Trigger warning: self harm, sexual and physical abuse “For a hundred million, Omar, are you ready?” said the host, with his everlasting grin.

The automated blinds of the penthouse in Gulshan, an upscale area, rise with a soft hum, revealing a picture-perfect Dhaka morning.

Every night, a market forms near the mill gate. When it’s time for that market to close, Fulbanu stands on the high bank of the pond, waiting for her husband’s return.

Saiyara didn’t wave a flag to voice her rights on the streets. She had never marched in a protest line, never chanted beneath the dark blanket of smoke-heavy skies. Her revolution was quieter, and it carried a little soul swaddled in a bassinet beside her, traces of milk on her lips and dreaming

Mira presses her thumb on the cracked power button of her phone.

As Fulbanu waited for Syed Ali, she thought about her only son, Suruj. She remembered that Suruj was the first man among five neighbouring villages to acquire his bachelor's degree

When Mr. Vik Roman looked at the time with flinching eyes, it was around 3:30 am.

Then you will vanish—becoming Amma, Chachi, Mami. No one will remember your name.

The city still wants to breathe.

At a gathering in the unfinished community hall, Saleha raises a question: "They gave us walls. But what do we want to grow inside them?"

I made my first kite out of white paper scraps; on my 16th birthday, it came to me that they needed a pop of color.

I know my engine is dying. I know that, by the time the next Eid rolls around, the busy little humans will have taken me apart to create something new.

When he was handing over the money to Naimuddin, their father, Kalam silently cried, holding Dholi’s neck in the yard.

When Ullash decided to choose the cat for one of his experiments, our borobhabi, Ullash's mother, didn't raise a single objection

I rush to the mirror. My gums are pristine, no wound, no sin. But when I look back at the fruit, the truth reveals itself: the flesh is blackened, writhing with tiny, hungry mouths. The rot has teeth

Now, an automated metro-rail glides silently through the city. Conversations have become clipped, calculated. Efficiency replaces spontaneity. They call it peace. Rahim calls it absence.

“I’m scared” a voice calls out.

Farid Shaheb earned a fair bit at the office today. These days, because of the Anti Corruption Commission and newspaper journalists’ incessant pestering, he can no longer directly take the money offered to him.

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

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