Sublime

tribulation,

Adam waits, month by month, for the choked black walnut to die and take his baby brother with it, smothered in his own clown-covered coverlet. But both live, which only proves to Adam that life is trying to say something no one hears.

perturbation,

Bolbol, later, regretted not having stood up to his father. He should have reminded his father how difficult it would be to carry out his instructions given the current situation. There were mass graves everywhere filled with casualties who’d never even been identified. No ‘aza lasted more than a few hours now, even for the rich: death was no

“Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa.”

She didn’t find him unpleasant, but her heart was like ashes from which the flame of love could no longer be lit.

Almost alone of his class, Ghalib had, without leaving the city, survived the cataclysm that destroyed Delhi. But now he had to face the intense loneliness of the sole survivor—a