fiction, Star Literature

FICTION / The burden of words

It was not often that I received odd parcels. True, my job at the paper did occasionally warrant a few peculiar hate-mail or rebuttals, but this was nothing of that sort

FICTION / Home for rent

Mrs X's parents were not interested in spending money on their daughter's room because they would have to give her new furniture when she got married

FICTION / Retribution

Mohsin would burst into laughter, saying, "Justice for rape? Is that even a crime worthy of justice?" Rabeya, laughing alongside him, would add, "People expect justice for rape these days? I'm speechless at their naïveté!" 

FICTION / The heart remains a stone that does not skip through water

You tell me stories of the sea—of its waves, of how it speaks to you in a language only you can understand—whenever you write back to me.

KHERO KHATA / Egg drop soup

The cream colored bowl held the steaming, almost translucent yellow broth with traces of white, garnished by an array of green onions slashed in an angle.

KHERO KHATA / Fixed

The rain began at dusk, its cold fingers tracing the cracked panes of the house like an unwelcome visitor. By midnight, the storm had grown wild, wind howling through the trees, rattling the fragile bones of the dwelling. I stood before the door, my hand trembling on the tarnished brass handle.

FICTION / Pills, water, trees, and blood

Nuri had just swallowed a little orange pill dry, when she noticed that the portrait of ‘The Sexual Revolutionary’ had been taken down from the wall of her childhood bedroom.

FICTION / Sisyphus laughs: the laughter of God

At last, God heeded Sisyphus’s prayer—a plea he had been making for countless centuries. Each time, he hoisted the rock onto his shoulders, convinced that this would be the time it ascended with ease

KHERO KHATA / De mi para ti;

I see her now, but not in the way I have always seen her—through the lens of service, of duty, of roles—but as a woman whose edges were softened long before I learned her name

April 19, 2025
April 19, 2025

The burden of words

It was not often that I received odd parcels. True, my job at the paper did occasionally warrant a few peculiar hate-mail or rebuttals, but this was nothing of that sort

April 12, 2025
April 12, 2025

Home for rent

Mrs X's parents were not interested in spending money on their daughter's room because they would have to give her new furniture when she got married

March 8, 2025
March 8, 2025

Retribution

Mohsin would burst into laughter, saying, "Justice for rape? Is that even a crime worthy of justice?" Rabeya, laughing alongside him, would add, "People expect justice for rape these days? I'm speechless at their naïveté!" 

February 8, 2025
February 8, 2025

The heart remains a stone that does not skip through water

You tell me stories of the sea—of its waves, of how it speaks to you in a language only you can understand—whenever you write back to me.

February 1, 2025
February 1, 2025

Fixed

The rain began at dusk, its cold fingers tracing the cracked panes of the house like an unwelcome visitor. By midnight, the storm had grown wild, wind howling through the trees, rattling the fragile bones of the dwelling. I stood before the door, my hand trembling on the tarnished brass handle.

February 1, 2025
February 1, 2025

Egg drop soup

The cream colored bowl held the steaming, almost translucent yellow broth with traces of white, garnished by an array of green onions slashed in an angle.

January 11, 2025
January 11, 2025

Pills, water, trees, and blood

Nuri had just swallowed a little orange pill dry, when she noticed that the portrait of ‘The Sexual Revolutionary’ had been taken down from the wall of her childhood bedroom.

January 4, 2025
January 4, 2025

De mi para ti;

I see her now, but not in the way I have always seen her—through the lens of service, of duty, of roles—but as a woman whose edges were softened long before I learned her name

January 4, 2025
January 4, 2025

Sisyphus laughs: the laughter of God

At last, God heeded Sisyphus’s prayer—a plea he had been making for countless centuries. Each time, he hoisted the rock onto his shoulders, convinced that this would be the time it ascended with ease

November 23, 2024
November 23, 2024

At the birth of death

One sits silently. Her eyes blink sometimes. Sometimes her lips tremble a little, or they don’t tremble at all.