Jhelum

A Short Story by Ghulam Mohammad Khan The squeezed heart, the weary body. The weight of unvoiced tales, millennia of silence. All of it flows into the invincible Jhelum. It is a silent witness. A keeper of our pain. Its currents try to comfort. In its rage, it claws at … Read more →

Child of Wonder

Ashen Kaid He remembered the boy who used to hum to the stars. That child never asked for applause. He didn’t need a reason to dream or permission to wonder. He simply believed the world could be soft again. Now grown, he carried the weight of unspoken goodbyes and crowded … Read more →

The Girl Who Didn’t Exist

Ghulam Mohammad Khan The streets are tombs. Rubble stretches like the bones of a gutted beast. The wind carries the scent of crushed concrete and something older—buried breaths, unfinished screams. At the airport, the conveyor belt swallowed his words. His anger was a live wire. Stubble shadowed his jaw, rough … Read more →

The Near Death of an Unborn Marriage

Dr. O Bilal failed. Again. It was the twenty-eighth time in ninety-two days. I He loved football. Growing up, Bilal idolised the great footballers of the time and styled his play on a tall Portuguese goal-scoring machine. He became the most sought-after footballer in his village by the time he … Read more →

The Coalman

Gulam Mohammad Khan Barely weeks before the arrival of long winters ­- when the reaping and binding and threshing is done, when the barns are full, when flocks of swallows migrate to warmer places, when the green foliage slowly wears on a yellowish hue, when the rivers flow low and … Read more →

Slap

Shabir Ahmed               “Come on. We must leave. Now,” Tariq heard his father say in a voice that was all too familiar. Commanding. Demanding. Used to obeyance. Arms akimbo Tariq’s father filled the doorway with his immense frame. How could one not obey him! … Read more →

The Doomed Gravedigger

Munawar Hussain “Meesum, see! A deluge of ‘likes’ is hitting my facebook post. Hold this cigarette, I will show you a trick to gain more likes.” “Are you nuts, what if someone would spot me while holding the cigarette?” “Oh man! Oh man! See I have re-liked my own status. … Read more →

Saffron

“These infidels cannot insult us like this. If you have the courage, come and face us out in the open. You cannot tie down a speechless animal and think you have beaten us…” By Mirza Waheed She did not make much noise. But I knew, even in my sleep, something … Read more →

Magic of Words

Muhammad Nadeem His breath was heavy. He was climbing the Mount Solomon from past one hour. He just had to climb for five more minutes to reach his favourite spot. It was very cold. He was rubbing his hands and blowing puffs of hot breaths into them. He sat on … Read more →

The Shadow

Shafi Ahmad As she walked on the road she suddenly felt that some one was following her, or at least, walking side by side. She was petrified by the very thought as to why someone followed her. She stopped, glowered around with hatred in her eyes. She found none. ‘Is … Read more →

Poverty

Showkat Ahmad Bhat ‘’ Congratulations! Gul Kaakh’’, Asad , his neighbor’s son said to him. Gul Chaan who was feeding his goat which was tied to a peg in the compound of his mud house grinned at Asad. He got confused for being congratulated and was desperate to know the … Read more →

The Cankered Rose

Ghulam Mohammad Khan On a small grassy mound in the midst of the paddy fields, under the deep sky that hung like a large inverted bowl, with stars like a sheet of dazzling diamonds artistically patched over it, we sat hopelessly whispering our distress. It was midnight, the dew had … Read more →

You Never Let Gods Die

Will Newman Each page is turned to enter grief’s accounts. Mother I see a hand. Tell me it’s not God’s. Let it die. I see it. It’s filling with diamonds. Please let it die. Are you somewhere, alive, somewhere alive, Mother? Do you hear what I once held back: in … Read more →

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