short story
FICTION / Insomnia
You are wide awake again
FICTION / The man who dug his own grave
Everyone gathered around the east end of the Shashipur to watch Sharafat Miah dig his own grave. The local kids lurked around Sharafat’s old hut, keeping a watch on the progress of the grave until their mothers came to pick them up after Maghrib.
The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in your House
If they knew, your mother would have said, “It’s in your head, darling,” and your father would have screamed, “Put that head in the toilet bowl where it belongs.”
FICTION / The chasm
At around 2 AM he was awoken by the sound of Shahidun’s sniveling cries on her prayer mat. As grating as it might have sounded, he felt grateful for it to have woken him up.
'August': Sehri Tales selections, Day 20
The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 20 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: August
'Long': Sehri Tales selections, Day 9
The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 9 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Long
FICTION / The smell
“Stop mocking me, Atif! I am telling you there is something here.”
'Flick': Sehri Tales selections, Day 8
The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 8 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Flick
'Relief': Sehri Tales selections, Day 7
The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 6 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Relief
Nearness
How do you think I feel every time I find you hovering over the door to my classroom? Like when you’re the only passenger riding up a lift, and then it suddenly stops.
Interim
That was the first time in my life I’d smelled charred meat. I could tell it was different from the kind you’re supposed to eat, and my mother had to hold me as I threw up violently on the side of the street.
Screams and Schadenfreude
TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide, death, and gore.
A Solo Exhibition
Never in his wildest imaginations had Aniket thought that everything would come together so well. Nearly everyone he invited had come.
The Melancholic Man
The whole courtroom held their breath, waiting to hear Nizam's answer. As he nodded in affirmation, the enraged audience got off their seats to beat up the accused.
Wings Across A City Wall
Shimu and Tushar had grown up together on an alley in the Mirpur area of Dhaka city. Their neighbouring houses were separated only by a brick wall, about two meters high. The branches of a tree growing beside Tushar’s house overhung the wall, its foliage shading a part of Shimu’s courtyard.
Payback time
I’m not sure when I first realised that we’d met before. In the beginning, you were just the elderly man I often noticed pottering around our communal rooftop.
Her last words
The slamming of the front door sounded an ominous note, warning of trouble to come.
What’s in a name?
He had been practising saying his name out loud every night before going to sleep so that his ears remained accustomed to hearing his own name
Mr Moti
The monsoons have passed. Moti has grown so healthy, so strong and so big that no other cocks even dare to be near him.
