Adrift: Stories of the Unseen

Abstract

In "Adrift: Stories of the Unseen," Samantha Osbiston reimagines her journey as a disabled, first-generation university student using metaphors from space travel and inheritance. Across essays such as “Trajectory,” “Tethered,” “Dark Matter,” and “Fishing for Stars,” she recasts the loneliness of inaccessible institutions as acts of resistance. Her references to orbit, gravity, and propulsion connect with images of bones and breath, showing that identity comes from both the body and the wider universe. Osbiston shows how class, disability, and bureaucracy can isolate students, but emphasizes motion—found in care, community, and ancestral memory. In the end, Osbiston describes survival as navigation, access as vital as oxygen, and storytelling as a force that propels her and others in unfriendly systems.