Over half the students from last year dropped out.

As our teachers predicted, the majority of students would not come back after the first year. Last semester, at least 150 of us sat in an auditorium room for the three year Associates Degree program. Now, maybe thirty women and fifteen men divided by a barrier are cramped in a small and narrow classroom. We huddle shoulder to shoulder, trying to fit our coffee cups, notebooks and bags on the thin desks. Despite the minimal room, the class hums with anticipation, brought together by the shared goal of seeking knowledge, a thirst for learning, or perhaps simply just not wanting to quit what we started. 

In our first class, Sciences of Quran, Mufti asks us to write down our intentions for the year. “Why did we come back?” he asks in his friendly Scottish accent. “What is motivating us to study Islam? And don’t just write ‘the free chai,’” he jokes. 

He passes down a pad of light blue sticky notes. I tap my pen on the desk, thinking about the question. 

Why am I here? 

I think of the friends I made during my time here. The way I had made dua when I moved to Michigan six years ago, asking for a community, and then a year later, this facility opening up. I think of the feeling of fulfillment these classes give me. I think of my daughter, who has been on this journey with me since before she was born. I was pregnant with her during the first year, my pregnant belly growing with each class that passed.

“You can hand the notes to the front, and I’ll read them inshaAllah” Mufti says. Ruffles of paper and clicks of pen caps float down the classroom and a familiar fear sets in the pit of my stomach. I still haven’t written anything. In haste, I write “I’m here for my daughter, so I can pass on what I learn and be a role model for her.” I fold the paper and pass it to the sister in front who is waiting with her hand outstretched. 

Mufti reads some of the intentions out loud and tells us to write them in our notebooks so we can return to them at the end of the year. Just then, a girl hurries in and sits down next to me, whispering “sorry,” as I shuffle my chair to the side. She’s wearing a kuffeyah hijab, one that I also own, tucked away in my closet. I look down at my paper, where I’ve written my intention down. This isn’t my intention. 

Well, yes, my daughter is a driving force in so many things that I do. But I remember something, something I heard, and I realize the ‘why’ behind driving 40 minutes to class two times a week. It’s because of something I heard a year ago that has stuck with me ever since, even without the memory of who said it and where.

“The ummah is like one body, when one part feels pain, the whole body feels it.” 

— (Sahih Al-Bukhari) 

A hadith often quoted, especially during the past two years as we watch in agony the struggles of Gaza. But what I think of isn’t just the hadith, it’s what was said afterwards. That if the whole ummah is as one, then it is not only pain that connects us—it’s everything. Our experiences, our struggles, and more importantly, our strengths. If we are weak in one part of our body, we can become weak in other areas too. Yet if we strengthen one part, then the rest of us gains from it as well.

Simply put, if we work on our iman as individuals, if we come closer to Allah, if we fortify our hearts and minds, then this can then benefit the rest of our body; the rest of the ummah. We look around the world and see our brothers and sisters suffering at the hands of evil. We see Gaza completely alone. And so we protest and share news and donate. But what we don’t realize is that even with our daily actions, we can contribute to the state of the ummah. 

I take out my pen and cross out the words I initially wrote with a straight line. Maybe it seems far-fetched, maybe it’s to make me feel better. But it is a hope that I hold on to and I pray for it. I pray my actions benefit others, in this life and the next. I pray that every salah, every dua, every drop of knowledge learnt, counts not just on my scales, but for the betterment of the whole. I pray we as an ummah can come together in a way that heals our one body and removes our collective pain.

In my notebook, under ‘why am I here?’ I write: for Gaza. 

For the Discerning Reader: 

This story is fictional and allegedly exaggerated well beyond reason. Any resemblance to real individuals is entirely coincidental—particularly any named editors, who bear zero responsibility for any distress, despair, or questionable decisions afflicted upon any writers named herein. It would also be pertinent to note that no one mentioned in this story is delusional; all such impressions are purely the result of dramatic and comedic license. All grievances are imaginary, and any characters named herein, are best considered blameless in all known and unknown universes.

“The house at the end of the street was…scary, dreary, dangerous, abandoned…”

I watched the responses roll in and thought, Jeesh…maybe I should have just gone to the dawat with my family. 

I knew I just had to lighten the mood a bit. So I started typing…

Sitting at the end of the neighborhood’s grandest cul-de-sac, the house at the end of the street was intimidating, not because it was dark or creepy, but because it was too perfect. The kind of perfect where even the doormat looked like it had been imported from Dubai…

Hmm, I thought to myself. Perhaps this wasn’t quite the levitous start I had envisioned. 

I paused.

Who even uses the word “levitous”?

I internally facepalmed and resisted the urge to delete the entire paragraph.

The prompt was “The house at the end of the street was…” and I started to think there was no funny way to write this. I began freewriting ideas on my notepad, my mind drifting to what they were serving at the dawat that I’d skipped.

And then…it clicked.

The solution to my problem here was the one thing I’d do anything to avoid…AUNTIES!!

And as the idea settled, the story really began to write itself. It was almost like my fingers had a life of their own and the story became about some poor guy stopping by a dawat and witnessing a fellow brother-in-arms facing a proverbial firing squad of aunties picking his life apart. By the grace of the Almighty, our hero barely escaped a similar fate by the skin of his teeth after being warned off by the unfortunate victim in the story.

But even more importantly, somewhere in the terror that was the Aunty menace in our communities, I had my story. Little did I know then, but my life was about to change significantly over the course of the coming months. Because in response to the next prompt, I wrote another Aunty story, and then the next week, another.

Someone in the group chat suggested that I write a collection, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is where our story begins.

-v-

Writing the stories was the easy part. They came quickly—sometimes too quickly. And for a while, that felt like progress. But when I finally paused and looked at what I had, all I saw was a growing draft and no real sense of what it was becoming.

I knew I wanted my collection of Aunty shenanigans to be made into a book. But what I didn’t understand was just how these stories were supposed to flow together: How do I turn my stories into something cohesive?

Enter the person who would help me see this project through—the editor, Mariam S.

The day of our first editing call, I logged in a few minutes early, adjusting my camera angle, making sure the lighting was decent, and opened up my draft. I was feeling good and eager to get started, riding high from the responses to those original stories in the group chat.

Suddenly, I heard the ding as Mariam joined the call, amid a cacophony of noise. “Assalaamu alaikum,” she said warmly “Please excuse the noise, my kids are watching Ms. Rachel in the next room,” she added, as the sounds of The Wheels on the Bus drifted from my laptop speakers.

“Wa alaikum salaam!” I replied enthusiastically. “No worries at all! I really appreciate you taking the time.”

“Of course,” she said with a small smile. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

I began with a bit of context. “So this is one of the stories I’ve been working on. It’s part of a larger collection—kind of humorous, a little reflective, you know…community-based.”

She nodded, a tuft of hair appearing at the corner of my screen as one of her children climbed up into her lap. “Hmm. Okay–” she started to say, before her son’s giggle interrupted her mid-sentence, as he tugged on her sleeve. She gently put him down and resumed the call. “If I may, what is your intention behind writing these stories? Is it to entertain, a social commentary on that generation of women, or…?”

“Well…it’s not just the women per se,” I replied. “I want this to be a generation’s commentary on an entire community. This means uncles, kids…everyone,” I started walking her through my thinking, the themes, my intention behind certain lines, laying it all out as thoroughly as I could.

She sat there listening, while gently shooing her son back to the other room where Itsy Bitsy Spider was now playing.

“It might be helpful if you read a couple of passages, show me what you mean,” she offered. 

Nodding my head in agreement, I began reading, building my rhythm, and added a bit of performance to it.

I paused where I thought the humor landed, emphasizing certain lines, pantomiming personalities and letting the characters present themselves.

“…Hmm…”

An ominous whisper floated through the room. 

I paused mid-sentence, and looked up to see Mariam staring back at me, waiting for me to continue.

“Did you say something?” I asked, confused.

She shook her head.

“Acha…”

There it was again.

But Mariam’s face hadn’t changed on the screen.

I could have sworn I’d heard that out loud, but I shrugged and continued reading.

I made it about three paragraphs in, when again I heard:

“Amer.”

I stopped reading and looked around the room before cautiously replying, “Y-yes?”

There was a small pause, but thankfully this time it really was Mariam speaking.

“This is really great, thank you for reading. That last sentence though…” She trailed off, tilting her head ever so slightly. “What are you trying to say?”

I blinked.

“Oh…uh, I mean it’s kind of setting up the idea that…like…it’s more of a metaphor, you know, so it’s not meant to be taken literally, it’s more of a…” I paused, searching for the right word.

“Hmm. ”She nodded slowly. “I think you can say it simpler. With all due respect, this feels a bit like you’re…rambling.”

I started to reply that I wasn’t sure that I fully agreed when—

“You talk too much bakwaas.”

This time I froze.

I had been watching the screen, and Mariam definitely hadn’t spoken. She watched me quizzically as I looked around frantically.

Where had that come from?

I turned around in my seat, half-expecting to find someone standing behind me.

But there was nothing there. Just a faint cool breeze from the AC vents and the sounds of the house settling.

I shrugged and turned back to the screen in front of me.

“Ahan….”

It came again.

Louder this time. Closer…from somewhere just over my shoulder.

I immediately looked up and that’s when I saw…it? Her? Honestly, words escaped me at that point.

Standing—or…hovering? I couldn’t quite tell. But in front of me was an aunty I’d never seen before, although ​​she didn’t seem entirely unfamiliar either.

I blinked and looked again.

But she was gone.

There was no one there except for Mariam, still sitting on my screen and looking at me expectantly.

I shook my head, thinking that I needed to work on my sleep habits. Late night doom scrolling and caffeine heavy mornings was making me hallucinate.

I glanced back over the sentence, considering Mariam’s thoughts.

“Yeah,” I said, after a moment. “I think I can.”

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but she smiled.

“Good,” she said. “Let’s continue.”

I read through a few more stories, with Mariam occasionally pausing me with a question or a suggestion.

But I wasn’t able to get back to the page. It wasn’t anything my editor had said, or the work itself, but the quiet accumulation of the notes, the questions, my lack of sleep and that weird hallucination I’d had, was starting to get to me.

“Hey, uh, is it okay if we take a break? I’m so sorry…I’ll follow up with an email once I work my way back through the pages,” I said. 

I heard a disgruntled Tsk behind me and I felt the hairs behind my neck raise. “That’s totally fine,” Mariam nodded. “My kids have been staring at a screen for the last hour anyways and I should check on them,” she said, glancing at her watch.

“And Amer, as you look over everything we discussed today, work on ways to tone down your…rambles,” she said. “Trust your readers, say less,” she advised (a phrase I’d come to know as her motto) before we ended the call. “You don’t have to explain everything.”

It was simple advice, delivered without emphasis, but it lingered longer than anything else she had said that day.

I nodded along but I definitely didn’t want to ‘say less.’ 

This is my book and my chance to say what I want, how I want and as much as I want.

I didn’t know it yet, but it would become something of a refrain between us—her reminding me to stop rambling, again and again. And me trying desperately to hang onto my words, again and again—a final stand against the oppressor in my midst! One last bastion of free thought and my final defence being brought to its knees!

The curtain fluttered next to me, and I caught a whiff of starched cotton.

Mariam gave a small smile, offered a quick salam, and logged off. I closed my laptop screen and leaned back in my chair. 

What on earth had that been? Who was that…thing?…Aunty? Had she actually been there, or had I imagined the whole thing?

I leaned back in my chair rubbing my eyes tiredly, when—

”Achaaaa…so you want to be a writer huh?”

My eyes shot open and I lurched forward.

There she was again. This time sitting in the chair across the table from me, stirring a cup of chai.

I rubbed my eyes.“What—who are you?” I stammered, “How did you get here?”

“Haan ji, beghairat. I am Nata Ji,” she replied. 

I had been so focused on writing this book, late nights and amounts of caffeine bordering on illegal, that I had gone through the looking glass and come out the other side.

Choking slightly, as my mouth went dry, I tried reciting the three Quls, but Nata Ji just laughed.

“That won’t work, beghairat,” she said in a sing-song voice. “You wanted to write about us, na? So I am here to make sure you do the job right…hee hee hee…” she cackled, draining the last of her chai. 

“It’s bad enough that you didn’t want to become a doctor…” she continued. “But I’ll not tolerate bad writing from you!”

She glared at me and raised her hand menacingly.

“Are you a ghost?” I stammered.

“You wish…” She cackled again. “I’m the Aunty-geist!!”

I gulped. I had initially thought that working with Mariam would be simple. I’d present my work, she’d tell me what she thought, and we’d find a middle ground. Bas, khalas, simple. 

But now…this was so much worse than I’d thought. Whether unknown to my editor (or because of her) Nata Ji had arrived and I had no idea how to fight against her.

Then, suddenly, Nata Ji launched out of her chair towards me, stopping inches from my nose. “Listen very carefully to me, beta. I am here, not because I want to be, but because you were refusing to see reason.”

A frown marred her expression and a faint whiff of cardamom and milk blew into my face.

“Your book needs me, even though you do not want me. The day you stop fighting your editor—bas, I will be gone.” She snapped her fingers theatrically.

“Until then…” The cackle returned, sharp and shrill. “I will be everywhere.” 

And just like that, without marking a single word in red, Nata Ji had quietly asserted control over my editing process. I was doomed.

-v-

Most of my sessions with Mariam took place virtually—though that did nothing to soften the impact of her edits. As if her professional critiques weren’t stressful enough, Nata Ji’s appearances also amped up the pressure. 

What I thought would be a few weeks of suggestions, running through a checklist, correcting grammar and spelling, turned into my book being “wrent asunder” (to use a Quranic metaphor).

While Mariam took her editing seriously, Nata Ji prided herself on abuse. Mariam would find an errant dash or rambling sentence or repetitive concept, and Nata Ji would make sure, with her flinging random objects in my direction, that I knew it. 

I wish I’d triple-checked every comma before daring to claim that my draft was complete.

On our calls, Mariam would listen without interruption, her expression steady, thoughtfully considering the words in front of us. She didn’t react the way I had initially expected an editor might. There was no visible wince at an awkward sentence, no dramatic pause before delivering a critique. Instead, she would tilt her head slightly, gently shush her kids, and then ask a question so specific that it made entire paragraphs seem unnecessary.

“I’m wondering if you really need this level of detail here,” Mariam would say. 

“Yes, listen to her duffer! Clearly she is better at this than you are!” Nata Ji would add.

“Amer what is your purpose in writing this section here?” Mariam asked at one point. “Is it because you’re worried the reader won’t understand?”

Before I could answer, I felt it—that familiar shift in the air just over my shoulder.

“Haan, bolo badtameez—tumhara maqsad kya hai?!” Nata Ji muttered.”What is the point of your uselessness? Explain it again, and make sense this time”—her voice somewhere between a whisper and a threat.

Unaware of the hungama on my side of the call, Mariam continued, scrolling slightly, her brow narrowing just enough to signal that she had found something else. “You’ve already shown this here,” she said, pointing to an earlier paragraph.

“Exactly,” Nata Ji snapped behind me, now pacing—or hovering, or whatever it was she did. “We should be glad you never became a doctor! Patient is dying and you are too busy explaining the symptoms instead of treating him!”

I shifted in my seat, trying to stay focused on the screen, on Mariam’s voice, which remained even, unhurried, completely unaware of the chaos unfolding just inches from my ear.

-v-

In this war between writer and editor, there were moments where I’d had enough.

Nata Ji would often hover silently over my shoulder as Mariam gave feedback, daring me to interrupt. I quickly learned to internalize my objections if I wanted to survive the process intact.

Whenever I pushed back even slightly, I’d catch the faint smell of jasmine and haldi before Nata Ji suddenly appeared inches from my face.

“Don’t make me get your Ammi,” Nata Ji hissed once during a particularly tense standoff, a translucent slipper flew past my head and through my laptop screen, making it flicker.

Maybe I should just jump out the window and end it all, I thought—

And then fwoop! Nata Ji’s hand whooshed straight through the back of my head in an attempted smack.

“Abhe, idiot,” she snapped. “Who on earth tries to ‘end it’ from the second floor?”

I blinked, stunned.

“You should thank God we have gravity,” she continued, circling me now, fully activated. “Without it, you wouldn’t even be able to hit the ground! You’d just float there, aimless, like your writing. Useless beghairat!”

“Wow…” I started.

“Shaddaaap,” she cut me off, jabbing a finger that passed through my shoulder. “No one is impressed. Get back to work.”

I stared at her. She leaned in, eyes narrowing.

“Open the document now.”

A couple of hours had passed and I’d made quite a bit of progress. But despite my earlier epiphany, peace wasn’t going to arrive immediately.

I clicked on the first comment Mariam made, with a section highlighted: “Unclear.”

“Unclear? Unclear to who?” I muttered, frowning.

“Unclear to you duffer!” came from over my shoulder.

“Did you just call me a duffer?”

“Did I?” Nata Ji mocked.

I hovered over the “accept” button and paused.

“No,” I said out loud. “No, this is fine.”

“Tch…” echoed through the room.

I moved to the next comment:“Can we tighten this?”–

“Tighten what?” I asked my empty room, leaning back in my chair. “It’s already tight. This is…this is a good paragraph.”

“Tighten your brain,” returned Nata Ji. “And tighten your face while you’re at it. What is this look? Your beard looks like you slept facedown in the yard. Jungali insaan!!”

Ignoring her ranting, I reread the paragraph. I had to concede that it was…a long paragraph. I sat up straighter, scrolled and clicked another comment: “I think you can say this with less words.”

I exhaled slowly and highlighted the paragraph. Maybe it was longer than I remembered. I started deleting a sentence…

…then stopped.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered.

“Shaddaaap!” I heard from across the room.

There was no warning. A frigid sensation seized my lungs as Nata Ji lunged for the backspace key, her arm passing straight through my chest, spectral fingers trailing a chiffon sleeve.

After the shock wore off, I dove in and began trying to make sense of the deluge of feedback in front of me. Unfortunately, “Can we tighten this?” usually meant one of my favorite paragraphs was about to die.

And “Interesting…” was often accompanied by a “This must never see daylight, BESHARAM!” from Nata Ji.

And “Let’s revisit” meant “I have concerns, and you should too.” But the one I feared most was “I think you can say this with less words.”

Because EVERY TIME I got that comment, I’d hear “Haan! Do you think I want to be here? Just listen to her so I don’t have to look at your face! You bakwaas too much…” from over my shoulder.

I had dreamt for so long about writing my own book, and in that dream there were always chapters upon chapters. Pages and pages! Details on details! I wanted it to be quality AND quantity!!

And with Nata Ji sitting across from me, conducting along to Mariam’s feedback, it took all my self-control not to repeatedly smack my head onto the table.

But despite Mariam’s diligence and Nata Ji’s assaults, progress was being made. With each edit and rewrite and polish and trim, the book was starting to come together. 

That is, until…

-v-

There was a story about an uncle whom I found particularly distasteful. A man whose conduct may very well have contributed to a generation of youth turning away from the community. I didn’t like him and was more than content to trash him quite thoroughly in my story, but Mariam wasn’t letting it go and because of that, neither was Nata Ji.

“Why are you using that word, it seems unnecessary,” Mariam said.

“Yes, listen to her beghairat, clearly she is better at this than you are!” Nata Ji added.

“This is the filtered version. What I really wanted to say was…@%#$&,” I quipped.

“Language!!” Mariam’ admonished.

“Badtameez!!” added Nata Ji

“It’s better than he deserves!” I protested.

“That’s not the point. Think of your target audience. Also…akhlaq matters…don’t you want to be the better person?” Mariam asked, her kids singing “We’re going UP UP UP it’s our MOMENT!!” in the background.

“If there’s one thing that annoys me more than you, it’s that K-pop Demon Hunters bakwaas,” snarked Nata Ji from behind me.

“It should absolutely be the point and no-–” I started to bicker with Mariam, ignoring Nata Ji when I saw movement in my periphery and jerked back.

Nata Ji had had enough of my sass and swung an open hand at me, but thanks to my quick reaction, her hand only caught my glasses, making my vision flash a bright electric white as her spectral hand passed through them.

“Doesn’t matter! Respect!!” came Mariam’s persistent reply.

I ignored her, blinking the spots out of my vision, until I saw Nata Ji nodding menacingly at me over my shoulder, reflected on my laptop screen.

“Fine…” I conceded.

-v-

After reading a particularly edgy one of my stories, I picked up my phone to a text message from Mariam:

“Umm…I am going to have someone else read this for haya purposes…”

I blinked. “You’re going to…what?”

“Have someone else read it,” she repeated. “For haya purposes.”

I typed back. “Haya purposes.”

“Yes.”

I paused. “I don’t understand what that means.”

“That is evident, beghairat!!” Nata Ji added.

“It means,” Mariam typed, still calm, “I would prefer a second set of eyes.”

“On my haya?”

“On the content.”

“Which is lacking haya…” I said confused.

“Obviously!” exclaimed Nata Ji, looking up from a newspaper that she was reading.

Where she got a newspaper from, I have no clue. There was always some new implement on hand, a dupatta, a slipper, a belan. In the beginning I had wondered where she got stuff from, but now I just shrugged and assumed it had something to do with whatever energies had brought her here in the first place.

Mariam replied. “Yes.”

I started typing slowly. From somewhere behind me came, “She’s being generous.”

“Fair enough,” I sent to Mariam, turning my back to Nata Ji.

Mariam continued typing. “It’s just that some of these descriptions are…a lot. Maybe even unnecessary.”

“Unnecessary how? It’s storytelling,” I replied.

“It’s a bit much.” Mariam pushed back.

“Bit much?!”

Behind me—

“Bahut zyada. Listen to her, you behayat insaan!”

I clenched my jaw.

“You’re both overreacting.”

Mariam sent a raised eyebrow emoji. “Both?”

“Sorry…figure of speech.”

Nata Ji cackled, from where she sat, perched cross legged on my coffee table shelling astral peas in a metallic bowl..

“Hmm…” Mariam typed, no doubt questioning my sanity. 

“I’m just saying—” I started, “…that if something feels real, I should be allowed to write it.”

“You are,” Mariam texted. “But not everything that is real needs to be said.”

I leaned forward, my fingers typing a response aggressively. “That’s not writing. That’s filtering.”

“Think of your target audience. That’s called using your better judgment,” Mariam rebutted.

“You mean censorship.” 

“I mean responsibility.”

From behind me— “She means upbringing.”

I started to turn to Nata Ji. “Can you not—” and stopped. She had stepped closer and was brandishing a chappal. 

“It’s your book, which means it’s your decision. But just think my suggestions over, and in the meanwhile, let’s take a break. I’ll finish polishing up the next chapter in the meantime inshAllah.”

With a “Gtg, it’s my kids dinnertime” and a smile emoji, Mariam left me to my edits, the silence of the room and, of course, Nata Ji.

I put my phone down and turned to Nata Ji, fed up.

“Achha,” Nata Ji said, folding herself into the space beside me like she had always been there. “Now we fix.”

“Enjoying yourself?” I snapped.

“Deeply,” she said, folding her arms mid-air. “Your editor said ‘say less’ and look at you—internally breaking down.”

“I am not breaking down.”

“You are unraveling like a cheap sweater.”

“Okay first of all—”

“Second of all,” she cut in, “this draft? Overfed. Bloated. You are force-feeding it adjectives like it’s last call at a wedding buffet, motu.”

“It’s called my voice.”

“It’s called stupid voice, beghairat.”

I stood up so fast my chair nearly tipped. “You don’t get to psychoanalyze me.”

“I don’t have to analyze. You are announcing it to everyone yourself.”

“That’s not what I am doing, this is my work.”

“Our work.”

“What–”

“Our work,” she repeated, drifting closer. “Because right now, you can’t be trusted with it.”

“Oh wow. So now I’m unqualified to write my own book?” I raged.

“To edit and publish it,” she snapped back. “Yes. Absolutely. 100% fail.”

I laughed, sharp and humorless. “You’re unbelievable.”

“And all you have to do is fix this and I won’t have to be here! Bas! But here you are, attached to sentences that are not doing anything,” she fired back. “This line—why is it here?”

Why are you here, I thought, but I replied with a resigned: “It builds tone.”

“It builds nothing. It sits. It takes up space—and like you, it contributes zero.”

“You just don’t like it.”

“I do not like…aray kya hai wo word that Mariam uses?  Mediocrity,” she said calmly.

That did it. Weeks and weeks of this had pushed me to peak frustration.

“Say that again.” I snapped.

“Don’t you take that tone with me!” she shrieked.

She stepped, or floated, forward and for a split second, it felt like she was going to shove me.

But then lightning fast, her hand came up—and passed straight through my head.

We both froze.

“W…will you stop trying to hit me…” I said.

“I was making a point,” she said, adjusting her dupatta like nothing happened.

“You can’t even touch me.”

“Want another one?” She shot back. “Look at you, scared. Thappads work! A good slap will set you straight, beghairat.”

I exhaled hard, dragging my hands through my hair. “You’re exhausting.”

“And you’re avoiding,” she said instantly. “Mariam told you to say less. Why are you fighting it?”

“Because not everything needs to be stripped down to its minimal form!”

“Correct,” she said. “Only your useless ramblings do.”

She held my gaze.

“You don’t trust your reader,” she said, quieter now, but sharper. “You over-explain so no one can misunderstand you. So no one can judge you. So you can stay safe.”

“That’s not—”

“It is,” she said. “And it is making your writing worse. Listen to me and stop being stubborn, ghadday!”

There was a moment of silence. My shoulders dropped as I just gave up.

“Some of those lines matter…” I muttered.

“To you,” she said.

I looked back at the screen and then closed my eyes for a second, exhaling.

“Fine…” I said. “Yes, fine. I’ll cut it.”

“Good,’” she said immediately. “Be serious.”

I gave a tired, defeated laugh. “You are actually the worst.”

“Just accept the change and I’ll be gone.” she chided.

I sank back into my chair, suddenly heavy. “I hate that you’re right.”

“I know, now let’s continue,” she said leaning forward, all business again—

“You wrote this?” she said, peering over my shoulder.

“Yes.”

“This is what you chose?”

“…yes.”

“Ya Rabbi…” She fanned herself with the corner of her shawl, our discussion forgotten. “This chappal won’t do. Where is my belan??”

-v-

The thing about editors is that they will always tell you what they think, as matter-of-factly and as thoroughly as possible. And to make sure that I was aware, using tracked changes and with comments that still haunt me to this day.

In fact I remember trying to vent about my editor to a fellow writer and his response was, “Bro just suck it up, she hasn’t even really lashed out at you…”

Of course I couldn’t tell him about Nata Ji.

Between the two of them, it was like death by a thousand paper cuts. More often than not, I ended up folding and giving in.

It took me a while to actually believe that they weren’t attacking me—well, Mariam at least. For the longest time, every comment still felt personal. Every suggestion felt like a quiet indictment of something I had thought was good—something I had chosen.

But of course, I had to concede that Mariam was right, especially when she confronted me with the fact that my introduction rambled on for almost 15 pages.

I had spent hours on it—layering metaphors, building it up, letting it breathe. I thought it was brilliant.

She read it once. Paused.

“Amer,” she said, “this is too much…ridiculous even.”

I pushed back, of course, and tried to explain the symbolism, nuance, and intention.

“And here you are saying even more words!” interjected Nata Ji.

Mariam nodded, but then said, “I understand what you’re trying to do. But the reader will get bored.”

And after a week of debating with Mariam and Nata Ji bickering separately in my ear, I grudgingly gave in.

Finally, we were on the third round of editing at this point, cover to cover. Third! Three versions of my book had already been written, rewritten, rebranded, and presented.

I logged in one morning, coffee in hand, ready to make what I assumed would be a few final tweaks before we wrapped things up.

But apparently Mariam had a caffeine cocktail the previous evening.

I waited for the comments to appear as the document loaded, and watched in mounting horror as they began to populate…slowly…one by one.

Ping.

“Ping!” Nata Ji mocked from somewhere in the background.

Ping.

Ping.

Nata Ji’s shrill mocking rang in my mind as Mariam’s comments appeared. At first, I nodded along. “Okay, yeah…fair…good catch…”

Then I noticed the total comment count in the top right corner.

714.

I blinked and looked again thinking that maybe I had misread it. I leaned in closer to the screen, as if proximity might somehow reduce the number.

Seven…Hundred…

I sat silently back in my chair, agape. For a moment I thought I felt my soul contemplating departure, but it was just Nata Ji appearing over my shoulder.

“Don’t hold back, you’re probably loving this,” I told her, swivelling my chair in her direction.

“Oh yes!” she exclaimed, swooping past me to the other side of the room. “It’s about time someone else showed you how useless you are!”

Attempting to ignore her, I scrolled down the page. The comments kept going…and going…and going…

All I was seeing was blocks of text stacked on top of each other and margins crowded with notes.

Nata Ji cackled evilly from across the room where she had been standing in front of my bookshelf commenting about my “useless” tastes in literature.

“Why don’t I see anything by Faiz, Iqbal or even Chughtai?” she shrieked.

“And why are you reading Hemmingway? He was a drunk!” she said shrilly. “No wonder you can’t write,”

“That’s not mine,” I protested. “It’s left over from college–”

“Haan ok,” she fired back. “And don’t think I don’t know about that ‘C’ you got in freshman English!”

I froze. “How could you possibly—”

“Beghairat, I am Nata Ji.”

I just stared at my screen. This was different from all of the times Mariam and I had met. There was no dialogue this time, nothing for me to debate. Instead, everything hovered in front of me–all the suggestions, comments, little bubbles of critique waiting patiently to be read.

At one point, I stopped reading the comments and just scrolled, watching them pass. It was like the scenery outside a train window. Entire paragraphs highlighted, the margins filled, and her questions, suggestions, observations, and concerns taunting me from the screen.

Eventually, I stopped scrolling and went back to one of the comments I had dismissed earlier to read it again. Then the paragraph beside it.

Nope. I still didn’t agree with her.

At least, I didn’t think I did. Reluctantly, I changed the sentence anyway. Then another. I read the paragraph from the beginning…and I’ll admit. 

It was better.

And that felt… irritating. 

“I hate that she’s right…” 

“Trust the process, beghairat.”

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the screen for a while, suddenly less certain of all the things I had been so certain about.

Maybe every change wasn’t a surrender. Maybe some of them were simply making the story better.

A single lamp cast a warm circle of light over the desk. The rest of the room faded into shadow, leaving just me, the document, and a sense of quiet understanding.

A cup of chai, my usual writing companion, sat cooling somewhere to my right, forgotten mid-existential crisis. My room should have been quiet but, alas, I was still being haunted by the Ghost-of-Aunty-Present, who was currently humming, “If you’re a duffer and you know it, clap your hands!” in my ear.

Ignoring her determinedly, I glanced at the scrollbar again, took a deep breath, cracked my knuckles, and whispered:

“Bismillah.”

And out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nata Ji open her mouth to say something, but instead to my surprise, nodded with a sparkle in her eyes as I dove in.

-v-

One afternoon, in the middle of a call, Mariam paused. She was looking at her notes, not at me.

“Amer, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Some of what I’m cutting…I hope you know that these are just my suggestions. Because the voice is yours. I’m trying to sharpen it, not suppress it. If I’m pushing too hard, I want you to tell me.”

“HAIN??” came from over my shoulder. “Don’t be silly, of course she should cut EVERYTHING!”

I waved Nata Ji off and thought about it for a moment.

“No,” I said finally. “I think you’re catching the things I’m not catching.”

She nodded. “Good. Make sure you tell me if that changes.”

I sat there for a moment, considering it. But then shot upright as Nata Ji yelled, “Sit up straight, you have horrible posture! Sit like a man!” from across the room—and I suppressed an insolent urge to slump further.

So I kept fighting the good fight.

And in the few moments where my sheer stubbornness began to win out, Mariam would deploy messages like, “Well, if that’s what you feel is best” and “At the end of the day, it’s your book…” while Nata Ji’s battle cries echoed.

But occasionally, rarely,–the conceding did go the other way. During one session, I dug in particularly stubbornly on a sentence I loved. Mariam read it and then read it again.

“You know what,” she said finally, after a long moment. “Keep it. I was reading it awkwardly. But reading it again—that awkwardness IS your eccentricity. Go all in.”

Nata Ji gasped audibly behind me. “She agrees with your oddness?? Perhaps I should go visit her!”

I saved the line, and felt something shift in my mindset. Perhaps we were on the same side after all.

And then, one afternoon, I saw it—another comment. But then, I took a breath and just read it again. There was a strange kind of quiet in that moment—not the tense, defensive silence I had grown used to, but something lighter. 

And for the first time, I wasn’t asking, “How do I justify this?” I was asking, “Is she right?”

I exhaled.

“Yeah…” I said softly to myself—and deleted a sentence.

“Very good!” I heard from Nata Ji.

I deleted another and read the section again, noticing that it worked better now, and nodded to myself.

“You see!!” added the infernal aunty-spectre, never one to let me have the last word.

But for the first time, her voice sounded distracted and almost like it was a little further away than usual.

-v-

Days continued to turn into weeks, which had begun turning into months, and my book was really starting to take shape. By now, under Mariam’s guidance and Nata Ji’s watchful eye, we were now on the final iteration of my book. It was decided that we would hijack part of a writer’s meetup to go over the book in person from end-to-end.

I was especially excited because, after this round of editing, we were going to be finalizing the order of all of my stories into the perfect set of chapters before we moved to a final polish. In fact, on the flight over, I had been day dreaming about what the final version would look like and was ever so grateful that Nata Ji didn’t make an appearance. God only knows the havoc she might have wreaked on the plane.

During our in-person editing session—printed stories strewn across the table, red pen marks smudged across the margins like mehndi on the face of the bride who fell asleep before washing her hands—things took a slight turn. 

The pages shifted and rustled as we worked, my laptop sitting open between us. Mariam came to get stuff done and (unknown to her) Nata Ji was not tolerating any bakwaas from me.

We’d been at it all morning and my brain was fried. Between us were two mugs of chai, a half-eaten sandwich, and enough marked-up pages to wallpaper an entire community center, bleeding through the pages like a rooh-afza massacre.

We had just finished discussing a story about a group of aunties who ran an underground matchmaking service like a Fortune 500 company when she flipped to the next title and misread out loud:

“The Rishta…Spread Sh*t.”

I looked up and froze. There was silence—then realization—then mortification. Then sputtering.

And then we both cracked up—laughter echoing through the room.

I was clutching my stomach while she buried her face in the manuscript, muttering between gasps, “Oh no…no no, that’s not what I meant!”

“But she is so right!” cackled Nata Ji.

“Tell me what you really think about my book, why don’t you!” I managed to wheeze, wiping the corner of my eyes. “No need to sugarcoat it now.”

She waved her hand, trying to compose herself. “It was a slip of the tongue!”

“Sure, sure,” I said. “The subconscious never lies.”

Mariam glared at me half-jokingly.

“I’ll show YOU subconscious!” Nata Ji muttered ominously, ever quick to take Mariam’s side–again, not that she’d ever know.

We packed up that day, still chuckling over her Freudian slip.

But later that night, when I looked back at my draft manuscript, I noticed her comment in the margin next to The Rishta Spreadsheet:

“I love this story…”

I smiled to myself. “Clearly not sh*t,” I chuckled, shaking my head.

And then I flinched as I continued reading the comment on my screen. 

“…but I still think that we need to tighten this section.”

I stared at the screen.

“Absolutely not,” I muttered. “I’ve already changed this too much.”

I turned to look for Nata Ji and found the room empty… 

But then I heard it. A very faint “Shaddap!” echoing in the distance.

I smiled…

…and deleted another sentence.

I paint swirls on banners and marigolds on teacups,
polish the cutlery and set out the tablecloths.
Each placemat is arranged just so.
Light the candles with their warm glow.
I hang blackened dahlias from the ceiling 
to cover the bars of our cage.
Scatter petals around the room to mask our pain.
Chin up, the tea is ready to pour.
I press and primp, place 
a placard before your empty seat,
wear the same vacant smile 
you taught me as a child to keep.
Welcome to my tea party.

I made everything you’ve ever dreamed,
filled with fantasies about love and family.
Here, in our prison, there is peace.
Have a tart, I made them just for you.
Tiny bites to taste 
your dreams of traveling the world.
London, Spain, Malaysia – we’ll go everywhere.
In our tiny cage, anything is possible.

Nevermind my rage, it only creates a bitter taste.
Focus on this creme brulee,
its surface charred, 
break it into shards
In this life, you were deprived,
forced into a grating existence of sacrifice.
So let me serve you the life you should have had.
Here, a sweet pudding 
on a platter of painted silver
made of softness, of a gentle, reliable love.
The main course is yet to come.

I’m sorry, I put salt into the tea.
My love for you is marred by resentment.
But never mind it.
You were a victim of this life.
If only you hadn’t victimized me as well.
You just wanted company, I guess.
Misery loves its companions.
I understand, 
what a bitter existence to endure.
But how could you make me live it too? 

Something is boiling over,
the fire is too much.
The kettle is shrieking,
too inflamed to touch.
It’s not enough, your “love.”
Troubled minds think alike, 
and I know the recesses of your soul.
The one that holds romantic notions
of a life lived through stories and poetry.
So much so, that suffering became mandatory.
You prefer the cage to the freedom of uncertainty.
So you locked us away and hid the key.

The tales you were told, lied.
The creation of a fairy tale life
was never meant to hold such harshness.
You say every relationship needs a spark,
but yours became an inferno 
of hatred and resentment.
Cruel words and the weight 
of a mountain on your shoulders,
holding up the world with no one 
to carry you.

Your love for us is as fickle as a 
withering rose under a scorched sun.
The only fragrance is the 
stench of rotting petals.
But I shut off my senses and pretended 
to only see the flower in a mirage of its beauty.
Covered lies, swollen smiles
But I’ve come to realize,
I don’t want your false love.
I need your protection from the burning sun.

How long will you cling to a mistake 
just because you spent a long time making it?
How many more years of pain must we all endure
till the sharp grooves of trauma are etched into our souls?
Our DNA holds the same sequencing that kept you
chained and making excuses.
Are we doomed to repeat this?

I said too much, let me make it up.
The taste of lies coats my tongue
in sickly sweet molasses.
Smile wide, say we’re alright.
Turn off the lights, pretend not to cry.
I couldn’t give you the life you deserved.
The main course is ruined, blackened and bitter. 

Give me a few years, I can try again.
I’ll set the table right, 
I won’t make you cry.
Maybe I will find poetic words to describe
the shape of your pain 
the feel of this cage.
But for now,
all I have is my rage.

 17/7/2028 17:54 – National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes (NCAVC), Conference Room 

This glass skin of mine shatters and distorts beneath the scrutinizing gaze of my audience. I sit there, frozen, uncomfortable and dissociated. They watch my every move, like a rat in a maze; every twitch of my eyes, every hesitant turn, observed and judged. And I’m left to wonder if there is any hope at all. I swore this time I would break free, but here I am, stagnant, proving to myself that habits don’t break after a desperate cry for help. That a man’s words in the darkest period of his life don’t change anything. How he will forget you, just like it was always meant to be. 

A historian once shared a profound truth: details of legendary discoveries were often lost in the mundane. How exactly, 45 letters after his cousin’s, did the king decide enough is enough, only to declare war again and ruin his entire country and reputation? How did the not-so-silent cat of the next-door serial killer inadvertently lead the police to its owner’s grim secrets? 

How did I write 99 and a half journal entries, each dated for a future I pray to see beyond the walls of this mental asylum? 

I’m left frozen in the cold block of this white room suffocating me. I send a silent prayer that its oppressive weight smothers the adults in their doctor costumes. That they, too, feel as uneasy as I do.

“Miss Anna, please write your full name and sign here.”

I grip the pen like it’s the final puzzle piece of my not-so-mundane life and sign a signature I make up on the spot. How could they know what’s real and what’s not? All I have to do is keep up this act until the end. My final act won’t be inside these cursed walls.

A bitter smile tugs at my lips, threatening to betray what I really feel. 

“When will I be discharged, doctor?” 

The word sits like bile on my tongue. I could be his senior, or his senior’s senior. Yet here I am, forced to call him “doctor.”

He purses his lips and squints, his demeanour reeking of distrust and arrogance, a dangerous mixture for a man who claims he’s here to help.

“We still need some more time.”

I squint back, challenging what’s left of his borrowed authority. “I don’t have time, young man. Nor do I have the patience to let the government treat me like some kind of lab rat.”

My eyes scan the room. No visible exits. A nurse at every corner. You’d think I held the secrets of the universe with how tightly they’re guarding this cage. I feel like an animal at the zoo—used, displayed, no longer trusted to function outside my box. 

Except I’m not a wild animal that needs to be tamed, just an influential doctor who dared to speak the truth.

“Of course, Miss Anna. We wouldn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. All of these procedures are entirely consensual and for the good of our nation. It’s both an honor for me and my team to work alongside incredible geniuses like yourself.” 

I let out a breathless laugh. He refuses to call me by my hard-earned title, yet still expects me to believe he sees me as anything other than a burden. One he most definitely wishes to eliminate at the earliest convenience.

“It’s Doctor Anna,” my voice is flat. I’m not going to give him the reaction he wants. “Your so-called ‘honour to work alongside me’ doesn’t make sense when you can’t even address me by my proper academic title.” 

They are not even hiding it anymore. I truly expected better from the so-called “top tier psychology researchers” that the government needs me to work with so badly. If I could even call this “work” and not a social experiment that feels more like a trap. 

His tight smile falters, then stretches even further. A thin, brittle line. I wouldn’t have known he was fazed  if it hadn’t been for the pulsed vein on the side of his neck.

I must have hit a nerve. Good. This is payback for how they threw me into this three-day mess of interrogations. I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no phone or smart gadgets to communicate with the outside world. The poor book talk and signing event coordinator must be in shambles. 

I still remember poor sweet Jamila’s brown eyes widening with shock when the group of strong men in suits grabbed me after the event, in order to “chat” about how my book, The Psychology of Dictators, drew the attention of the government. How could it not? At least 10 major protests were ignited within the first month of its release and hundreds of thousands flooded the streets to rise up against our dictator. That kind of unity was only seen back in the 1900s, when our country gained its independence. 

I should have run away when I had the chance. But this “doctor” wasn’t going to let me go that easily, I had little option but to comply. He wouldn’t be heartless enough to kill me, right? If he did, he could have done it a long time ago.

My gaze searches the room, looking for  anything warmer than the ice cold energy I feel from the fake smiles and tense silence around me. Nothing here feels like the career path I fell in love with. A small nurse, one who hasn’t yet uttered a single word, but has been a constant presence since I arrived at this hellhole, looks me up and down with a feeling I can’t quite place. Is it pity? Or…

Before I can analyze her even further, the look disappears, faster than it had appeared. The door creaks open and a new face enters. Another crisp white uniform, in the sea of stiff and rigid routine. She’s holding a brown envelope, one I’ve seen way too many times. “Standard procedure,” they call it—as if anything in this place is “standard.” But as she steps into the light, my breath catches in my throat, and my heart sinks to my stomach.

It is her eyes. I’ll never forget those eyes.

The same brilliant, shocking brown, now drained of every shade that once made them human. The same eyes that had widened at my book signing—the very eyes I, the fool, had mistaken for horror. For solidarity. For anything real.

“Jamila?” The name crawls out of me like something I should have buried a long time ago.

She looks up. No flinch. No flicker. The warm, expressive brown of the event coordinator I remembered has been gutted and replaced with something clinical. This is something else. Something dehumanising.

“Hello, Doctor Anna,” she says, her voice smooth as glass. “It’s time for your interview reporting.”

And in that moment, the final, horrifying piece of the puzzle clicks into place. The friendly coordinator, the convenient government interest, the perfectly timed abduction. It wasn’t a coincidence. The person I had trusted, whose innocent face was my last memory of freedom, had been part of it all along. She hadn’t been a witness to my downfall. She is one of its moving pieces.

He had been planning this from the start. I should have known just how cruel he could be. 

 17/7/2028 21:32 – National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes (NCAVC), Residential Room

The clock is moving at a painfully slow crawl, the silence even more dreadful than the wait. My roommate is thankfully still absent, granting me a precious window to journal the remaining sanity I’ve been holding on to since I returned to my glass cage. 

My fingers close around the only treasure I’ve ever possessed–the last link I have of my twin brother from that dreadful orphanage, the bittersweet ghost of his former self, when he was simply my brother and not the shadow he’d since become. It still haunts the edges of my memory—the only trauma I refuse to face. I’m supposed to wrap up the remaining interviews tomorrow and begin discussions of me being discharged from this unit. 

Again. 

Two days. 

That’s all the time I’m supposed to spend as an experienced analyst in the department for corrupt, high-profile criminals. Yet, from the moment I stepped through these doors, a pervasive, unsettling hyper-aware team has been following me. I’m certain they’re not just watching the criminals. 

A doctor, Doctor Layla, has been assigned as my roommate. Agreeing to pretend to be a patient in order to understand these criminals’ minds should have been the first red flag, yet I feel less like I have an option and more like I’m being coerced into believing I have less control than I really do. From an early age I was really good at beating games where I was at a disadvantage; I loved proving everyone wrong. And this time, I won’t be any different. 

I groaned softly as I stretched after climbing down from the weathered jeep. The long drive up into the mountains from the airport in Islamabad had worked its way deep into my bones. For a moment I simply stood there at the outskirts of my village, listening to the wind move gently through the trees overhead.

Coming home after so many years felt less like returning to a place and more like stepping back into a memory—tree branches arched lazily overhead, uneven stone paths worn smooth by generations of footsteps, the faint scents of pine and wood smoke drifting through the mountains.

I often wondered whether my memories had dulled with age, but standing there looking down at our valley, I found everything exactly as I remembered it—the quiet beneath the trees, the houses in the village radiating outward from the masjid, and the village’s teacher, Ustaadh Ji’s workshop next to it. From where I stood, I could see his weathered wooden door, propped open like it always was in the afternoons, letting in the alpine breeze.

Seeing it pulled me deeper into memory. Everyone in our village greeted him with warmth and respect, for almost all of them had once studied under his gentle tutelage. More than once each year, the entire village would gather in celebration when another of his students completed reading the Qur’an from beginning to end for the first time, the young reader’s voice trembling with both nervousness and pride while Ustaadh Ji listened with the calm satisfaction of a gardener watching a tree he had planted finally bear fruit.

I remembered my own khatam day. I had sat cross-legged before Ustaadh Ji in the masjid, my small finger pointing at the page, trembling as I read the final verses. As the last words finally left my lips, the room erupted with cheers and prayers. I remember Ustaadh Ji pulling me tightly against his chest after he placed a topi embroidered in gold thread on my head–his gift to every boy who finished reading the Qur’an from end-to-end—his face radiant with the same quiet pride I had seen him offer so many students before me.

I remembered my father. The way his eyes shone as he hugged me before pressing a crisp thousand-rupee note into my palm while the other men of the village laughed, congratulated him, and slapped his back in celebration.

Smiling to myself, I made my way slowly through the village streets, passing stone walls softened by time and small groups of elders seated beneath the shade, their conversations carrying lazily through the mountain air. Somewhere nearby, meat sizzled inside the walls of a clay oven while children darted between the narrow paths with the same restless energy I remembered from my own youth.

Nestled in the shadow of Pakistan’s northern peaks, beneath low-hanging clouds, a narrow lane lined with apricot trees led down from the main road into the village. I had just begun walking along it when I heard the call to prayer begin, drifting softly across the valley and pulling me into yet another memory.

​​Few in the village could remember a time before Ustaadh Ji’s door had stood open to all of us children. For decades he had sat in that same sunlit room, guiding small, uncertain hands through their first letters—alif, ba, ta—until the shapes that once felt foreign began to flow naturally from the reed. Entire generations had passed across that woven mat before him.

It had been so long since my last visit. While my own life had become consumed by distance and noise, this village had remained here enduring quietly beneath the mountains, carrying on without me. I found myself wondering how much of it I had failed to preserve simply by being gone.

With every step, the years between my leaving and returning seemed to loosen their hold on me. Familiar sounds began rising gently from the village like echoes surfacing from deep water—the distant bleating of goats along the hillside, the creak of wooden shutters shifting in the breeze, the faint murmur of Qur’an recitation drifting from the direction of the masjid courtyard.

As I arrived in the village center, I passed my family’s home without stopping and continued instead toward the masjid. Only later would I realize that something within me had already begun searching for Ustaadh Ji long before I consciously intended to. When I finally reached his workshop and peered through the open door, everything was exactly as it always had been, as though time itself had simply passed around it.

Afternoon light slanted through high windows, falling in bars of gold and shadow across the stone floor. Dust motes drifted lazily in the warm air, rising with each subtle movement and settling again as if the room itself were breathing. In the corner, seated cross-legged on a woven mat, was our Ustaadh. His white beard caught the light like frost on a winter branch, and his hands—veined and weathered over the decades—moved with a precision that belied his age.

Before him lay a small bundle of reeds, cut to equal length, their yellow-brown husks catching the light. Beside them was a single piece of paper, a clay pot of black liquid that shone like obsidian, and a small wooden box no bigger than a loaf of bread.

The blade whispered softly against the reed. Slice. Pause. Turn. Another careful cut. Each movement was deliberate, unhurried, as though the reed itself had a rhythm that Ustaadh Ji was listening for.

As I waited, my mind wandered to the peaceful rhythm of life here. The smell of fresh roti drifted from clay ovens through the village’s stone walkways, mingling softly with pine and woodsmoke in the mountain air. From somewhere high above the village came the piercing cry of a Shaheen falcon as it announced itself with a scream before dropping into a sharp dive.

I had read somewhere that they could live for nearly twenty years, and I found myself wondering if this was the same one I had watched soaring above our home when I was a child. I remembered afternoons spent sitting on a large rocky outcrop just outside the village with my friends, our legs dangling over the edge as we watched the valley below, cheering when we spotted the lethal bird streaking across the sky like an arrow. We would point wildly towards the sky, arguing over who had seen it first, our bickering carrying into the wind.

Dust tickled my nose, interrupting my reverie, and I watched as another shaving curled away from the reed and floated gently downward, landing soundlessly among the others on the folded cloth.

Watching him work, I became suddenly aware of how clumsy my own hands were. Even the stillness of the room seemed disciplined in a way I was not. I had arrived, carrying years of distance and noise inside me. For years my days had been measured in schedules, traffic, and glowing screens, and now watching Ustaadh Ji work in peace, I felt all of it evaporate at once.

Ustaadh Ji did not look up.

I remained where I was, leaning lightly against the wooden frame of his doorway, watching. And after a while, the waiting itself became peacefully comfortable. The small sounds of the room began to settle into a quiet pattern: the faint rasp of the blade, the soft fall of another shaving, the slow creak of the woven mat as he shifted his weight. Without realizing it, I found myself breathing more slowly, matching the gentle cadence of his work.

Only when the reed had finally taken the shape he wanted, did Ustaadh Ji pause. He set the blade down beside him and turned his head slightly toward me.

“So,” he said, as though I had just arrived. “You have finally returned. I’d wondered if you’d forgotten about us. ”

As he spoke, his fingers continued to move carefully, deliberately picking up each shaving fragment, examining it and placing it carefully into the wooden box, where it joined the remnants of many past reeds.

Unable to hold my curiosity, I asked, “Ustaadh Ji… what are you doing? And why are you keeping the shavings?”

He paused, looked up, and smiled the way a grandfather smiles at a child asking why the stars twinkle. His eyes were deep and soft, reflecting the light of the window like pools of calm water.

“Ah,” he said, turning the reed in his hand, “you have noticed.”

He lifted one of the shavings with the tip of his blade and held it to the light. It was thin as a strand of saffron, curling naturally into a tiny spiral.

“Every calligrapher who wanders this path,” he said, “knows that the qalam is not merely a tool. It is a witness. It is the bridge between the soul and the page. With it, we write the words of the Almighty, the poetry of civilizations, and the names of those who will be remembered long after our bones are dust.

“These shavings…” he gestured to the cloth, “…are a testament of that work. Each curl fell as I prepared the instrument to bear something sacred. One day, these shavings will rest with me in the earth. They will one day whisper that I once served as a scribe in devotion to the Almighty.”

He reached for the wooden box, its lid carved with a simple geometric pattern of interlocking squares. Opening it, he revealed hundreds of tiny shavings layered like pressed flowers, each one a silent fragment of time.

“This is many years of pens,” he said softly. “Every qalam I have cut, every single one that I have used, every mistake, every perfection. All saved, for when I return to the One who gave me these hands and these eyes. We will go together, the qalam and I, and these shavings will one day bear witness that I did not waste the gift.”

I said nothing. My chest tightened with the unspoken weight of him leaving us—a heaviness I prayed I would never have to name.

For as long as I could remember, that room had seemed as permanent as the mountains beyond the valley. The thought that the mat might one day lie empty, the blade resting silent beside untouched reeds, felt almost impossible to hold in my mind. It was difficult, imagining that the workshop could exist without him in it. 

I had allowed myself to live as though it always would. Years had passed between my visits while I buried myself in the noise of another life, deceived by the foolish certainty that men like Ustaadh Ji would simply always be waiting where I had left them. Sitting there now, watching his weathered hands gather the shavings into that small wooden box, I felt the quiet shame of realizing how much I had taken his presence for granted.

I watched him place another shaving carefully into the box, and for the first time since returning, I understood that my longing to remain near him was not merely nostalgia. Somewhere within me was the growing fear that I had already spent too many years away from the things that truly mattered. The village would always be here, but would he?

I watched him in silence for a few moments before I finally found the courage to speak.

“Ustaadh Ji…” I said quietly. “Would you teach me?”

For several moments he said nothing. I watched as his thumb drifted along the lid of the box, tracing the small nicks and imperfections time had carved into it, as though he remembered the story behind every single one.

“Why?” he asked at last, setting the box down.

The question caught me unprepared.

“Because it is beautiful,” I answered.

He gave a faint smile, though his eyes remained fixed on the box as he set it down.

“Beauty alone is not enough. The world is already full of beautiful things.” He gestured to the door with his head as he picked up his qalam and turned it gently between his fingers. “Many admire our art. But few are willing to surrender themselves to it.”

The room fell quiet again except for the distant murmur of wind outside the workshop.

“This craft,” he continued softly, “demands patience from the impatient, humility from the proud, and discipline from the restless. The qalam records all of it. Every trembling hand. Every hurried line. Every moment the heart wanders from its intention.”

He looked toward the wooden box beside him.

“And if you learn it properly, then one day its preservation will also become your responsibility. You will carry it the way others carried it before you.”

His gaze settled on me then, calm and searching.

“Tell me honestly,” he asked, “are you prepared to serve something that may never reward you except in silence?”

I lowered my eyes, suddenly aware that I did not truly know the answer.

And perhaps seeing that uncertainty in me, Ustaadh Ji finally nodded.

“Good,” he said softly. “A man who answers without thinking has not understood the weight of the question.”

Then, at last—“Come,” he said, gesturing for me to step closer. I knelt beside him, the mat rough beneath my knees. The faint smell of ink and dried reeds filled my nose, strangely calming.

He held up the reed he had just cut. Its tip was wide and flat, a chisel ready for work.

“Do you know why we shape the qalam this way?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Kufic,” he said, and the word itself seemed to settle into the room like a stone in a still pond. “The oldest of our scripts. It was born in Kufa, by the river, where the call to prayer echoed through the desert. It speaks with strength and silence. The horizontal stroke is the earth beneath your feet. And the vertical stroke is the finger that testifies to the heavens. To write Kufic is to erect a monument on the page. A weak pen will betray the letters, so we cut the qalam with care. Its strength becomes the strength of the letters.”

I looked at the reed in his hand. Until that moment, I had only seen a tool. Now it felt almost sacred.

He dipped the reed into the ink and drew a slow horizontal line across the page. It was perfectly even, thick and confident. He then rotated the nib slightly and drew a vertical stroke, slim and sharp as a sword.

“You see,” he said, “Kufic is not written. It is built. Crafted. It is a constructed city of letters, and every letter is a pillar. When I write, I am building gates, courtyards, and walls. The letters stand with each other. They breathe together.”

He ran his thumb gently along the reed. “But this is true of more than calligraphy.”

He gestured faintly toward the village beyond the window. “Our life is built the same way. Carefully and patiently. One line,” he drew a line on the page, “beside another. One generation beside the next. Your grandfather laid a stone, your father raised a wall, and perhaps you will only be entrusted with repairing a doorway before your own hands grow old.”

I felt suddenly small hearing him speak that way—not diminished, but humbled. I had spent so much of my life thinking about what I might build for myself that I had never once considered the dignity of simply preserving what had already been entrusted to me.

His words settled heavily inside me as I stared at the page, at the two lines he had drawn. They already looked like foundations.

-v-

Over the next weeks, I returned to the workshop every day, stepping over the same threshold worn smooth by years of students passing through. Ustaadh Ji’s workshop was a place of tranquil discipline. The morning light always crossed through the windows the same way, allowing me to settle into the quiet familiarity of the room before our lesson began.

At first, I only observed as Ustaadh Ji’s hands moved with ritual precision: soaking reeds to soften them, cutting nibs at careful angles, testing the ink’s thickness on scraps of paper. He explained that Kufic is not for those in haste. It requires a mind emptied of noise. Discipline and patience are virtues held dear by its practitioners.

For all its stillness, the room awakened my senses: the sound of reed shavings being brushed aside, the way Ustaadh Ji tested a nib on a scrap of paper, his habit of tapping the qalam gently against the ink pot, and even the smell of ink thickening in the afternoon warmth.

As Ustaadh Ji’s rhythms became familiar, I began to help with small tasks around the workshop.

I would carefully sweep his reed shavings into a small pile at the far corner of his mat. I’d place fresh paper beside him while carefully mixing the ink with water to his preferred texture and consistency.

As the days turned into weeks and I continued to return without fail, he began to trust me with his knife, one that had been gifted to him by his own teacher many years earlier. I took great pride in honing the blade to a razor-sharp edge and laying it beside a pile of fresh reeds waiting for him to begin crafting every time.

“Each letter is an invocation,” he’d explain as he worked. “If your hand is restless, the letter will wobble. If your heart is heavy, the line will falter. The qalam feels everything you feel. You cannot hide from it.”

One morning, he let me cut my first reed. I held the small blade awkwardly, conscious of his eyes on my hands. The first slice was too deep, the second uneven. A jagged shaving fell onto the mat.

“Keep it,” he said, picking it up and placing it on the cloth. “Mistakes are part of the journey. This fragment will testify that your hand was learning.”

He then adjusted my grip, rotating the reed slightly in my hand. “Again,” he ordered, not unkindly.

By the end of that week, I had a small pile of shavings beside me. My lines were crooked, pillars faltered, and my horizontals slanted like tired walls.

I remember staring at the ruined tip in my hands, embarrassed by how quickly they had betrayed me. What had looked effortless in Ustaadh Ji’s hands now seemed impossibly delicate. I was beginning to understand that perfection was not born from talent alone, but from a discipline I did not yet possess.

But Ustaadh Ji only nodded. “Kufic is patient,” he said. “It has endured for centuries. It will wait for you.”

Months passed. Shadows lengthened across the workshop floor, and the air grew cooler, heralding autumn. What was meant to be a brief visit home had stretched far beyond my original plans. The demands of my other life lingered somewhere beyond the mountains, distant enough to feel almost imaginary. Each morning, I found myself drawn back to Ustaadh Ji’s workshop as though some deeper part of me already understood that this time together would not come again.

One afternoon, almost as if by accident, Ustaadh Ji wordlessly reached for a reed I had cut instead of preparing one himself. He tested the nib against the paper once, then nodded almost imperceptibly before continuing his work. That small gesture filled me with a pride I carried for weeks.

And within all of this persisted the quiet ritual of the art: the scent of reed and ink, the soft sound of the knife, the stillness that wrapped around each session like a cloak. I had since acquired my own small wooden box to carry back with me when I eventually returned abroad, and I watched my own pile of shavings grow with each session. I was learning that Kufic was not merely an art, but a discipline.

One evening, as the sun sank and the workshop turned amber with fading light, I watched as Ustaadh Ji placed the remnants of that day’s work carefully into his wooden box. I thought of the hundreds that lay there already, remnants of a life spent in devotion.

“Ustaadh Ji,” I said, “when you are gone, who will continue the city you have built?”

The qalam rested lightly between his fingers. “Most people think legacy is something grand. A monument. A name carved into marble. But often it is quieter. A discipline passed from one hand to another. A verse remembered correctly. A craft preserved long enough for another soul to inherit it.”

He looked down at the page again. “That is why we honor our qalam. Without it, the city cannot exist. And when my hand is gone, perhaps the city will still stand, but these small pieces,” he gestured toward the wooden box, “and I will rest together, satisfied with what we helped build.”

He looked at me, his smile gentle. “Perhaps you will continue it,” he said. “Perhaps not. The city does not belong to me. It belongs to the Almighty. I am but His servant.”

Then he placed the reed in my hand. “Cut,” he said.

The room fell quiet as we worked, though the silence wasn’t empty. There was simply nothing more to say. Later that afternoon, I shook his hand and made my way back to my family’s home, but his words lingered in my ears long into the night.

-v-

Many years later, in my study on the other side of the world, I reflected as I whittled my next qalam, Ustaadh Ji’s knife resting familiarly in my hand. He had gifted it to me during one of our last lessons together. I remember holding my breath as he’d handed it to me.

“My own teacher gave this to me,” he had said quietly, almost reverently.

Only later did I realize that the knife would never truly belong to either of us. We were both mere caretakers, each entrusted by our Ustaads with a brief moment to lay another stone for those who would come after us.

Even now, whenever my blade would begin its slow work, I’d sometimes feel as though I could hear the faint rasp of another blade beside mine, as though the quiet of his workshop still lingered somewhere in the rhythm of my craft. I’d occasionally find myself wondering how many other hands across the valley still remember the patience he taught us.

Somewhere behind me, I heard footsteps pause briefly at the doorway of my study, but I did not look up immediately. This reed was not yet ready.

A final curl fell into my own box of shavings on the desk. The small wooden box beside my hand was beginning to resemble the one I had first noticed resting beside his mat so many years before.

I exhaled deeply as my qalam met the page, the first stroke rising like a minaret against the open sky. In that quiet moment, Ustaadh Ji’s lessons returned to me:

“Each letter, a monument. Each stroke, a supplication.”

aching soul,

restless,

mind never quite at ease

grief takes its home

in between

the flesh

of my ribs

there it stays,

lodged

and unmoving

like a pebble in the sole of the shoe

it never truly leaves

never lets my soul breathe

or even come up for air

it moves within me

like an ocean with a million currents

the waves constantly crashing at the shore

where all of life’s tragedies

come to surface

once more

where the vastness of these pains

travels across miles

flower fields of beauty

yet the sorrows stem deep

within the roots

they grow and grow

yet nobody sees them

nobody dares to touch the soil of one’s anguish

they remain afraid of muddying their hands

how repulsive this grief must be

how sickly of a creature I have become

and I continue to loathe in this mess,

uncertain of each step

every breath

the words stuck on the tip of my tongue

daring to spill out,

daring to tell anyone just how I feel

the burning desire

to be understood

the words stuck on the tip of my tongue

a fiery rage in my chest

and I now watch

in utter horror

as my own two hands

lead to my demise

the blade is at my throat,

threatening to cut

scar

damage

make me lose my breath

and choke on every emotion suppressed

here I stand

in the valleys of my grief

here I shall stay

in the pits of my despair

and for the sake of my sanity,

my head hits the floor

to speak to the Almighty above

in hopes He shall listen to me implore

“Harakah and Barakah, reporting for service!” Harakah announced.

He snapped to attention as the Senior Angel passed by, then eased back over the welcome counter the moment he was gone. Barakah, beside him, did not look up from the register.

“You don’t have to yell every time he walks by,” Barakah said.

“I’m not yelling. I’m practicing.”

“You’re yelling.”

They were Junior Angels, newly posted to the Welcome Gates of the Barzakh, the intermediate realm where souls await the Day of Judgment. They had grown up on stories of Jibril descending with revelation, of Mika’il dispatching rain to parched earth, of Harut and Marut and the magic trials of Babylon. They had memorized the names of the Warrior Angels at Badr, sent down with swords of light to fight alongside the human believers. Now it was their turn.

“Next!” Harakah called out, brightening. He waved with both wings.

Two sisters drifted to the front of the line, bright-eyed and a little dazed. The Attending Angels who’d handled their passage, carrying them gently upward through station after station, had done good work. They always did.

“Assalamu alaikum,” Harakah said, beaming. “May Allah have mercy on you both.”

“Wa alaykum assalam,” the sisters said in unison.
“It’s beautiful here,” the younger one said, looking around.

“Welcome to the Barzakh,” Harakah said. “There’s a sign over there if you want to read it. I gave feedback on the design!”

“His feedback was that the font was ‘too serious,'” Barakah said.

“Brother.”

“That was all of it.”

“And they made it less serious!” Harakah protested. “That’s feedback!”

The older sister laughed, bemused.

Barakah sighed. “Alright,” he said, smoothing the register. “Names?”

The sisters gave their names. Barakah found them on the day’s list and made a small notation: received in good standing. The page warmed faintly under his hand.

Harakah chatted with the sisters about the gardens that awaited them, about the breeze and fragrance of Paradise that would reach even here. Barakah laid down his pen and listened.

Before this, they had spent sixty years as the Recording Angels of the same human. Harakah on the right shoulder, writing good deeds. Barakah on the left, writing the rest. Their human had passed on a Tuesday, and they had been reassigned to the Welcome Gates the following morning. Harakah loved the new role. Barakah was still adjusting. He missed observing.

“Your gardens are ready when you are,” Barakah said, when there was a lull in the conversation. “But before you go, is there anyone living you’d like us to add to the Golden Register? The Supplicant Angels in the higher gardens make du’a for those listed there. Every dawn.”

The sisters looked at each other.

“Sarah,” the older one said. “From Masjid an-Noor. Could you add Sarah?”

“Of course.” Barakah wrote it down. “Tell us about her.”

“She always smiled at me. Even when I was new and didn’t know where to put my shoes.” The older sister was quiet for a moment, then said, “I didn’t realize until later that she was the one writing all those masjid emails I kept opening. The ones that read like a letter from a friend.”

“And her book,” the younger sister added. “My nephew read it so many times the cover started to peel. He fasted his first full Ramadan because of the girl in that book. He’s seven.”

“He’s so proud of himself,” the older sister reminisced.

Harakah was grinning. He looked at Barakah. Barakah was already looking at him.

“What?” the younger sister said. “Why are you both—”

“Nothing,” Barakah said quickly. “We’ll add her. Thank you for telling us about her. Du’as from this side travel fast.”

He closed the register. The sisters were gently directed toward the green path, where their gardens were waiting, and they went, already starting to talk about who they hoped to see first.

When they were out of earshot, Harakah turned to Barakah and grabbed him by both shoulders.

“BARAKAH.”

“I know.”

“BARAKAH IT’S HER.”

“Lower your wings, brother, everyone can see you—”

“It’s her, the one the Seniors keep telling us about, the one whose name keeps coming in—”

“I am aware,” Barakah said. “I have been writing her name down all morning—”

Harakah let go and did a small, giddy spin. A passing Senior Angel gave him a look. He composed himself, badly.

“Sorry. Sorry,” Harakah said. “I’m composed.”

“You are not composed.”

“I’m composed enough.”

The news that evening was that the Gathering Angels were going on a Pursuit.

The Pursuits were among the oldest angelic traditions: seeking and gathering around circles of knowledge, spoken of by the Prophet ﷺ himself. Harakah had been waiting his entire career to join one.

He dreamed of being chosen for the Laylat al-Qadr descent during the last ten nights of Ramadan, when the angels poured down in numbers no Junior Angel could conceive of. For now, this would do. He had practiced his entrance. There was a flourish involved.

He found Barakah in the registry hall and skidded to a halt at his desk. All heads turned.

“Pursuit!” he gasped. “Tonight. America. A circle of dhikr!“

“That’s nice.”

“Barakah.”

“That’s nice, Harakah.”

“They’re discussing the Barzakh. It’s a writing exercise. They’re imagining letters from the dead.”

Barakah set down his pen.

“And?”

“And she’s there.”

Barakah paused, mulling it over. Then he nodded. “Stay close to the group,” he said. “We’re guests on this one.”

“I will be the model guest!” Harakah exclaimed.

“You will not be the model guest.”

“I will be a guest.”

They walked out together, passing through the long colonnade that ran from the registry hall to the open sky. A hush settled as they walked. The light had begun to thin toward the evening horizon, gold and low.

Along the walls knelt the Prostrating Angels, lost in worship since the heavens and the earth were made. They had never once risen.

At the far end of the colonnade, in a recess of his own, stood Israfil. His lips were on the Trumpet. His gaze had not moved from the Throne since the day he was given his charge. He was waiting for the Swoon Order, the breath at which all in the heavens and the earth would swoon, the breath that would signal the Day of Resurrection. Harakah lowered his eyes as they passed, the way he had been taught. Barakah’s were already lowered.

When they were past, Barakah glanced at him.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

They spread their wings and joined the others at the rendezvous: a long elegant V of angels already assembling. They fell in at the back as the V crossed the thinning veil. The Barzakh opened behind them and America came up to meet them: its highways, its strip malls, its quiet houses.

The V descended and slipped, weightless, into a small living room with mismatched chairs. The young Muslims inside were sitting in a loose circle, murmuring among themselves. And there, near the back, with her legs tucked under her, was Sarah.

Harakah’s wings thrummed so hard he had to sit on them. Barakah smiled.

The angels settled into the corners of the room, invisible, and listened. One by one, the youth shared what they imagined a loved one might write to them from the Barzakh. A grandmother. A father. A brother who died too young. The room was thick with longing.

Then it was Sarah’s turn. She looked down at her hands.

“I’m a convert,” she finally confessed, “and I don’t have anyone on the other side. So I… I don’t know what to write. I don’t think anyone’s over there making du’a for me.”

Harakah’s wings drooped.

The room said the right things. Someone reached over and squeezed her hand. Low whispers of insha’Allah and you’re in our du’as, sister. She smiled and nodded and folded her hands.

“Barakah,” Harakah pleaded.

“No.”

“I haven’t even—”

“No, Harakah.”

“Just a hint,” Harakah said. “A glimmer! A small sign! A breeze! A meaningful breeze.”

“You know the rules.”

“Do I have to follow the rules?”

“The rules are the rules. Remember Usayd ibn Hudayr?”

“The Prophet’s Companion, right?”

“The very one. He was reciting Surat al-Baqarah one night when his horse kept startling at his voice. He stopped, worried it might trample his young son Yahya. He looked up and saw what appeared to be lamps in the canopy, rising into the sky, until they disappeared.”

“The Listening Angels?”

“The Listening Angels. The Prophet ﷺ later told him, ‘Those were angels, drawn down to your voice. If you had kept reciting until dawn, the people would have seen them in the morning.'”

“That was close.”

“It was close. The Seniors still call it the ‘Lamps in the Canopy Incident.’ They use it to train every Junior who comes through. That is why we wait.”

“That’s not the same—”

“It is the same. The veil is a mercy. What you want to give her would not comfort her. She would spend the rest of her life looking for the lamps. And on the nights they did not come, she would wonder what she had done wrong.”

“She would spend the rest of her life comforted by it,” Harakah argued.

Barakah looked at him. His face was kind.

“Brother. She will know. Insha’Allah. When it is her turn at the Gate, she will see her register, every name and every dawn accounted for. We will hand her the golden envelopes ourselves, sealed with the du’as of people she never knew were praying for her. Be patient. We sat on our human’s shoulders for sixty years. We can be patient now.”

Harakah folded his wings. He folded them very dramatically.

They stayed until the gathering ended. They followed her home, the other angels peeling off above them. They watched her perform wudu and pray three rak’ahs of witr, her final prayer before sleep, and then they watched her sit on her prayer mat with her hands open, and they listened.

She made du’a for her colleagues. She made du’a for the kids who had read her book. She made du’a for the cousin who had not spoken to her since she became Muslim. She made du’a for her birds. And she made du’a for two sisters she had heard about that morning, taken too soon in an accident.

With each du’a, Harakah and Barakah whispered ameen.

She made du’a for everyone except herself.

Back at the Welcome Gates, Harakah went around making sure everything was in order. He adjusted the sign he had given feedback on. When he looked up, he noticed Barakah had taken out the register and opened to a new page.

“What are you doing?” Harakah asked.

“The Du’a Edict. You know the one.”

Harakah did know the one. Every angel did. Whoever makes du’a for his brother in his absence, the angel appointed to him says: And to you the same. It was older than them, older than time itself.

“Every name she said,” Barakah said. “Returned to her own line.”

Harakah was quiet.

“Returned to her own line,” he repeated softly. Then: “Hand me a pen.”

Barakah handed him a pen. Harakah pulled up a chair.

“Move over,” Harakah said.

“There’s room.”

“I want to do the colleagues. You do the kids.”

“Fine.”

“And the birds. I’m doing the birds.”

“You can do the birds.”

The page filled slowly. The first lamps of dawn began to appear.

“There you will have whatever your souls desire,
and there you will have whatever you ask for.”

is Jannah as sweet, 
without the triumph of making it there?
would the rest be blissful, 
without the toils of this world?

is justice fulfilling, 
without tyranny widespread?
is faith astounding,
if everyone simply has it?

isn’t it firmer, 
as it stands against doubt?
isn’t it brighter, 
in the darkness that it shines through?

Yusuf’s rise brings wonder
because it was a rise,
so low in the well
then in pressure
then in prison
darkness after darkness
before everything comes to light
before everything becomes light.
“We relate to you the best of stories.” 

what are stories without conflict,
heroes without villains,
champions without struggle

great goodness combats great evil
great courage rises in face of great fear
great justice comes in return for great oppression

if i try to imagine
a life in Jannah
without having been here first
something feels incomplete
a piece missing.

“Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we exalt You with praise and declare Your perfection?”

there is a particular loveliness in imperfection
in being a mess of a creation
in working day in and day out to overcome that messiness
just to get 
to Him.

“Indeed, I know that which you do not know.”

—-

1: Fussilat 41:31
2. Yusuf 12:3
3. Baqarah 2:30
4. Baqarah 2:30

The world is still exactly the same. And nothing is the same anymore

The seasons carry a certain air of sadness and nostalgia

The sweet abandon of a bittersweet childhood is long gone… the carefree self is long gone

Harsh realities are becoming more and more obvious with the changing atmospheres of the cosmos

With the seasonal clouds finally showing devastatingly beautiful colours hidden in their asymmetry

Distinguishing the black from the white without the murky grey hues in between is nearly impossible

So, every year at the beginning of the summer season, I make a promise to myself

A promise that this time- just this once- happiness will be possible

That every morning won’t be a ritual of nursing a heart that feels broken beyond repair

After having had so much to bear

Yet, here we are- in another season

On the same plane of existence, where the ones I have lost once roamed

Where my elders taught me that I had a life and skills to hone

But the world is a bizarre spectacle

So, I know it was always meant to be a debacle!

As the world rotates on an axis, with every “new world event” also occurring in a loop

Stories of one thousand, two thousand, three thousand years ago, being repeated over and over

The games never change but the players do

And by Allah

That’s a blessing if there ever was one

Because this dunya has a way of knocking one around to ensure that love for it doesn’t settle in the heart

And if this dunya isn’t permanent, it shouldn’t be home

If the purpose isn’t to roam the earth while being cognizant of its ability to turn on a dime,

The loss would, undoubtedly, be solely mine

Because you see, there’s a life to live- a life that you don’t get to set the rules for

And while this test is a temporary one

It’s easy to lose hope and drown in the increasing adversity that’s setting the tone

In those instances, you remember “Allah does not burden any soul with more than it can bear…

Do not lose heart, or despair…”

These verses are a life-line, the best there could be

And I know that Allah is always with me

That’s the way the world has always been exactly the same- and yet, nothing is the same anymore