, then the back of his skull, and finally the top of his head. He still couldn’t help but feel…

He lost everything so fast.

---

Aditi Vinod – Baldpost α

Lily woke up on a normal day. A normal Tuesday. A normal hairful Tuesday. She patted the black mop upon her head and felt it spring back up. She could feel in her roots that today was going to be a great day. 

Lily took out her one wheel in a smooth maneuver, almost too smooth. You’d almost think she’d practiced this move in her free time (dear reader, that is because she did). She cruised down the streets, pulling out her phone to send a few messages.

Lily was so busy messaging n wheeling that she didn’t notice the large, white truck skidding to a stop as she ran through a red. 

Or at least that’s what she thought happened. 

Because the truck didn’t actually stop. It slammed into Lily right as she looked up, phone in hand, and uttered the glorious last words, “well, shit,” leaving a suspiciously Lily-shaped splat on the pavement. 

– – –

An alarm blared through the room shocking Lily Jiang out of her bed. She jumped up so fast that she almost hit her head on the ceiling before she realized that it was a n̴o̶r̸m̶a̶l̶ day. A n̴̡̪̼̝̜̙̰͍͚̲͓̼̖̟͎͇̓̌̆̃̍̈́̽̉̏̓͘͜͠͝ọ̵̢̲͍̹͙͙̒͋͐͆̊͗̓̕͜r̷̟͎̫͙̝̞̝͕͙̦̠̓̐̑͑̾̔̆̾́̀̈͒̈́̀͘̕͜ͅm̴̧̔͂̑̃ă̸͓͈̙͗̈͗̋̆̔͛̽͐̐͜͠͝l̷̙̠̦̺͓̥̥͍̦̮̂̃̓̐̎̑̋̑̌͛͂́͂̽̕͜͠͠ͅͅ Tuesday. A normal h̷̨̧͔͕̪̺͍͈̬͔̓̈̈͠ͅå̴̖͇̟̲̟͚̘͑̃̃̀̓͑͂͂̈́̽̓͋͝͝i̵̙̼͈̮̬̤̊̀̌͊̈́̓̑̑̎̉̔̆͛͠͝r̶͙̲̭̻̟̱̼̬̼̘͔̦͎̠͖̖̉̏̕ͅf̵̡̨̬̲̳̹̰̫̹̳̘͍̓̄̀̓̊̊͗͘u̸͈̫͉͌l̸̙̭̣͇͚͑͗̀̈́̉̾͑ Tuesday. 

Lily Jiang went about her normal morning routine: she sat like a potato in her bed, she scrolled on Instagram Reels (becuase why would she use TikTok?), and she dropped her phone on her face. A truly u̸͇̹̦͒̓͛̀͠n̸͕̆͋̇é̵̡̿͐̿v̸̖̦̤̳̮̅e̸͓͗n̶̘͂͑t̵͓̪͉̓͆͋͒f̴̼̈́͐ǔ̴̮͗l̷͔͙̍̏̿̍ Tuesday morning.

Lily Jiang remembered that she’d had an interesting dream last night, but for the life of her, could not recall what happened. The events seemed intriguing, potentially traumatizing, based on the fact that she had woken up sweating, but surely, that was a fluke. Afterall, it was a n̸̢̮̤͑̎̂̽̽̅̈́̋̈́͂̇̈̾͑̃͘̚͝͝͠ǒ̸̡̨̢̥̱͎̘͙̮̝̯̝̟̔͆̀̉̾̆́̉̍͌̒̒̎̏̀͒͜͠r̶̨̛͉̰͔̳̩̘̪͖͕̘͐̌̀̓̓̿̑̿̍͑̕͝͝͠͝m̵̤͖͕̦̯̏̒̾̊̿͑͛̉͌́͒͒̊͑̕̕͝͠a̴̳̜̠̺̞̒͋̄̎̉̀̚l̸̡̡̡̬̠͉̠̭̗̞̖̔̿̒̎̈̽̓̎̽̊̕͘͜͜͠ Tuesday morning. 

Lily Jiang went to brush her teeth. She was so focused on applying the toothpaste to her brush and scrubbing all the dirt off her teeth that she lost track of time. Upon checking her watch, she realized that she needed to be out the door about five minutes prior. She stuffed her leg into her pants, and threw a hoodie smoothly over her head. 

Lily Jiang was halfway out the door when she glanced back and saw her reflection in her doorway mirror (she’d never seen that before, why was that there?). 

Lily Jiang froze in horror, mouth agape, she let out a bloodcurling scream. It’s not that there was something behind her, but rather there was a lack of something.

Lily Jiang patted the black mop upon her head and felt its spring back smoothness. A normal hairful hairless Tuesday.

Lily Jiang collapsed on the ground in front of her house, one wheel in hand, and sobbed. Who was she? Where did it go? Was this her karma for sending that text all those years ago? Did she even have follicles?

With tears streaming down her face, she smoothly maneuvered onto her one wheel (her practice apparently still applied to this bald creature), but it was not a smooth ride. At each turn, there were cars and in each car was a glaring, shiny forehead, like a field of brilliant lighthouses. SURELY this was a safety hazard in whatever cursed society she was in and dear god why did she forget her sunglasses. The worst part is that all the creatures she perceived looked FINE, arguably even pleased in their little bald lives. 

Lily Jiang was so busy looking at the lighthouses n wheeling that she didn’t notice herself crash into a large, white truck that was driving in the wrong direction. It slammed into Lily right as she processed this suddenly, much bigger lighthouse, barreling towards her, and uttered the glorious last words: “seriously?” 

It seems Lily Jiang had finally remembered the events of her interesting “dream,” yet here she was, a suspiciously Lily-Jiang-shaped splat on the pavement. Again.  

– – –

Lily Jiangster woke up in cold sweat. She jumped up so fast that she hit her head on the ceiling before she realized that it was a n̴o̶r̸m̶a̶l̶ day. A n̴̡̪̼̝̜̙̰͍͚̲͓̼̖̟͎͇̓̌̆̃̍̈́̽̉̏̓͘͜͠͝ọ̵̢̲͍̹͙͙̒͋͐͆̊͗̓̕͜r̷̟͎̫͙̝̞̝͕͙̦̠̓̐̑͑̾̔̆̾́̀̈͒̈́̀͘̕͜ͅm̴̧̔͂̑̃ă̸͓͈̙͗̈͗̋̆̔͛̽͐̐͜͠͝l̷̙̠̦̺͓̥̥͍̦̮̂̃̓̐̎̑̋̑̌͛͂́͂̽̕͜͠͠ͅͅ Tuesday. A normal h̸a̵i̶r̷f̸u̸l̶ Tuesday. She patted the black mop upon her head and felt it spring back up. She heaved out a sigh of relief. 

Lily Jiangster remembered that she’d had a nightmare last night. The events involved her waking up in a bald world, but surely that was just a dream. Afteral, it was a n̸̢̮̤͑̎̂̽̽̅̈́̋̈́͂̇̈̾͑̃͘̚͝͝͠ǒ̸̡̨̢̥̱͎̘͙̮̝̯̝̟̔͆̀̉̾̆́̉̍͌̒̒̎̏̀͒͜͠r̶̨̛͉̰͔̳̩̘̪͖͕̘͐̌̀̓̓̿̑̿̍͑̕͝͝͠͝m̵̤͖͕̦̯̏̒̾̊̿͑͛̉͌́͒͒̊͑̕̕͝͠a̴̳̜̠̺̞̒͋̄̎̉̀̚l̸̡̡̡̬̠͉̠̭̗̞̖̔̿̒̎̈̽̓̎̽̊̕͘͜͜͠ Tuesday morning. She patted the black mop upon her head and felt it spring back up; checking twice is important. 

Lily Jiangster skipped most of her normal morning routine and started off her day in a suspiciously productive way. Something something motivation of being blessed with a head full of hair again. 

Lily Jiangster went to brush her teeth. She focused on applying the toothpaste to her brush and scrubbing all the dirt off her teeth. She combed her luscious locks out, marveling at how healthy and smooth it looked. She paroused through her closet until she found a pair of earthy, brown corduroy pants and a fluffy, mossy green sweater. 

Lily Jiangster took out her one wheel in a smooth maneuver, almost too smooth (still practiced). She cruised down the streets, focused on the road, for some unknown reason, looking for vehicles moving in the wrong direction.

Lily Jiangster was so busy focusing on the cars on the road that she didn’t notice when her one wheel hit a pot hole. Head on. 

Lily Jiangster flew through the air, landing in the middle of the road with a resounding smack that echoed through the intersection. She hit the ground so hard that she saw her wig go flying into the blue sky. 

Her wig. A wig. Lily Jiangster felt the breeze against her bare, bald forehead. Lily Jiang patted grasped at the black mop upon her head and felt its spring back smoothness. A normal hairful hairless Tuesday. Why was this becoming her normal? Hadn’t she checked after last night? How did combing through each strand not reveal the deception? 

Lily Jiangster saw her reflection in a nearby puddle and stared in shock. As she looked back up, she saw a blurry individual waving her wig around in a panic, but the words coming out of their mouth were too blurred for her to process. 

Blurred. Too blurred. Hazy. Fuzzy. White. White blur. 

A white truck rammed into Lily Jiangster in the intersection, leaving her ungloriously, without last words, but rather a last thought, “not fucking again,” leaving behind only a suspiciously Lily-Jiangster-shaped splat on the pavement.

Was Lily Jiangster doomed to stay within this hellmare forever?

Luke Witten – Baldpost 1

It is strange that we grow older.

Think about where you were a week ago, a month ago, 3 month, a year, 5 years, 10. Do you even remember? If you do, try to think not just about what happened but about why. Try to get in your own head. Say you were in a hotel room with your friends, playing BS with a deck of cards late into the night before the science olympiad or quizbowl or an out of state game. You might remember joy, laughter, a twinge of loss even for youth gone or innocence withered away. But do you remember why you were in that hotel room, do you remember why you had studied for weeks to get ready for it and why it was worth jeapardizing the whole thing by losing sleep for a few hours with your friends. Your best friends… at least then; You had felt so connected once. Why had you ever been friends? you can’t seem to remember but it just felt right. When was that last time you talked with them? when was the last time you thought of even one of them? The truth, you were never friends with them because you have not existed until this moment. your memory of them remains as vague as the memory of that person, so foreign, that you once were and can never be again. 

It is strange that we grow older.

This cannot be sad because in truth we have not lost. We can never experience loss because we can only experience the present. That is not to say we can do whatever we want: ethics exist and our actions have consequences. The actions of your past come to be in the present, and the decisions you make now will affect your future, a version of you. You will never meet them, they will never say their thanks, they may even curse your existence, but they are beholden to you. We hold the fate of this person, these people, in our hands and so our actions are real. Because we affect others there is an obligation put on ourselves. Who is this future person? Is it your best friend? your worst enemy? The ideal that pushes you forward or a prisoner trapped by your own mediocrity. We cannot know, it may not even be good to know, but we cannot help but wonder. 

It is strange that we grow older.

Will this person look back on you the same way you looked back on your past self, wistful and confused? Think about others. Think about how clear their futures are to you, but how cloudly your own remains. Think about how Aditi will graduate from Olin. Think about how she will get a job, rise through the ranks of a company, all the while maintaining her cheery demeanor and her love of video games, her love of life. She will get married one day, one day you might as well. She will live in Los Angeles or San Francisco or Chicago. One day she will move to the suburbs. It is so clear to you. She will have a child, the single greatest day of her life. A little bald bundle of joy who she will love so much. He grows, 6 months – first words, 1 year old, playing peekaboo – he makes friends with the local kids, his hair still hasn’t grown in, this is normal. Aditi forgets their anniversary – “I was buying baby clothes” – he doesn’t believe her. 3 years, doctors say it could be due to pneumonia or some epigenetic disease, still no hair, the kid loves riding around the block in his tricycle. Aditi drops her son off at preschool, he’s scared, but holding his mother’s hand he is able to brave his entry into this new world. Aditi and her husband plan a date night, its been far too long… it ends in a fight, of course it does.

5 years, no hair, Aditi hasn’t spoken to her husband in 2 weeks, she doesn’t even want to anymore, she just got a promotion, overall she cannot complain of life. 7 years, no hair, they sleep in separate bedrooms; they only stay together for the child. 8 years, he comes in sobbing, “WHAT HAPPENED TO US?”, she doesn’t know, she used to be in love but now she can barely look at the man in front of her once beautiful, still beautiful she supposes. They try to fix the marriage, they both don’t think it will work, but they want to try… perhaps that will be enough. 9 years, still separated, the child, now entering adolescence, wants to know why his parents don’t love each other. Did they ever love each other? Aditi barely ever sees her husband, he stays late at the office, barely ever spends time at home – he will take any excuse to get out of there. Can you blame him? 10 years, she is pregnant again. They prepare another room for the baby, he still has no desire to be at home. He hides his phone, he skips the annual trip to the bay for Thanksgiving this year. 11 years, the baby is born. What Aditi had suspected was true, she didn’t need a test, the child couldn’t be hers. She looked at her 11 year old son with longing and wrath, his head still spotless and shiny like the hide of a leopard seal… the baldest motherfucker you’ve ever seen. The child in the cradle, the elephant in the room that no one dares speak of, already has a full head of hair. Aditi cannot be the mother.

It is strange that we grow older.