I. 

Everyone has a bubble they feel comfortable living in, one that people often tell you to step out of and grow up; one that people depict as the root of all the reasons why people face difficulty fitting in.

Little do they know, this bubble contains a land where the best of things remain—be it a playground, or a bookshelf, or a castle where endless comforting memories reside.

How will they know? They too had a bubble once. It too contained everything they loved and cherished. It was the moment when the bubble popped, they grew up, and everything they had ever felt or knew were reduced into rubble.

And here they are now, embedding the same doctrine on someone small, someone new...

At the end of the day, we are all just a pile of rubble hidden inside the social facade of acceptance.

by Shamira Tabassum Alam 

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'Together': Sehri Tales selections, Day 17

II. 

Did you know, Agatha Christie went missing for eleven days when she found out? I like to think that when they finally found her, there wasn't a scratch on her. No new frowns or eye-bags or claw-marks down her cheeks. Just a neat little hollow-out near the temporal lobe where what's-his-face used to be.

It's been three days sitting here in the rubble of our last  three years, and I'm still digging through it, trying to find something to do that hollowing out for me. But all I'm getting so far are papercuts from all those letters—why the eff did we write so many letters?—strewn around here that I could probably publish as your best work of fiction ever. We could make a picture book of it, with a real twist at the end, isn't that right?

I wish there were some way I could put those papercuts to work, trimming my face out of all of these photos, replacing it with his instead--you'd love that, wouldn't you? Like you've loved it for the last four months apparently. Maybe if I hollow out enough of my faces from this trash pile, it'll do the trick.

by Risana Nahreen Malik 

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'Rise': Sehri Tales selections, Day 16

III.

Was he angry? Father kept asking me to turn my hands to the squishy side and then the top where I once got cut and it was now like a shell, and maybe I was turning into an insect! He grabbed my face and turned it left and turned it right. Maybe he was checking which one? I hope it was a beetle, one of the shiny ones. I don't like spiders.

"Next time. Whenever. Whenever you are in the ball pit and you can't see out, you need to shout. You need to shout so, so loud. So I can find you. Or anyone can find you." He sounded like he had a cold. His eyes were red. I really hope he gets well.

"Yasser." He said my name so quietly. "It's not only a ball pit, okay, please? It could be pillows. Or your storybooks. It could be our… it could be anything, okay?" His hands were shaking. It made me think of when our house sometimes shook and there were loud noises outside like when Mother dropped her frying pan. But when she dropped her frying pan there were no lights. When our house shook, there were big lights that hurt to see. I didn't like that. Maybe I liked those less than spiders?

-

"He's somewhere in the rubble! Hurry!" Someone was so loud. But I couldn't see who and I also couldn't see out like my Father said. So I shouted for him, for anyone.

by Azfarul Islam