Tag: Fiction
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Adnan, Unredacted: Adnan’s Guide to Overhearing a Breakdown, Politely
I swear I didn’t mean to be this curious. But here I am, muting my TV so I can listen to someone’s sobbing. It started innocently, I swear. I was just about to take my after-work nap when I heard someone’s voice crack into tears. You know that sound? The one that comes right before…
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Adnan, Unredacted: Local Man Finds Sock, Feels Nothing
“Breaking news!!! I just lost a sock.” My mind kept repeating as I searched the whole house – under the bed, behind the washing machine. Even in places that made no sense: the freezer, the cabinet under the sink, the bookshelf in the living room. Instead of the sock, all I managed to find was…
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A Visit To Bjerrin
Kamil had just arrived at Bjerrin, a 100-year-old abandoned village in the Jbeil district of Lebanon, nestled in a rugged valley surrounded by the majestic Mount Lebanon. An old local man named Jalal, who had agreed to help him discover Bjerrin and its ruins, was waiting at the entrance. After they greeted each other, they…
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Book Review: Mornings in Jenin
There are no words that can do this book justice, especially not at a time when the people of Gaza are being brutally bombed, starved and deprived of their most basic of rights; not when there’s a colonial entity conducting raids and random acts of violence in the West Bank, nor when there’s increased settler…
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Adnan, Unredacted: The Idiot Behind This
I’ve been trying to write lists to control my thoughts: 1. Drink water. 2. Pay rent. 3. Make enough money to pay rent? 4. Do not collapse. But these lists collapse before I do. I’ve been writing for two hours, hoping you’ll read till the very last word without getting bored or wondering who the…
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Rice Wasn’t Like the Others
When the gunfire echoed through the valley that day, the dogs barked, the cats scattered, and the birds fled. Even the wind felt afraid. But Rice didn’t make a sound, he didn’t flinch, he didn’t run. He stood there by the fig tree, blinking slowly, the sun catching the edge of his one chipped horn.…
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Smoke on a Lightbulb
The light-bulb outside my bedroom door was flickering when I first moved in. All the rest were fine, so I simply avoided it. I reasoned that at some point or other it would die out, then I would be in partial darkness for a few days until I managed to convince myself to change it,…
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The Hero and the Beast
The layers of fur did little to keep out the cold. The hero could feel it in his bones, and though he’d trekked over many a mountain, none had been as ferocious as this one. But despite its harshness, the weather was only half the battle. The hero had also evaded three territorial snow giants,…
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Grey
The floor trembled beneath the pink skin of my grey paws. Earlier that day on August 4th, 2020, as I later heard mom call it, nothing extraordinary had happened. I woke up grandma as soon as I could see a crack of light outside – I can’t remember if I thought she was dead after…
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Here Comes The Sun
The beer fizzed in his hand, cold against his burning skin. Jona shut the fridge with a thud, the sound echoing through the hollow house. Sunlight streamed in, uninvited, golden and heavy. It poured across the tiles, traced the counters, and fell against the curtains, which then swayed like they remembered how to dance. Birds…