“Mama, I will drive you”, their chauffeur pleaded.  “I can drive, Mama. Please take a day off”, she smiled at him.  Before starting the car, she took her purse in her hands, opened it slowly, and put on her glasses. She decided to see, after all.

A photograph slipped from an envelope while Alia rummaged through an old metal trunk.

A name. The Naysayer. A terrible name he had earned, a name he had carried in rage and grief. But it no longer mattered. What mattered was this world. With a wave of his hand, the layers of ash and dust peeled back like dying petals, revealing the scorched land above. He stepped onto the surface of the dead world, unsteady, grief filling his ancient heart as he beheld the guttering fires.

When Reza was 10, war lived on the rooftop.

How far can love reach? From one lip to another? From one corner of a room to the other? Between two cities? Can love traverse the vast emptiness that lies between the constellations? If that is the case, then why…

When Muniza stands on the moss-covered railing and leaps onto the roof of the adjacent house, the hem of her kamiz puffs up like a parachute.

I found it, the same coat, tucked away in a cardboard box, except years have passed and our worlds are different.

The rooftop is where she breathes.

We know Body Selim. If you look around, you’ll find that after this incident, many people came to know him through the newspapers.

And womanhood? Well, it is messier. But it is mine. No longer something handed to me by men or mothers or traditions. Just mine.

We once lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City. Those days still return to me, especially when my grandmother’s death anniversary comes around.

The scramble was almost instantaneous and without mercy. Men in freshly tailored panjabis—stitched for the next morning's prayers—threw elbows for the simple right to go back home.

 The Filter erases dialects, swaps backdrops, whitens skin, lifts pitch—an algorithm that functions as both beautician and censor.

As evening sets in and the stars begin to appear in the dark sky above the village, a sharp series of pops and bangs pierces through Xiaohui’s peace.

It is a winter day in a small town at the far eastern edge of the Himalaya, in the Chinese province of Yunnan. The province is known for its mild climate.

In Dhaka, the traffic doesn’t run; it limps. At seven in the morning, the buses are full, coughing black air, CNGs wheezing past, rickshaws threading between them like colourful tops.

Emily’s right leg trembled as she stood alone on the wooden stage, the darkness that surrounded her felt almost alive.

Inner monologue: “Life is a bit sometimes. You don’t know what might happen the next moment.

So, Ma and I had our eyes glued to our screen while Reaz smeared toothpaste over his face and chanted slogans in front of his school.

The afternoon sun presses down on Dhaka like a heavy hand. Heat rises from the asphalt in shimmers; buses wheeze as though gasping for breath. Rickshaw bells jangle against each other in the thick, damp air.