Lit Notes: Pornsak Pichetshote's "Infidel"
[Story Plot Summary]
The story centers around a young Pakistani American woman named Aisha Hasan who grew up in New Jersey and currently lives with a woman named Leslie who is the mother of her fiance, Tom, as well as Tom’s daughter from a previous relationship, Kris. They all live in NYC
The comic starts with Tom highkey gettin into it with his mama because she suggested she teach Aisha how to make her famous ham even tho Aisha don’t be fuckin with pork for religious reasons. They JUST got to the mama house too so it’s like “damn why we on 10 already, like have I even opened the book yet lmao”
Anywho, Tim feels a way because in the past Leslie was highkey islamophobic and once yelled at Kris for playing with Aisha’s hijab.
So, anyways, it’s beef or whatever
Aisha has a black best friend named Medina who we all need in our lives that, like Tom, is not with the shits—even partially.
Tom goes to some like indie festival for something or another, girl idk lol
Anyways, while he’s gone, it’s Aisha, Leslie, and Kris and lowkey Aisha’s scared cuz like the house is haunted and these ghosts have been highkey terrorizing tf outta her
One night, she’s having a particularly bad episode and almost stabs Leslie cuz she tired of the ghosts’ asses. Luckily, Medina lives in the same building as do her roommates, Reynolds and Ethan, along with their fake ass friend, Grace
One night, they’re all chatting and are talking about a recent incident where there was a bombing in the building caused by this Arab man who they speculate might’ve had some terrorist ties (that story ends up being more complicated than anticipated) and Aisha sees a like ghost face thing in the wall and, naturally, freaks tf out
She was gonna tell Medina, but thought Medina would judge the dog shit outta her, so she said nothing
Aisha then went home, witnessed a kind of cute scene of Leslie being not racist and admitting her wrongdoing to Kris, before being terrorized yet again in a relentless fashion by these goddamn spirits
This leads to a lot of cockamamie nonsense eventually leading to Kris and Leslie falling down the stairs, which kills Leslie. Kris and Aisha (who was also injured in the shenanigans) are in critical condition leaving Medina, Tom, a new bitch named Sendhil, and the rest understandably shook
Ethan, who’s like into the occult, and Reynolds go on a Dora the Explorer adventure trying to find a man named Arthur Quinn who believed strong emotions can blur the lines between this world and the next and that that phenomenon allegedly released a shadow ball of evil into NYC. They meet this random guy who apparently heard the same tea and was like this is stupid as heyull
However, he did luckily provide convenient exposition kind of explaining wtf is going on and why these ghosts are ruining everything
It’s believed that when people die violently they come back for revenge so this ashy bitch named Mitchell Fisher used to hate on dude (the Arab man they were spilling tea about) and like died in the explosion (after slick setting it off himself) and is like killing people of color now I guess
Simultaneously, while this exposition is going on, Sendhil went to Aisha’s house to get her medical records to help provide more context for the doctors
But literally got GOT by the spirits even tho Medina told that ass that SHE was gonna get the goddamn records, but see, niggas, they don’t listen so look at you now girl. Just preventably dead than a mf, but anyway…
Ethan spills the tea to Medina and the two go back to Aisha’s to both get the medical records as well as an amulet (the misbaha) that can trigger emotions strong enough to battle the emotions that led to this chaos
Ethan dies gruesomely, Tom’s ass (who randomly materialized) starts attacking Medina, but then she lights the whole joint ablaze — well the basement at least
But I guess she calmed the spirit of Mitchell which saves Aisha
Aisha at the end is living with her mama again as well as Kris now that pretty much most the cast is dead, except for Reynolds who was auxiliary and Grace who sucked
Also, we don’t like Grace because she was mad racist in the whole interaction where they were talking about the Arab dude and then later highkey blamed Aisha for Leslie’s death and Kris’ injuries
Aisha has to come to terms with her mom recently disowning her for not dating a person that practices Islam and take the risk to trust her again
The spirits are still alive and well tho on the lower east side
[Story Thoughts and Feelings]
I def thought Leslie was gonna be the killer but anywho
Responding to Leslie, can racism be cured or does it just go into remission?
WHY GODDAMN MEDINA GOTTA DIE THO?
The scene of Medina at the end as a drawing got me bitch