Laura Rodben
Bio
Stray polyglot globetrotter and word-weaver. Languages have been "doors of perception" that approach the world and dilute/delete borders. Philosophy, literature, art and meditation: my pillars.
https://laurarodben.substack.com/
Stories (33)
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Hyperemesis Gravidarum
Imagine waking up feeling this nausea (being this nausea). Trying to cheer yourself up for you, but more for the baby. A baby is growing in your belly – so incredible! You get up, you try to eat something. Tangerines! Everything stinks but they remain so tasty! You devour them, two, three pieces at the time, perhaps four, until you eat it up and immediately afterwards you rush to the toilet. The first vomit of the day. Fair enough. You’re afraid to eat again, so you avoid it, but at least for a moment the nausea is gone. What to do? You have no strength, but you have to. “The baby needs you to be moving” Ok. “Let’s dance, very lightly.” Lately you merely balance your body from one side to the other, but it is ok. And you sing – somehow singing helps. There’s a new world somewhere, they call the promise land… And I’ll be there someday, if you hold on my hand. After a song or perhaps half a song you feel exhausted. Time to rest: sit down, lay down. Did you fall asleep? You wake up with a terrible headache. It’s noon already. You know you have to eat, but you’re afraid. Ok, let’s try again. You have one of those milky things to get some protein – at least they don’t make you throw up. “Is this normal?” You have wondered many times. All your doctors, family, friends have said is, “Yes! It’s normal. It’ll get better later – no worries!” Fair enough. Minutes later: second –or perhaps third?— vomit of the day. You remember the words, “I wish you have inherited my strength.” “I wish so too!” Why couldn’t you be like anyone else? Why does it have to be so hard for you to cope? You wonder how they could go through all this not only once, but twice, three, four times, five… “The other women must be superwomen.”
By Laura Rodben4 months ago in Chapters
Our One and Only Night
Spend all your time waiting for that second chance, for a break that would make it ok. Montevideo and its calm pace of life. I became one with the delicious flow. The sun seemed to be mainly just caressing the beach. The golden hour. I said hi to the sea, visually it’s usually more than enough; and yet, this time as I went past all the people sharing with each other, it made me wish: “Wouldn’t it be nice to be here with someone else?”
By Laura Rodben6 months ago in Fiction
Translation - Experimento
The following text is a text I wrote more than 10 years ago. I was finishing my studies as a literary translator and at some point we translated Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot. After I contrasted the French version with the English one, I came up with the idea that perhaps Beckett had merely translated himself into English and so I tried to do the same with one of my texts, originally written in Spanish.
By Laura Rodben7 months ago in Writers
Canek and Kandiaronk
It is said that the American is the perfect mean between the European and the Indian. Moreau de St. Méry . Amerindian voices were starting to raise in 2XXX and it came to their ears two names from far away but aligned in vision: from the Huron tribe in the north, the Wendat, Kandiaronk (1625-1701), from the Maya in the south, Canek (1731-1731). Both of them regarded as heroes by their peoples. What would it be like to bring them back together from the dead? Fortunately AI now could make it possible, so by means of rescuing both their consciousness (their thoughts, their words plus all the history of humanity that went after their death), they were able to make them talk with one another, having as the only topic in mind their cultural shock when facing the Westerner people. They did have a Westerner interlocutor, McKone, to query further about their perceptions. In what follows, I reproduce a little fragment of their enlightening and fictitious conversation. To these days, 5025, they remain part of the Earth-Human Heritage (which aims to rescue the very best of our species), so-called our gift to the Universe.
By Laura Rodben7 months ago in History
More and more
So I found myself bragging about being here, being there. “Oh wow! That’s so amazing!” “Gut gemacht!” “¡Bravo!” “Yes, yes!” I could feel my chest pointing to the sky, my head lifting. “Thank you, thank you…” (Modesty above all.) When at some point, among the compliments, one voice raised above them all, quoting the final line of a text where I wrote my destiny to be “more and more wanderings”: “For more wanderings, L!”, followed by
By Laura Rodben9 months ago in Earth
