anu | 18 |
future doctor (theory) | college student (practice) |
equal parts music and stories | overly caffeinated
Master List
The Garden & The Grave
🩵 avery cochrane 🩵
Not today Justin

bliss lane

titsay

Kiana Khansmith
Interview Vampire Daily
art blog(derogatory)
Claire Keane
No title available

Love Begins
★
The Bowery Presents

PR's Tumblrdome
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Sade Olutola
ojovivo
The Stonewall Inn
No title available
cherry valley forever
official daine visual archive
seen from United States

seen from Brazil
seen from Armenia

seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Nepal
seen from Nepal

seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Germany
seen from Paraguay
seen from United States

seen from Singapore
seen from France

seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Sweden

seen from Malaysia

seen from Spain

seen from United Kingdom
@maladaptive-anxiety
anu | 18 |
future doctor (theory) | college student (practice) |
equal parts music and stories | overly caffeinated
Master List
The Garden & The Grave
If you go north, u get fine shyt by guru randhawa
If you go south, u get aura 10/10 by hiphop tamizha
Sar Phiray Bandey - Teaser
After the murder of her beloved husband Uzair Baloch and the rest of her family, our heroine rises from the ashes of grief and anger to inherit the Baloch gang and its massive, violent empire. She sets out to conquer and become the undefeated crime queen of Lyari. But in order to sit on Lyari's throne, she must navigate self-doubt, bloodshed, enemies both seen and unseen, betrayal and unexpected feelings for her right-hand man Rizwan Shah.
Will she find healing and love in the arms of the man who is her sworn protector? Will Rizwan reciprocate her love? Will he remain her loyal and trusted confidante or does Rizwan have hidden intentions to rule over Lyari himself?
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PSA: This is (somewhat) inspired by the Pakistani drama Dunyapur. This is non spy AU. Our queen Yalina has a strong role in this as well. Also, Rizwan is Kashmiri in this (its part of the plot).
Share your thoughts and let me know if you want me to add you or remove you from the taglist!
TAGLIST: @precioussophia @maladaptive-anxiety @savagedrama @wackyaussiegiraffes @imrankaunbsdk @khlomoneyyyy4 @radhuma @sanpiece @sanajjjjjj @twinblueflamee @rutvii @ishq-e-rehman @itsrebexxa
LEAVE IT UP TO MY QUEEN TO DELIVER ANOTHER CRAZY ROLLERCOASTER MASTERPIECE 💕
Rip keenu u would've loved Odysseus
Rip jiya u would've loved fine shyt by guru randhawa
august 15 plans:
"main waapas nahi aungi" veera
"main waapas aunga" keenu
Somebody needs to take me to go watch dc in theaters 🤧
10 people id like to know better tag game ‧˚꒰🧁୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ
TYSM FOR THE TAG CUTIE @anna-lioncourt (also ignore how i made a seperate post instead of continuing the reblog chain)
Hair colorཻུ۪۪♡. Dark dark brown basically black!
Favorite colorཻུ۪۪♡. BABY PINK aka the color of nearly everything i own
Favorite drinkཻུ۪۪♡. Iced coffee in any form (frappe, latte, vanilla, caramel) OR strawberry iced matcha latte
One thing i love about myselfཻུ۪۪♡. I love my long fluttery eyelashes
If i could be an animalཻུ۪۪♡. A unicorn ofc! Or a hybrid kittycorn
Dream placeཻུ۪۪♡. Switzerland or France
Looking forward toཻུ۪۪♡. Finding a job (ew) and buying everything i want
Biggest dreamཻུ۪۪♡. Become a forensic psychologist and live in a cute little cottage in the countryside with the love of my life and 2 kids
Songs i have on repeatཻུ۪۪♡. Bbm baby - lana del rey, Prom song (gone wrong) - lana del rey, Crush - ethel cain, Television heaven - Lana del rey, Dream girl - Lana del rey, Michelle pfeiffer - ethel cain
Tags‧˚꒰🪽୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ @hiis0on @wtafananya @casielacey111 @msmqq @dollyzbun @babydolllblogger @chouchou-bebe @babydollblushe @dollettenextdoor @dollettebunnii
Thankyou for the tag @softqsweetie you're literally so sweet 🩷
Hair ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ -> Dark Brownish Blackish
Favorite color ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ -> PINK
Favorite drink ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ -> Limca 🩷 (Sprite ≠ Limca)
One thing I love about myself ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ -> My pwetty pwetty hair
If i could be an animal ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ -> A bunny or a kitten
Dream place ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ -> My bed?
Looking forward to ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ -> My birthdayyeye
Biggest dream ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ -> Getting a good college
Songs on repeat ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ -> Kaho na Kaho, Rashke Qamar, Jaiye Sajna, Udaarian, Mere Mehboob Qayamat Hogi, One more night
Tags ( +anyone else who wants to join in ) : @curiousgod2 @mujhekoimarsbhejdo @goodnightkatherine @sonasarchive @chai-ke-sath-parleg @gehra-hua @hamzakamehroomkurta @jaagtiraatein @jalebi-samosa @kisswithknife @miraclejin1204 @nonchalantnarcissistchhavii @oinswiftie @poniepinkie @rabbdaradio @willowsgoldenhour
Thankyou @wtafananya for tagging me i love you so so so much cutu💗
Hair ᥫ᭡. black
Favourite colour ᥫ᭡. baby pink, powder blue, brown, butter yellow, and sage green
Favourite drink ᥫ᭡. tea (love all type of tea), strawberry refresher, and caramel popcorn frappe 😋
One thing i love about myself ᥫ᭡. my works fs like art, ff and other crafts
If i could be an animal ᥫ᭡. BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY 
Dream place ᥫ᭡. my boyfi’s arm🥰
Looking forward to ᥫ᭡. meeting my boyfi daily because he will be studying in same uni
Biggest dream ᥫ᭡. becoming a psychologist and have a beautiful family with my baby (im bf obsessed)
Songs on repeat ᥫ᭡. trump, ceo, snake [all 3 by cheema y] akhri apeel by satinder sartaaj, tere bagair by amrinder gill and ravi by sajjid ali
Tagging my cutie patooties💗 @maladaptive-anxiety @goodnightkatherine @heavenlit-34 @maroonphase @cloudyparadoxqueen @rutvii @hereforfanfictionsfr abhi aur kisko tag karu soch nhi pa rhi😿
TYSM @rabbdaradio for the tag baby
Hair : Black with a few brown strands
Favourite colour : Cerulean, dark blue, cornflower blue and turquoise 💙🩵🔵
Favourite Drink : Boba tea, Black coffee and Almond Cappuccino ☕
One thing I love about myself : My academic success, football achievements and the things I write like ffs, a novel that I'm writing and poems (genuine poems, not the whimsical ones).
If I could be an animal : Arctic Fox 🦊
Dream place : Sydney 🌆
Looking forward to : Becoming a neurosurgeon. 👩⚕️🥼🏥🩻🩺💊💉
Biggest Dream : Becoming a successful neurosurgeon, and live in Sydney.
Songs on repeat (chatpate songs only 💋🌶️🍒)
Tagging:
@gudbud
@maladaptive-anxiety
@abolitionistlawpluscoffee
@saniisinsane
@rutvii
@gloriouspurpose01
@cherryyelixir
@willowsgoldenhour
@not-aviii
@gehra-hua
and anyone who wants to join
TYSM both my babies @rabbdaradio and @hereforfanfictionsfr for tagging me (also sorry for the late response hehe) u both own my heart and soul
Hair: just got a layered haircut but it's still black and falls past my waist
Favorite Color:
Favorite Drink: it's a three-way time between celsius, chai, and Fanta
One Thing I Love About Myself: i love reading and writing, especially classics (about to go buy the Iliad and odyssey btw) and connect to humans of a different world, language, everything because it shows how similar we are all are
If I Could Be An Animal: a black cat with green eyes, i need to find my owner and curl up in their lap forever and demand cuddles
Dream Place: my bed i can do anything and everything there at my most comfortable
Looking Forward To: starting college and living away from home for the first time (mainly just experiencing independence and freedom)
Biggest Dream: making my family proud and getting through 15+ years of schooling to become a doctor and standing on my own two feet and coming home to laughter and kisses and all the love in the world
Songs On Repeat: kalyani ft shreya ghoshal, chudi, mere rashke qamar, meri zindagi hai tu, chaiyya chaiyya, etc
And finally, fulfilling my moral duty to tag the hotties: @writrsblu @cloudmast @gehra-hua @harrystyleskiwi9 @iamadelusionalwriter @not-aviii @precioussophia @abolitionistlawpluscoffee @goodnightkatherine
Lutt Le Gaya Update
hey guys in case anyone was wondering where I disappeared to (probably not) i just thought id give yall a little sneak peak at my current work (PLZ PLZ DONT JUDGE)
here we go:
soo how was it?? ik it's kinda steamy but a close moot asked for it so i had to make her happy 😊 (just pulling things out of my ass atp) anyway u guys are free to give me any suggestions im very open minded and ready to hear abt anything
also before anyone goes around with the insane conclusion that i'm an idiot ☝️i promise im not doing baby math at this age just gotta revise on my own for college and started at the basics (SERIOUSLY)
tagging the universe cuz that's what y'all are to me:
@misteriadare @twinblueflamee @tere-naal-nachna @eternalstarrynight @ euphorkive @majoriqbalkaekbal @angelllk1ssed @desigal-26 @between-smoke-and-roses @cloudmast @golgappalicious @iamadelusionalwriter @moonysscar @ninnimouse @precioussophia @azulafirelord1224 @angelicyuna @maroonphase @tanipartner @aoyamaj3711 @anxiousbeeing @hhhjjjddghj @idek19291 @mango-dolly @sonasarchive @prettyprettypleaseplease @minnielovesme @yoopizz @mellowgrungeweasel @i-am-yourmom @curiousbutbored @dudihate @iloveakshyekhanna @tanneile2 @laal-pari @cakiebleh @lavenderwinkle @salt66241 @leherology @giantfirefly @gulaabjamun08 @cloudyparadoxqueen @velvetdakait @wanderingquillarchive @starrysugargrace @potterhead17312 @st4miist @ooopssssu @pleasetagmejaaneman @bittermiseryy @avasif @idonthavechatpateusernamed @aoyamaj3711 @abolitionistlawpluscoffee @multifandom-enthusiastt @writrsblu @neelom
what my father says when talking about college : you know we are sending you to study and to become independent you should just focus on that
what he means/what I hear : please don't fall in love and get a boyfriend
"it is a cultural shock — how our daughters are using such [crude] language."
always the women being subjected to puritan culture. citizens are being booked for using slurs. fifteen year olds. are we serious?
why only "daughters"? why is it less surprising to see "sons" as well using crass language? because "boys will be boys", apparently.
the prime minister of the country with the largest population in the world has nothing better to do than making a reel, saying he forgives everyone who verbally insulted him during the recent protest that was highly against the political party he belongs to.
oh goodness. this is a fucking joke.
HAPPY FRIENDSHIP DAYYY WIFEYYY
So fortunate to have you as my wife and friend ❤️ 🫂 💋 🍒💕💍
naan unnai nesikkiren ❤️💗💕🌸💐🫀💘❤️🩹
Us vibin' together 👇
OMG THE QUEEN HAS GRACED US WITH HER PRESENCE 🙇♀️
Thank you so much for ur kind wishes and a very happy friendship day to you too, may there be many many more (imma cut the drama I LOVE U PLZ NEVR LEAVE BABY 🥹)
Naanum un mel adhiga moham kolgiren 😘
Chalo hum dono hai OG bakris 😎
𝘽𝙞𝙧𝙙𝙨.- 𝙐𝙯𝙖𝙞𝙧 𝘽𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙘𝙝 x oc
SYNOPSIS: In Lyari, the boys who ran the rooftops were called birds.
Years later, Uzair Baloch has only a narrow window, a strip of afternoon light, and memories he cannot stop returning to. Some names survive prison. Some promises do not. Some kinds of love become dangerous only after they are gone.
word count: 4.4k
A/N: first fic after hiatus (or is ittt??). no i have not learned coping mechanisms. if you hate this one DO NOT TELL ME I WILL CRY. (my ass hasn't written in over a month and is very rusty) Happy Girlfriends' Dayyy!!!
In Lyari, the boys who ran the rooftops were called birds.
Uzair was always the best one.
This matters. Remember this.
He counts the light now.
This is what he has instead of rooftops. A strip of it — pale, arriving through a window approximately forty centimetres wide and leaving again before he has worked out what to do with it. He watches it travel across the floor of his cell the way he used to watch the sun move across the Lyari skyline from the highest building in the neighbourhood, which was — no. He is not going there yet.
The light travels. He watches.
He counts.
On the day they brought him in, someone had scratched marks into the wall with something sharp. He does not know who. The marks go up to forty-seven and then stop without ceremony, which means whoever was scratching either got out, or gave up, or decided that counting was itself the problem. He is sympathetic. He is, on most days, inclined to agree.
He is not counting days. He is counting because it is better than not counting, because silence in here is not like silence outside — silence in here has weight and texture and turns itself into something close to sound when it has held still long enough, and the something it sounds like is always, always —
He counts.
He counts the light.
[It is important, before anything else, that you understand she was not exceptional in the ways that stories usually require a woman to be exceptional.
She was not beautiful in a manner that needed extended description.
She was not tragic.
She was not waiting at a window.
She did not have a quality of inevitable suffering that made her interesting.
She was exceptional in the way that some people are exceptional — quietly, without announcement, in the way you don't notice until you have been standing next to it for a long time and then you turn and find it has been there the whole time.
She fixed shoes.
I want you to know that. She fixed shoes in a small shop near the second crossroads in Lyari, sitting on a low stool with her tools in a tin beside her, and she was good at it — the kind of good that comes from years of doing something with your whole attention, from caring about the specific problem of this particular shoe rather than the abstract category of shoe repair. People came from three streets away. She could tell what a person's life was like from the wear pattern on their soles.
She told Uzair this once. He laughed. He said, okay, what does mine say?
She had turned his shoe over, looked at it for a moment, and said: Too fast. You go everywhere too fast.
He laughed again.
He was not laughing because it was funny. He was laughing because it was true, and no one had said true things to him in a very long time.]
He had known her for three years before anything happened.
This is not unusual, in Lyari. You know everyone. You know them the way you know geography — just backdrop, just the shape of the world you inhabit, just the woman at the second crossroads who nods when you pass and whose mother makes very good gosht on Sundays and who has, now that he thinks about it, always had a way of being completely still when everything around her is moving.
She was never impressed by him.
This is perhaps the thing. In his world — the world of the gang, the world of Rehman Dakait's shadow and the authority he carried in Rehman's wake — to be unimpressed by Uzair Baloch was not a common position. Men made space for him. Shop owners straightened up. The boys in the street found something important to do in another direction. He was not Rehman — nobody was Rehman, nobody could be — but he was Rehman's, which was approximately the same thing in terms of practical effect.
Sameen looked at him like he was a person.
Just a person. Walking past. In need of having his shoe repaired because the sole had come apart at the toe, which was a mundane problem with a mundane solution that she could provide for forty rupees and would he like it done now or would he be back?
He came back.
He came back, and while she fixed the shoe he sat on the low wall across from the shop and watched her work, and she did not perform for him — did not adjust her behaviour for his presence, did not look up more than once to check whether he was still there. She fixed the shoe. She was precise and economical and completely absorbed in the problem of the shoe.
He thought: this is a person who does not know how to be small.
Not small in the sense of stature. Small in the sense of becoming less, which is what people did around him. Which is what he had always, without having named it, taken as his right.
She handed him the shoe. She said forty rupees. He paid.
He came back the week after with a different shoe.
[The thing about the rooftops: he was always best at the distances other boys hesitated at.
There was a gap — between the old pharmacy and the building behind it, where the first floor had been partially demolished and the second floor of the adjacent building jutted out at an angle — that was approximately six feet across and terrifying in the specific way of things that are terrifying because they are also completely doable, if you commit. The boys stopped there. They calculated. They hesitated. They went back.
Uzair didn't hesitate.
He ran at it full speed and cleared it in a single motion and landed on the other side and turned back to find them all staring at him from the far ledge, and he raised his arms and grinned, and from below, from the street, if you happened to be looking up at that particular moment, you would have seen something briefly indistinguishable from a bird in flight.
Sameen saw this once.
She didn't say anything at the time. She was three storeys below, in front of her shop, and he was on the rooftop, and she looked up and watched him clear the gap and then looked back down at the shoe in her hands and continued working.
Much later — months later, in the specific November that changed the geography of everything — she told him: I saw you once. On the rooftops. I saw you jump the gap.
He said: Yeah?
She said: You looked like a bird.
He said: That's the idea.
She looked at him for a moment with the expression she had when she was deciding whether to say something she wasn't sure about — a small settling, a decision being made — and then she said: It was the most frightening thing I ever saw. You didn't look down once.
He had looked at her.
He had said, very quietly: That's also the idea.
She had looked back.
Between them, in the November air, something resolved itself that neither of them addressed, because Sameen did not address things until she was certain, and Uzair did not address things that frightened him, and both of those facts were, in this particular moment, pointing in the same direction.]
November, then.
He has replayed this month the way you replay something that you knew, while it was happening, was not going to last — with the helpless attention of someone who is already storing it for later, already making the archive, already understanding that it is going to be all you have.
She had been coming to the building across from her shop. A cousin who lived there; she came twice a week to bring food and stay for dinner and leave before it was too late to walk home. He had been coming to the same building for entirely different reasons involving a conversation Rehman needed him to facilitate, and then for reasons that had nothing to do with Rehman.
They would arrive, sometimes, at the same hour.
This is how it becomes a habit. Not by decision. Just by the convergence of paths, and the fact of two people who have learned the shape of each other finding it natural to slow down.
She told him about the shoes — that she had taught herself, that her father had started it and she had continued, that there was something in the specificity of repair that suited her mind, which did not like vague problems. He told her about — very little. The version of things that was safe to tell, which did not include what he actually did in Lyari, which was everything that wasn't fixing shoes, which was not a truth he could hand to her without also handing her its consequences.
She told him she had wanted to leave Lyari when she was younger. There was an aunt in Multan who had offered to take her, and she had considered it for three months and then not gone, because her father was unwell and her mother was managing alone and she couldn't —
He said: Do you regret it?
She was quiet for a moment.
She said: I don't think regret is the right word. The right word is — I decided something. I decided that my life was here, with the people who needed me. Regret is for decisions you made for the wrong reasons. This one was for the right reasons.
He thought about this on the way home, which was three streets and a rooftop, and he thought about it lying in the dark that night, and what he kept arriving at was: she sounds like someone who does not waste herself on things that don't matter.
He sounds, he thought, like someone who has only ever done exactly that.
[I want to be honest about who Uzair Baloch was.
He was not a good man. He was not a simple man. He was a loyal man, which is a different category entirely, and the thing about loyalty as your primary virtue is that it is only as good as the person you are loyal to. He was Rehman's. Before Rehman he was Lyari's. Before that he was the boy who cleared impossible gaps on rooftops because the alternative was standing still, and standing still was something he had never learned to do.
He would have done anything for Rehman.
He did, in the end, do many things for Rehman's memory — for what he believed Rehman would have wanted, for the version of justice that Lyari understood, which was not the justice in any book but was its own thing, ancient and local and specific to the geography of those streets. He did those things. The public things. The blood in the marketplace.
He did not think of himself as cruel. He thought of himself as Lyari's.
It is possible to be both. He knows this now.
He did not know it then.
And Hamza — the man who handed him the knife, who arranged the stage, who leaked the video that destroyed him — Hamza, who he thought was his, who he thought was Lyari's, who turned out to be something else entirely: he does not think about Hamza. Not if he can help it. There is a room in himself that he keeps locked and Hamza's face is what lives there, next to the understanding of how completely he was used, and he does not open that door. Not in here. Not in a place where he cannot run at something full speed just to feel the air change.
We are not opening that door today.]
The specific memory he returns to most often is not the dramatic one.
He has the dramatic ones, stored in the place where things that cannot be processed are stored. He has those memories. He does not visit them.
The one he returns to: a Thursday in December. One month after November. Three weeks before everything ended.
She had been waiting outside her building — not for him, he understood this — and he had come past, which was not by accident exactly but not entirely on purpose either, which is the kind of navigation that people do when they are not yet ready to be honest about what they want.
She was wearing a shawl. Dark blue, the kind that is soft with age, that has been washed many times and still comes back. She had her hands wrapped in it because it was cold, and she looked up when she heard him and the expression on her face was the one she had when she was glad to see something without having been waiting for it.
He said: Sameen.
She said: Uzair.
That was all. That was the whole of the moment — his name in her mouth, said the way she said his name, which was without any of the other things people put into names when they say them. Without the weight of reputation. Without the adjustment for who he was supposed to be in the geography of Lyari's power. Just his name. Just the two syllables. Just: this is the word for you, and I am saying it.
He sat on the step beside her.
They waited together for the cousin who was late.
He did not ask her anything important. She did not ask him anything important. They talked about the cold — it had come earlier this year, she thought, though her father said it was the same as every year, which was a disagreement they had every December without resolution. They talked about a film that had been playing on someone's television in the street for three days at a volume that was, she said, technically a problem. She said she had started to know all the songs.
He said: Which one do you know best?
She sang two lines of it. Not performing. Just recalling. Her voice was ordinary — not musical, not trained — and she sang with the specific unselfconsciousness of someone who did not think of singing as a performance and therefore had no idea they were doing something that undid him completely.
He looked at the street.
He said, very quietly: Main tumhe yaad karta rahun ga.
I will remember you.
She was quiet for a moment.
She did not say: don't be dramatic. She did not say: you're not going anywhere. Both of those things might have been true, or might not have been, and she was someone who did not speak what she wasn't certain of.
She said: I hope I'm worth remembering.
He said, and his voice came out different from how he intended it: More than you know.
The cousin arrived.
She stood. She wrapped the shawl tighter. She looked at him for a moment — with the expression that contained everything she hadn't said, which he understood, which he filed carefully in the archive — and then she said:
Be okay, Uzair. Please. That is all I want. Just be okay.
He watched her go.
He sat on the step in the cold and thought about what it meant to have someone ask only that of you — not loyalty, not allegiance, not the specific violence that Lyari asked him for every day, just: be okay.
He thought about how simple it sounded.
He thought about how completely he did not know how to do it.
[Here is what the word bird meant, by the end.
He has had a long time to think about this.
A bird is something that goes everywhere at full speed.
A bird is something that does not look down.
A bird is something that looks beautiful from below and does not know it.
A bird is something that is never still.
A bird is not built for cages.
He knew this when they put him in one. He knew it the way you know something that you have always known but chose not to examine, because examining it would have required making different choices, and he was Rehman's, and Rehman needed him, and Lyari needed him, and there was no version of that life in which you stopped moving to think about what movement was costing you.
He knows it differently now.
Now he counts the light across the floor of his cell and thinks about a woman in a dark blue shawl who sang two lines of a film song without knowing she was singing, and he thinks about the specific quality of his name in her mouth, just his name, nothing else in it, and he thinks:
She told me to be okay.
He is trying.
He does not know if this counts.]
There was a last time.
He did not know it was the last time. This is the thing about last times — they arrive wearing the clothes of ordinary times, they present themselves as simply another occurrence in the sequence, and you treat them accordingly, which is to say: without the weight they deserve. Without the attention you would have paid, had you known.
It was a Wednesday.
She had come to his building — not the cousin's, his — because something had shifted between them in December and after December, because they had developed, by January, the habit of sitting on his building's steps in the early evening when the light was doing its specific Lyari thing, which was the same light as everywhere else in Karachi but felt, in Lyari, more alive — more present, more indifferent, more beautiful in the way that things are beautiful when they have no intention of being beautiful for you.
She had brought halwa.
Too sweet, he said, when he tasted it.
She said: I know. I made it that way on purpose.
He said: Why?
She looked at the street. She said: Because I wanted to see if you'd eat it anyway.
He ate the whole of it.
She watched him and her expression was the one he had come to understand as her glad expression, though she would not have called it that, because she was someone who treated her feelings with precision, who had filed her vocabulary of feeling into categories of accurate and inaccurate and would not apply a word she wasn't certain of.
She was glad.
He finished the halwa.
He said: Sameen.
She said: Yes.
He said — and then he did not say the thing he intended to say, which was something large and important and probably overdue, because the evening chose that moment to do the specific thing that evenings in Lyari do in late January when the cold is still there but the worst of winter is finished: it opened up. The light changed.
The whole sky went from the heavy white of an overcast afternoon to something clear and gold, just for a few minutes, just for the window between the clouds moving and the sun setting.
They sat together in the opened sky and he thought: this is enough. This specific thing, this specific evening, this woman who made the halwa too sweet deliberately and watched me eat it anyway — this is enough.
I am going to remember this.
I am going to carry this.
Whatever comes next, this is the thing I will carry.
Whatever comes next came the following Tuesday.
He was arrested. He was taken to a place that had no sky. He was processed and categorised and filed — twelve years, which is a sentence in every sense of the word — and the opened-sky evening in January was the last free thing he had.
[He did not know it then. He knows it now — has had years to understand that what she asked of him was the smallest possible thing and also the largest, because being okay requires being present, requires continuing, requires making the choice every day to still be here rather than somewhere else, requires treating your own life as a thing worth protecting.
He was not okay when they arrested him.
He has been working on it, in here. Slowly. In the way of things that grow in the wrong conditions: sideways, toward whatever light is available, using the strips of it that come through a forty-centimetre window in the afternoon.
He thinks she was not waiting for him — she was not someone who built her life around absence, who kept a room for what was gone. She moved forward. She made decisions for the right reasons. She did not waste herself on things that didn't matter.
He thinks about this and does not know whether to find it devastating or a relief.
He finds it, usually, both.]
There is a boy in the cell three down who cannot sleep.
Uzair knows this because the night has a particular quality when someone nearby is not sleeping — a stillness that is too careful to be real stillness, a held-breath quality, the specific sound of someone lying very quietly and trying to convince the silence they are fine.
He knows this quality intimately. He produced it himself, for the first two years.
He lies in the dark and listens to the boy not sleep, and he thinks about rooftops.
He thinks about the gap — six feet, pharmacy to the adjacent building, terrifying and completely doable if you commit. He thinks about the boys at the edge, calculating, hesitating. He thinks about what it felt like to run at it full speed without looking down, to clear it in a single motion, to land and turn and find them all staring.
He thinks about Sameen looking up from the street.
He thinks: she was right. I never looked down.
He thinks: that is not necessarily a virtue.
He thinks: there are things you miss, when you don't look down. People. Details. The specific texture of what is below you. He had been so committed to the flight that he had missed the looking — missed the real looking, the kind Sameen did when she fixed shoes, the whole-attention kind, the kind that tells you what a life looks like from the sole up.
He could have looked down.
He could have, at any point, stopped running and looked at what was below him, which was Lyari, which was the streets, which was the woman at the second crossroads who sang two lines of a film song and made the halwa too sweet on purpose.
He didn't.
He ran.
He is sitting still now. He has been sitting still for a long time.
He is learning, slowly, the other kind of knowing. The kind that comes from not moving. The kind that comes from having only a forty-centimetre window and one strip of light per afternoon and scratch marks going up to forty-seven on the wall.
He is learning to look.
The boy three cells down has gone quiet.
Finally. The held-breath stillness has resolved into something more genuine — the particular absence of sound that is actual sleep, the place where the body's insistence wins over the mind's refusal.
Uzair lies in the dark.
He thinks about birds.
He is not going anywhere for a long time.
He is, for the first time in his life, a stationary thing.
He is learning what it feels like to be the street instead of the rooftop. To be the ground. To be the thing that stays while everything else passes over.
He does not know if she is still in Lyari. He has not been told. He has not asked, because asking is a kind of want that he is not ready to have answered — because some answers foreclose things, and the question, at least, stays open.
He keeps the question.
He lies in the dark with the question the way she sat on the step in December waiting for the cousin who was late — not expecting, not demanding, just present to the possibility.
Main tumhe yaad karta rahun ga.
I will remember you.
He said that before he knew what it would cost, before he understood that remembering is not passive, that remembering is the thing you do instead of having, that remembering is the whole of what's left when you've run out of everything else.
He remembers.
He counts the light.
He breathes.
[And this — this specific thing, this counting and breathing in the dark, this turning toward whatever light is available from a forty-centimetre window — this is, though he does not have the word for it yet, being okay.
Not all the way.
Not in the way she might have hoped, not in the way that makes anything better or returns him to the rooftops or to the street where she fixed shoes with the whole of her attention.
But being okay in the only way available: incrementally, badly, sideways.
The way things grow in the wrong conditions.
The boy three cells down is asleep.
Uzair closes his eyes.
Somewhere in Lyari — in the specific geography of those streets, in the second crossroads — the morning is arriving. It is doing the thing mornings do in Karachi in winter: coming in sideways, low and yellow, without announcement. Just beginning.
She told him to be okay.
He is trying.
He is, in the dark of a cell with scratch marks up to forty-seven on the wall, in the middle of twelve years of sitting still, in the specific captivity of a man who was never built for cages —
still trying.
That is the whole of it.
That is the whole of love: the trying.]
fin.
comments ki bhukhi hoon main ☕️ thanks and regards.
MY GOAT HAS COME BACK WITH A MASTERPIECE
i would have wished you a very happy girlfriends day but.....you're already my wife!! *badoomchingggg* 💋😝💌😉🫦
Awiee
Still HAPPY GFS DAY AND FRIENDSHIP DAY TO U BECAUSE UR MY EVERYTHING 😍😘💕💗❣️💓💘
Happy girlfriends day 😻
Awww my baby thank you so much and happy (late) gfs day to u too 😍
(although idk why my future wife is telling me this 🥸)
People you'd like to know better 🐇
Tagged by @softqsweetie tysm ur such a sweetheart 🌷🩷
last song -> Toh phir aao ( by Pritam)
currently watching -> literally nothing
current obsession -> IDK SANRIO HELLO KITTY DHURANDAR BEING
currently reading -> My science research draft?
currently working on -> Shopping for my birthdayyyyyyy
last google search -> A math problem :(
wearing -> Pink shorts with stars on them and a baggy tee
favourite flowers -> Lilly of the valley
Tags: @mujhekoimarsbhejdo @goodnightkatherine @sonasarchive @doesntmatteryawwrr @kisswithknife @chai-ke-sath-parleg @fallonsworlds-blog @ishq-e-rehman @sanajjjjjj
I'd really wanna know u cuties better ♡
+ anyone else who wants to join in
Thankyou for the tag bby @wtafananya
Last song- slide (chase atlantic)
Currently watching- Miraculous ladybug season 6
Current obsession- dhurandhar and percy jackson
Currently reading- caraval by Stephanie Garber
Currently working on- studying for my exams
Last google search- ncert chem solutions
Wearing- school p.e uniform (dark blue t shirt n pants)
Favorite flower- currently dandelions (luv how they wither away easily)
Tagging: @saniisinsane @sunf1over @rutvii @gulaabjamun08 @sarcastic-ravenpuff
+ anyone who wants to join 💕
thanks for the tag sweetheart @chai-ke-sath-parleg
Ok now let's see-
1. Last song - tere paas mai (female version)
2. Currently watching - the mentalist
3. Current obssession - sleep
4, currently reading - tuesdays with morrie
5. Currently wprking - maintaning 75% attendance
6. Last google search - my college website
7. Wearing - pyjamas( black top and zebra print pants)
8. Favourite flower - hibiscus maybe idk
Tagging - @cherryyelixir @sayalieeee @willowsgoldenhour @gloriouspurpose01 @angelicyuna @lutt-le-gaya and anyone who wants to join
thanks for the tag babyyy @saniisinsane
1. Last song - ishq di baajiyaan
2. Currently watching - adarsh baal vidhyalaya
3. Current obsession - Dhurandhar and travel vlogs
4, currently reading - just starting Mahagatha by Siddharth Nayak
5. Currently working - clearing the aukat ke bahar wala exam jo maine khud hi choose kiya
6. Last google search - rustom uav
7. Wearing - pink top and black plazzo
8. Favourite flower - sunflowers and yellow roses
tagging some of my baddies (sorry for random tag babes): @hamzakamehroomkurta @lutt-le-gaya @sunf1over @gulaabjamun08 @rhopalocera23 @precioussophia
Thanks for tagging me baby @gloriouspurpose01
1 Last song – Barbaad (from saiyaara)
2 Currently watching – Adarsh baal vidhyalaya (same pinch)
3 Current obsession – My friend's birthday and mine is coming too
4 Currently reading – Pride and prejudice (I'm not very very dedicated though)
5 Currently working – On my fics, and an original story + my academics.
6 Last google search – some online games
7 Wearing – Butter yellow night suit
8 Favourite flowers – water lilies and lotuses
Tagging some cuties — @mujhekoimarsbhejdo @rutvii @ishq-e-rehman @notyesha @whyishekinda
thank you for the tag @wtafananya and @sunf1over hehe love this game
last song- love is not enough by ashe
currently watching- one tree hill(also catching up on the spiderman movies)
current obsession- dhurandhar duhhh
currently reading- i have 5 pages left of the striker i dont like it at all but wanted to finish anyway
currently working- trying graphic designing and creating a portfolio, college, fics
last google search- what i need to know about the punishers
wearing- a friends oversized tee with short shorts
favorite flowers- lilies
tagging my loves: @riddhi-on-break @rini4everdreaming @written-in-ishq @tojisloft @allthingsmythology
helllo babe <3 thanks for the tag 💐
last song — ocean eyes by billie eilish
currently watching — house of the dragon
current obsession — dhurandhar, house of the dragon, project hail mary
currently reading — fire & blood by grrm
currently working — college assignments & crochet blanket (plus a few wips)
last google search — johansen cointegration test (don’t ask)
wearing — pastel green oversized tshirt that says “you got no jams”
favorite flowers — lilies (same)
tagging: @hyade @chaotickittydreamer @desigurlie @pavbhajisupremacist @prahelika-fics @yembarzal <3
thank you for the tag bb <3
last song - the beast by cheema y
currently watching - byomkesh gotro // batman begins
currently reading - project hail mary, andy weir // a feast for crows, george reorge rartin martin // roktokorobi, rabindranath tagore
currently working on - assignments (ugh) // research project on bengali detective fiction // diy fixing a cooler
last google search - saumya tandon
wearing - olive green full t shirt with a rabbit doodle
tagging: @gehra-hua @tobitoooo @pavbhajisupremacist and my brain is fizzling out so i forgot who else to tag
Thanks for the tag @tojisloft @prahelika-fics <3
last song - Tere Paas Main from Main Wapas Aaunga
currently watching - idk... funny reel compilations of current events? Not really watching any shows rn
current obsession - dhurandhar (send help it has been 8 months i need to get over it)
currently reading - boring papers
currently working on - master's degree project (ugh)
last google search - Are squirrels rodents?
wearing - blue polo shirt with black spidey hoodie, cargo pants
favorite flowers - mogra
tagging: @shippingtheshippers @mehfil-e-random @vakalatnelagadiye @desigurlie @mcdreamyshepherd @rehmanhatesdosa @averypretentiousreader @chaotickittydreamer @cloudmast
Thank you for the tag @pavbhajisupremacist 🥰🥰🥰, it’s been so long since I was part of a tag game.
Last song: 1949 by Lana del Rey
Currently Watching: I’m in between shows right now. Just finished season 4 of Bridgerton, will probably do a Friends marathon next.
Current obsession: Akshaye Khanna as Sanjaya Baru 🤭😋
Currently reading: I just finished The stolen Heir by Holly Black. My indecisive ass is still figuring out what to read next.
Currently working on: Uh, let’s leave it at studies 🤫
Last google search: Grammatically, should it be xyz and her or her and xyz?
Wearing: A green tee, with black checkered shorts
Favourite flowers: Hard to pick one, really. Lavender, periwinkles, snow drops, those skeleton flowers, lotus, lilies oooh and kanakambaram (is that how u spell it?), orchids, roses(I should probably stop now)
Tagging (no compulsion ofc): @maidenofmelancholy @rosesandpeoniesthings @hottspaghetti @nevereversaygoodbye @ch3rrycok3s @mainyahaankyunhoon @giantfirefly
Thank you for tagging me @averypretentiousreader⭐️⭐️this is my first time playing one of these , so let's see howw it goes hehe🌊💘
Last song - nothing's gonna hurt you baby by cigarettes after sex
Currently Watching - nothing atm
Current obsession - jude bellingham⚽️😛
Currently reading - the silent patient is on hold , so it's cleopatra & frankenstein by coco mellors for now
Currently working on - studies ftw🍹
Last google search - what makes solid cheese smooth and creamy?
Wearing - a soft peach tee with grey shorts
Favourite flowers - i love , love lilies and peonies-with baby's breath deserving a special mention🌙
tagging - @bombaybomb @cloudmast @ppinkitten @maroonphase @carbonaramarinara ★★
Thank you for tagging me @hottspaghetti and @averypretentiousreader 🫶🏽
Last song- ice on my baby by yung bleu ahahah 🧊🧊
Currently watching- nothing at the moment
Current obsession- Akshaye Khanna 🧘🏽♀️🙏🏽
Current reading- all the lovely tumblr fics ahahah
Currently working on- my first tumblr fics @maroonphase 🤭🤭
Last Google search- youtube to mp3 download LMFAOO
Wearing- a pink nightie with white flowers
Favourite flowers- I adore baby pink and dark red roses. Also loveee jasmine
Tagging my bbgs @chocolaaaaatmilk @maroonphase @rutvii @depressedgiftedburnout
thankssiiii @carbonaramarinara (AAHHH you're working on it loveyaaaa) and @hottspaghetti 💋💋 for the tagsss (i love this game btw)
1. last song : humne tumko dil ye de diya🤌🏽
2. currently watching: nothing yarrr😓
3. current obsession: JAMES SPADER 😫
4. current reading: under your scars
5. currently working on: ppt n assignments😭
6. last google search: selena gomez
7. wearing: a maroon t-shirt and black jeans
8. fav flowers: roses🫠
i would love to tag: @not-aviii 🤗.
AAAHHH THANK YOU @maroonphase FOR TAGGING MEE<3
Last song- Afghan Jalebi
Currently Watching- nothing, unless you count F1
Current obsession-F1
Currently reading- Finders Keepers by Stephen King; Prairie Rose (a gr63 fanfic)
Currently working on- My F1 Text!au
Last google search- Yellow, green and red cockroaches (i was studying zoology)
wearing- navy blue t-shirt and shorts
Fav flowers- orchids
and i would LOVE to tag my fairy god mother and bestie @itstiaofficial and my wifey @hereforfanfictionsfr and also my gurl @maroonkurta55 and my newest moot @ajnabi-insaan
Thanks baby @not-aviii
Last song:
Currently Watching: Zanjeerain, Sarbuland Khan da real loml ❤️
Me if he appears in front of me 👆
Current Obsession : Danyal Zafar
Currently reading : NCERT textbooks 🥀🤧
Currently working on : Nothing 😭 🙏
Last Google search : Practice problems Favourite flowers : Tulips 🌷
Tagging my lovleessss
@lessthanalove
@gehra-hua
@gudbud
@willowsgoldenhour
@rutvii
@gloriouspurpose01
@cherryyelixir
Thank you bestiee @hereforfanfictionsfr
Last song:
Currently watching: Nothing
Current obession: Making memes (lol)
Currently reading: My history book (🥲)
Currently working on: Making a new WW2 edit
Last Google Search: AHSEC Class 12 History question papers
Favorite flowers: Sunflowers
Tagging:
@cloudyparadoxqueen
(Lol btw my account was banned so my old followers are missing so yeah lol 🥲)
Awww, thank u @lessthanalove for tagging me, u r a sweetheart🩷🌷
🎵Last song- GOT theme song inspiration (original Irani version, from the shah’s wedding)
📺Currently Watching-The last czar, The Pitt
🕵🏻♀️Current obsession- Ancient Indian History, Gym
📚Currently reading- Mauryas( Devika Rangachari) , Ophthalmology (AK Khurana)
✍🏼Currently working on- Ophthal assignment
🕶️Last google search- Who is Futurecanoe?
👚Wearing- pink t-shirt black shorts
🪷Fav flowers- Lotus (it’s literally my name haha)
💻Adding one of my own entry Fav YouTuber- MarcInsco
and i would LOVE to tag @kamalkafool @starlight-1010 @dazaicoree @rabbdaradio @jjamismess
Tysmmm @cloudyparadoxqueen for tagging me ilysm💗
Last song arhe so jhade by cheema y (on yt) and sai ve by satinder sartaaj (on spotify)
Currently watching kujh bhi nhi
Current obsession CROCHETING
Currently reading the murder of roger ackroyd by agatha christie
Currently working on fanfics 😔
Last google search delhi sunday book market
Wearing a dress with blue, red, and, white strips (w shorts underneath dont wanna flash anyone)
Fav flower lotus 🪷
Tagging my cuties 💗 @maladaptive-anxiety @goodnightkatherine @hoffmancatalyst @majoriqbalkibiwi @chocolate-and-trouble @peonies7002 @maroonphase
Tyy baby @rabbdaradio kuchu puchu for tagging me 🫂
Last Song: Fevicol Se
Currently Watching: ZANJEERAIN MY GOAT
Currently Reading: Vita Nostra (absolute masterpiece btw highly recommend anyone interested in fantasy and mystery to pick it up U WILL NOT REGRET IT)
Currently Working On: ...calculus 1 & 2 😿
Last Google Search: funny salman khan tweets (idk what I was even doing with this but "does nt matter yaar")
Wearing: baggy grey t-shirt and light blue pajama pants
Favorite Flower: jasmine (god the smell is heavenly)
Tagging the lomls: @writrsblu @cherryyelixir @cloudmast @gehra-hua @abolitionistlawpluscoffee
meri biwi, im coming home soon... get ready for...PUCHIII ATTACK
Accha ji poora physics padke ur gonna try everything u learned on me 🤭🤭
IM READY AND WAITING FOR U MY LOVE
Didn’t wanna sound pushy, but really looking forward to Mutually assured Destruction, is it in the works? Bcuz the way it started it def felt that it has substance to be a long ass highlighted series in the fandom.
Just hoping for more, but take ur time, I’m sure you’ll cook 🫰🏼❤️
hey hey sorry for the late response
thanks so much for even thinking of M.A.D
the issue with that is i thought thru the beginning and the end but beech mein thoda difficulty hai and honestly I got distracted by Jassi and uzair and pinda (upcoming)
but no worries I'll def try my hardest to think of smth 😘