Worders
Almost there
The room looked the same as it always had. The bed that was getting too small for you, so that your feet stuck out over the edge. The mat with the grape-juice stain that we could never really wash out. The posters of your favourite rock-stars and wrestling idols. Mystery novels clashed with Physics and Chemistry textbooks on your bookshelves, and I think I spied a raunchy magazine tucked into a corner. Your clothes hung in your closet; some of them still smelt of you. Sitting here, I could almost pretend you'd never agreed to drive home after those drinks.
Epiphany
You awaken to an empty house. The girls are out again, as you knew they would be. The flat is yours at this hour…or is it? Feminine smells assail your nostrils: perfume, scented soap, talcum powder. As you wander from room to tastefully decorated room, you seek yourself in them in vain. Furniture that your wife scrimped and saved to buy, photographs of your daughters vying for wall space with their framed diplomas; testament to their busy, demanding lives. Do you, jobless old man, play any part here beyond that of the silent spectator? Only one way to find out…
Art
He traced the shape he desired, with a long finger. It had to be just right. He picked up the instrument, and began. He flinched and a tiny curl of smoke rose from the surface. Finished, he smiled, satisfied, as he popped the remainder of the cigarette between his lips, and surveyed his handiwork. Her name, bleeding, on his palm.
Love at first sight
His eyes were limpid pools of chocolate, and he looked up at her with more adoration than she'd ever received. Gingerly, she reached out and cupped his face in her hands, stroking him along the jaw-line. Eyes shut, he leaned into her, savouring her tentative caresses. She knew right then, that this was the pet dog she had always wanted.
Stiletto Heals
Last evening was the last straw. She came home after a week of recuperating at a friend's place, gathering courage. He heard her footsteps and came roaring, reeking of booze, five o'clock shadow and dirty wife-beater testament to chronic failure. He lunged. A high heel to the groin ended the six months of abuse that their sham marriage had been.
Sabrina Ahmad is a young Bangladeshi-American writer who is currently in Dhaka
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