Fiction

The artwork by Kehkashan Khalid is a colorful texture of paint colors in reds, blues, purples, yellows and greens, a large bright blue with irregular edges covering almost the whole lower half.

I Like the Texture of Things
by Uswa Maryam

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

The photo is from a vehicle, most likely a rickshaw, on a road, in broad daylight. On the left is a low raised wall running along the road, the word Kaamil in Urdu painted on a part of it, large green trees beyond the wall.

Aunty by Nilofer Iqbal, translated by Amna Chaudhry

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

The photo is of pistachio-colored sweets in a sweetshop window, shaped into large triangles and covered with edible silver.

مسز کینیڈی اور شُتربان by Hammad Rind, translated by the author

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۔

The artwork by Izza Ali Khan has a dark blue background, and a black, spidery net in the foreground.

سبھا by Rabindranath Tagore, translated by Nuzhat Nisar

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

The artwork by Aamna Waseem is of the bottom of a heart sketched in black ink with what appear to be hands on either side of it, falling touching blue-and-white water, fat droplets of which are jumping up.

فیصلہ
by Syed Hur Abbas

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

The artwork by Adeela Khan is a sketch in a red-rust color. In the middle is an alley, on the right of which is a large foot resting on a raised edge, a large hand dangling over it. A small figure sits on the edge next to the foot. On the alley's left is a bench, a figure of a large man in a uniform standing facing the hand and the foot. At the back of the alley is a small sign that says Pak Tea House, and a tree whose branches reach up to the head of the large man.

Horrors Under the Eclipse
by Harris Gondal

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

The artwork by Aamna Waseem shows a girl sitting with her bare knees drawn up to her chin, bare arms encircling them, bare feet visible beneath, her dark hair falling over her shoulders, her eyes closed, in a square filled with pale red color, around which is a pen-sketch frame in black ink.

Open Them by Saadat Hasan Manto,
translated by Asna Nusrat

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

The photo is of a blurry motorcycle on a road in the nighttime, two blurry trees on the left of the bike and behind them a tall building. From a boundary wall on the bike's left a bright light shines.

Unrest
by Zuneera Shah

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

The artwork by Aamna Waseem shows, in the top left corner, a pen sketch in dark ink of a six-legged insect on its back on a wooden board. Below that is a sketch in dark in of a hand holding between two fingers what looks like a piece of rock. The rock is striking against a surface, which is shown in a blend of brown shades spreading outward with splotches of red inside.

The Walls
by Sabyn Javeri

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

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