Read it Live

I haven’t had the time (or inspiration) to write much recently, so I decided to go for something free-style. I’d be curious to hear what you think this rant means, if anything at all…. Run. By the wind when it raises its voice into a screaming tempest, run. Run and hide, hide behind the trees, [...]

My chacha is a banker. A while ago, he asked me to write a resignation letter for him. I decided it had been too long since I’d gotten my clock cleaned by him. So I sent him the following and lay low for a few days. I vaguely remember a ticked off voicemail from him [...]

I’m tired of the type of conformity that results in helplessness. It kills original thought. Worse, it seizes you by the nape of your neck and drags you through thorns. Popular culture is a myth, a massive entity spun by the psyche’s desire for change. So to hell with the chasm between romeo and juliet, [...]

This is part of a story I’m working on. Hopefully it’s not too out of context – but the scenario is simple enough. The guy is on a mission in a land of darkness. It’s night. He’s sitting in a cave before a fire, and feeling mighty low…. The fire casts a silent shadow of [...]

Recently, for a few days, I was in Canada to get my visa stamped. I was staying in Quebec City, which is a few hours north of Toronto. I’m not entirely sure why, but I was bored out of my skull most of the time there. Maybe it was because Quebec City is a tourist [...]

The man in the tattered coat had crossed the street and now sat down on the bench next to me. He sat there, not saying a word, but I knew he was looking at me from the corner of his eye. I grew more discomfited – I felt like a cell being observed through a [...]

HA: Not a story, but just something I wanted to share with all of you… There are days when I get the feeling that life is a tightrope we’ve been nudged onto without so much as a balancing bar. These are days when I see pitfalls lurking everywhere below me – dark, silent chasms that [...]

Chughtai sat in the chair opposite mine, sipping the last dregs of a chocolate-strawberry milkshake through a straw. When the straw started making sucking noises, he sighed and moved the glass to the side of the table, where it joined three other empty glasses. He lifted his hand up, and the waitress came to our [...]

It was nearing dusk by the time the old jeep pulled up near the hut. Plumes of dust settled in its wake, and when the driver killed the rattle of the engine, the ensuing silence seemed almost eery. The driver spoke something to the passenger, who was sitting wrapped tightly in a black loi. The [...]

Annihilation The feeble glow from a lantern gives some life to this horrible room. It lights the walls, but what about those pitch-dark nooks and crannies? What about those corners of this miserable place that even light has chosen to forsake? I stare straight ahead, I do- I avoid looking at those corners for fear [...]

Entry 1 Word count: 1963 Prologue October 20th 1983 By the time he got home and rang the doorbell, dark had fallen and the crickets’ hesitant initial chirps had congregated into a raspy, high-pitched scream. Suraya, the maidservant, opened the door for him, and stepped back to let him in, her gaze studying the floor [...]

…But Darkness crouches everywhere, fluttering dark wings – An unknown writer He ran. He ran like the wind, breaking through leaves and the underbrush of the forest. He ran until his thighs burned and his lungs felt as if they would collapse. Tree branches scraped his bare elbows and scratched his face. He had forgotten [...]