FABLE FACTORY | The Daily Star

  • Hidden behind the ancient curtains

    Someone told me the music went on even after the fall of the very last curtain, the end of the very last act. The young violinist played away, hidden behind the ancient curtains and the many Corinthian columns.

  • You, my favourite things

    You’re a work of fine art.

  • Olokkhi

    Spilled tea over expensive emerald tablecloths,

  • Rain Dance

    "He'll be here for the next one," he sighed and dropped to the ground too, "That's the good thing about birthdays. There's always more to look forward to, unless you die before the next of course."

  • Love Through Feline Eyes

    Human? My Human, where are you?

  • ACCESS TO THE REFRIGERATOR

    We must have grown pretty close, Since you’ve given me access to the refrigerator.

  • Aquamarine

    Every time I look at you, I am reminded how moot a promise forever is.

  • ROUGE

    I was adopted on October 19, 1996.

  • Wanderers

    It’d been so long since I last walked in this city.

  • Le Haluwa

    Ma comes home with a tiny little piece of haluwa wrapped in taut plastic—the kind you get at hospitals. She holds it up in the air, her fingers a jeweller’s vice, and says, “See the haluwa?”

  • Hymn for the Lockdown

    As they were running through the debris, Maria could see the boy tripping over and getting trampled on, but there was no time to go over and save him.

  • MONSUR

    Three? The number of orders had decreased from eleven to three overnight, the highest decrease he had faced today, or ever.

  • METROPOLITANISTAN

    Spare me the pity,

  • LOOK FOR ME

    People ask me where I’m

  • Scar

    Sometimes we lose ourselves in the music of the outside world to escape dealing with the lack of it within us.

  • Out on the Streets

    Our streets aren’t safe for women. Every day, millions of women go about their day with fear in the back of their minds.

  • The Gift of Time

    I woke up to the sound of my phone’s alarm. Squinting at the screen, I swiped my finger across the surface which read: 6:00 AM. Groggily,

  • New Market to Nimiso

    There is a deep-rooted charm to this part of Dhaka, at New Market, a bustling zone of hawkers, shops and people, of all sorts. It is here where “fixed price” is a fallacy, the world is your oyster and you can get your hands on virtually everything as long as you can bargain.

  • NISHITA

    Ta was our neighbour, but by no means was she the ‘girl next door’. She had never showed up on our doorstep cradling an ice-cream box full of pakoras her mom made, perhaps in the very same box I had delivered to their home a week earlier.

  • Olfactory

    I saw her again on a chilly January evening, standing under a raintree, waiting for a ride, perhaps. That magnificent raintree at the

  • New Kid in Town

    People who don’t add sugar in their tea or coffee always seem to come off a bit proud about it, don’t they? There is a certain aura to when they say “sugar-free” or “Oh... No sugar, please” as they order away.

  • THE ESSENCE OF TIME

    The essence of time is not what it seems. Fleeting and seeping through cracks in hell and space, Learning and failing under the universe and its schemes, Plans that don’t deem you enough to fit in any one place.

  • Nippon Paint holds AYDA in Bangladesh

    With the theme “FORWARD - A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE”, Nippon Paint launched Asia Young Designer Award competition for the students of architecture and interior designing departments of different universities in Bangladesh.

  • A Story in Time

    In your last letter, you asked me a great but difficult question. All I can share is my journey through this mysterious concept that we call ‘life’. Like you,

  • A day and a life

    The heat was nothing short of unbearable as he stared at the bold yet intricate patterns painted on the CNG in front of him...

  • SACRED BLACK INK

    The curves of her C’s And the loops of her L’s. The swirls of her S’s

  • Poor Little Smart Boy

    His smile itself is an enchantress, his eyes two deep pools of the darkest coffee you make in December, amidst deadlines and impending vacations. “Two more days,” you tell yourself in your head, “This all will be over and I’ll get to relax.”

  • Signs

    Rehnuma, from her early teens, had absolutely loved cooking. After she got married, and the task became a duty, she loved it more.

  • HIS HANDS WERE WARM

    I held my grandfather’s hands, like he had held mine during my childhood despite my discomfort. My mother would bug my father about it once in a while, in a very soft manner. Father would squint his eyes and think deep. Mother would get bored and walk away.

  • MASTER OF PING PONG

    Cubicles, cubicles Perfect your cuticles Beautiful, immovable Work in pharmaceutical Usual, suitable Visions longitudinal Acoustical, musical Fire in the crucible Usable, renewable Born to be excusable Disputable, hot missile Physically magical Mythical yet practical A good life in the cubicle

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