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Channel: Sarah Crysl Akhtar – Every Day Fiction
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SWALLOWS’ NEST • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

Raheel’s mother Parveen was unmatched for stubbornness but even she crumbled before fate. Yes, she said — the words like a scorpion on her tongue — find a Masood girl for my son. Her sisters had...

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A DAY BEFORE ALL OF THOSE NIGHTS • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

I’d tell it this way: In that place, at a parallel moment, a troop of His Royal Vileness’s cavalry reached a village, poor but beautiful, looking for girls with the same attributes. His Wretchedness...

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LYING IN THE LITTLE BEAR’S BED • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

“…a story, Mommy!” “In a house in the woods, far far away, three bears were living. “The father bear was big and tall with a big booming voice and big hard hands.” “Bears don’t have hands! They have...

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TOMMY, THROUGH A GLASS • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

More than forty years, now, and if I knew how to draw I could draw you every detail of the scene. Maybe it was that look he had about him of the young James Coburn, and his perfect timing. Must have...

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DOES BEST IN ORDINARY GARDEN SOIL • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

The brambles? Kept pigs out of the gardens. The story? Got my parents out of a jam. “My gosh,” I said to my aunt, “haven’t they bollocksed it up now!” She gave that ginger-and-lemon laugh of hers....

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FIRE AND LIGHT • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

No moon, no star was visible. Darkness laughed to itself. Mahguli scattered sharp-scented leaves on the fire. Sparks leapt like comets transversing a secret universe. Something saw Mahguli that hadn’t...

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UNCLE FIDA’S EID • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

Uncle Fida had reached that grim age where food is the chief pleasure but most of one’s teeth are gone. He’d been a fiery young man; his reputation as a terrifying old one had been vanquished by his...

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SELL YOURSELF SHORT • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

I hated my options.  Wouldn’t sell my jewelry.  Agathe said, “You can’t take it with you,” but we can’t take anything with us.  My husband had turned into a toad and hopped away; my kids were just...

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SET THEORY • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

They’re like cats, I’d said. But who listens to kids? This was Phase Two — where hardship perks gave worker bee families like us houses we couldn’t have dreamed of back home. Ours was on a gloriously...

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THE WELL-TEMPERED SUBORDINATE • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

I still remember that awful moment, in school, when I realized mathematics is the language of the universe and I could barely speak one coherent word of it. I sensed its beauty, but could never commune...

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SWALLOWS’ NEST • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

Raheel’s mother Parveen was unmatched for stubbornness but even she crumbled before fate. Yes, she said — the words like a scorpion on her tongue — find a Masood girl for my son. Her sisters had...

View Article

A DAY BEFORE ALL OF THOSE NIGHTS • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

I’d tell it this way: In that place, at a parallel moment, a troop of His Royal Vileness’s cavalry reached a village, poor but beautiful, looking for girls with the same attributes. His Wretchedness...

View Article

LYING IN THE LITTLE BEAR’S BED • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

“…a story, Mommy!” “In a house in the woods, far far away, three bears were living. “The father bear was big and tall with a big booming voice and big hard hands.” “Bears don’t have hands! They have...

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SINGULARITY OF ATTACHMENT • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

Raythene was a stunner, her mother was a glory — lustrous, the pair of them. The grandfather — people called him Beautiful Joe, and you know what that means. Scare the shit out of Satan.  If you...

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FOLLOWING THE COW’S PATH • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

He split her like a bloodwurst and left her like butcher’s ware — cold dead meat drawing flies. But Friedegunde my sister was more — not a surrenderer and not silenced. I held my scream, knowing she...

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STÖBERHUND • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

He seized me up like a carrion bird and like a dead thing I let him.  Then I came alive again. “Oh no,” Reinhardt purred — defaming the language of cats — “oh no, my girl.  Under Heaven you swore to...

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THE QUICKENING TREE • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

Straight to the heart of the wood she brought me, where oak and beech grow thick — but it was under a rowan tree she set the basket down. “Mushrooms enough for the king’s army, if you stir yourself to...

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…WITH A NEW AFTERWARD • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

Gendelman kept refusing every offer for the shop. A peculiarity of the lease rendered him untouchable, though the landlord’s heirs hoped Gendelman’s bereftness after Dina might end their misery. But he...

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NEW SONG • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

“Stop screaming,” said Old Ma. “The baby is gone. Make another one when your milk dries up.” Suddenly I hated Old Ma. I wanted to smash her. But I was clever even in that moment. I stopped my hand and...

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BACK TO EGYPT • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

“I went back to Egypt last night,” said my sister, with horrible cheer, “to my real family.” Mom and Dad had already left for work. The best I could manage to news like this over breakfast was a feeble...

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