Bassam Sidiki is a Pakistani-American writer, scholar, and professor. His creative writing has appeared in Hyphen, Counterclock, Lakeer Magazine, Narrating Pakistan, The Aleph Review, and elsewhere. He has received a Hopwood Nonfiction Award from the University of Michigan, was on the longlist for the 2025 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize, and recently completed a short fiction course with Granta, during which this story was written. He was born in Sukkur, raised in Karachi, and now lives in Austin, TX. More about him and his work at www.bassamsidiki.com.