Fiction

Punne
by Rashid Jahan, translated by Tehseen Baweja
Issue Four – Spring 2025

I started walking towards the station since whenever my older brother comes to town, he arrives by the morning train, and if I am not there to receive him, he gets upset. Whenever he is due to arrive, it’s hard for Amma to fall asleep, fearful of me oversleeping and causing my brother frustration.

Spoiler Alert: Dying Person Dies
by Irta Usman
Issue Four – Spring 2025

Another night we are in the living room on the only couch that does not hurt her back. I ask the kind of useless questions a healthy person asks to make themself feel useful: Are you comfortable? (She never was.) Are you hungry? (She never was.)

لانگ ویکنڈ
by Abdul Sami
Issue Four – Spring 2025

گھر میں غیر معمولی سناٹا تھا، اور شان کی گاڑی بھی باہر نہیں تھی۔ میں گھر میں داخل ہوا اور کمرے کی طرف قدم بڑھائے، اور ساتھ ہی شان کو میسج کرکے پوچھا کہ خیر تو ہے، کہاں ہو؟ اس کا فوراً ہی جواب آگیا کہ بھائی تمھیں بتایا تو تھا کہ میں آج ملتان کیلئے نکل جاؤں گا کیونکہ لانگ ویکنڈ ہے۔ میرے تو جیسے ہاتھوں کے طوطے اڑ گئے۔

Giants
by Sadya Hamid Siddiqui
Issue Four – Spring 2025

If you had known Murtaza, surely you would have thought of him as someone with a resilient disposition. There was integrity too; as I tell you his story you might even detect self-respect. Perhaps you think it’s a bizarre notion, even unpalatable: children as little people with personhood, dignity, and idiosyncrasies.

The Mustis of Lahore
by Saira Khan
Issue Three – Autumn 2024

The Dr and Mrs Musti of Lahore, who both introduced themselves as Naseem, nodded, interested in the outward scientific indicators of genetic capability and Shazi’s looks, which seemed complementary to the Musti’s own – golden curls, a face wider than it was long.

ایک کنگن ایک محبت
by Afnan Ibnayjunaid
Issue Three – Autumn 2024

یہ سوالات اسے اکثر پریشان کرتے مگر جب وہ سوچنے بیٹتھا تو کسی نہ کسی کے انتقال کی خبر آجاتی اور وہ اپنا ساز و سامان لئے قبرستان کی جانب چل پڑتا۔ وہ محسوس کرتا کہ اس کے کاندھوں کا بوجھ اس بوجھ سے زیادہ ہے جو اس کی روح پر ہے لیکن وہ خود کو یہ کہہ کر تسلی دیتا کہ مرنے والے کو کونسا میں نے مارا ہے۔ صدیق مردوں کو قبر میں اتارتا اور بہت محنت سے قبر کی لپائی کرنے کے بعد اپنی آمدنی کا انتظار کرتا۔ وہ اس کام کے عوض پانچ ہزار روپے وصول کرتا۔

Mengal
by Julien Columeau, translated by Haider Shahbaz
Issue Three – Autumn 2024

Every day, early in the morning, I leave my HLM and walk towards the Gare RER. The train is at a distance from the HLM; I have to walk a bit to get there. The sky is always beset with gray clouds, and under the sullen sky, a long and dejected street runs straight like a line through rows of public housing.

House, Wife
by Maira Hayat
Issue Three – Autumn 2024

She saw the shopper with tomatoes as soon as she opened the kitchen door. There were five tomatoes. She saw them in the bag. Absolutely, she saw five unmistakably round and red tomatoes – there is no room for confusion on the count, the vegetable, the shape, or the color.

I Like the Texture of Things
by Uswa Maryam
Issue Two – Spring 2024

“There are shards of glass embedded in the thread. It is the best thing for plucking out there.”​

Aunty
by Nilofar Iqbal, translated by Amna Chaudhry
Issue Two – Spring 2024

We had been sharing a room at the Working Women’s Hostel in Islamabad for the past few years

مسز کینیڈی اور شتربان
by Hammad Rind, translated by the author
Issue Two – Spring 2024

لیلی نے حقے کی نے مجھے تھمائی اور کہنے لگی، وہ رات مجھے اب بھی ایسے یاد ہے جیسے ابھی کل ہی کی بات ہو۔ کوئی آدھی رات کا وقت ہوگا کہ ایک دلخراش چیخ سے میری آنکھ کھل گئی۔​

سبھا
by Rabindranath Tagore, translated by Nuzhat Nisar
Issue Two – Spring 2024

وہ اس کے بارے میں بات کرتے، اس کے تاریک مستقبل پر طویل حجت کرتے، ایسے جیسے وہ وہاں موجود ہی نہیں۔

فیصلہ
by Syed Hur Abbas
Issue Two – Spring 2024

تم چلو میرے ساتھ، حامد بولا۔ جب تمہاری جیب میں پیسے ہوں گے، تو تم ہر غم بھول جاؤ گے۔​

Horrors Under the Eclipse
by Harris Gondal
Issue One – Autumn 2023

I don’t remember most of what happened during my sleepwalking visits to different places in the city…​

Open Them
by Saadat Hasan Manto, translated by Asna Nusrat
Issue One – Autumn 2023

The camp was in an uproar but it was as if old Sirajuddin had gone deaf. He couldn’t hear anything.​

Unrest
by Zuneera Shah
Issue One – Autumn 2023

In the background, the TV hummed on and Zeba caught flashes of the mass sit-in protests being covered all over the news.​

The Walls
by Sabyn Javeri
Issue One – Autumn 2023

Sometimes she calls takeaways and says hello, then hangs up before the voice at the other end can reply.​