Tag: Short Story
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Samak
There once was the daughter of a fisherman who was deathly afraid of the sea. Sat on the shore at the port of Jaffa, Looked out into the horizon and dreamed of conquering her fear. Time went on and her dream faded into the backdrop of days turning into years and years turning into life.…
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Adnan, Unredacted: I Survived the Dentist
Today was inevitable; it had to be done. Something I had postponed twice, lied about once, and considered moving cities to avoid. Something terrifying. The dentist. At 4:10 p.m., I was sitting in the waiting room pretending to read an article about how the world was supposedly heading toward World War III while a dental…
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Adnan Unredacted: I Became the Boring Guy at the Beach
I adore people-watching at the beach. They are completely free – shouting with excitement, jumping into the water, talking with their mouths full, careless and light. I, however, don’t like myself at the beach. I’m grumpy. I run away from the sun like it has a personal issue with me. I apply endless layers of…
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Maybe You Aren’t A Curse After All
The door creaks open, and Haleem appears – his plaid shirt flung open, belt barely done, sweat pooling over the wrinkles of his forehead; sweat that he could easily wipe away with the edge of his sleeve but chooses to ignore instead, sweat that Thuraya hates to see although they’ve been married for decades, and…
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Adnan Unredacted: What If I Don’t Want to Count My Macros?
Today, I am a new person. Meet the new Adnan. Adnan, who wakes up at 7:59 a.m.- one minute before the alarm. Not because he wants to, but because his body has apparently accepted that sleeping past eight is personal failure. Adnan, who doesn’t check his phone first thing in the morning, but instead gets…
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Adnan, Unredacted: Just Wanted to Say Happy Birthday
I love birthdays. Every year around December, I buy one of those giant paper calendars they sell on the street, the ones that take up half the wall and come with holidays already printed in red on them with a special quote behind the back each day. Then I dedicate an entire evening to updating…
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Adnan, Unredacted: Somebody Should’ve Seen Me in the Kitchen
At 2:15 PM, I removed the extra “haha” that I had written on the work group chat. Earlier that morning, at around 10:00 AM, I had found out that Khaled got promoted. Khaled. My coworker who does, more or less, the exact same job I do. Apparently, he “needed the opportunity more.” Which, translated loosely…
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Background Noise
The sound of war planes and foreign drones has become the background noise to her life. Sometimes, she doesn’t need to turn on the TV in the living room nor the small, wooden radio she has in her kitchen when she’s doing chores; the hum of that white, six-legged alien in the sky is enough.…
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Day of Resurrection
It was far too late to sell himself. He sat on the sidewalk, empty of thought and emotion. At first, in an attempt to escape, he tried to market himself as a Middle Easterner. But they had already filled the quota. He then tried to market himself as a special kind of Middle Easterner, a…
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Adnan, Unredacted: Please Ignore the Background Noise
I woke up to the sound of my window glass rattling. Not shaking, not the kind of sound you can flip to the other side and ignore. I opened my eyes and stayed there for a second, looking at the ceiling as if it might have anything new to offer. Then I reached for my…