The Moment Before the Tear Falls You are sitting in a darkened hall, and the dancer has not yet moved. She stands at the edge

The Raga Begins Before the First Note You were not supposed to be there. Someone dragged you along — a colleague, a relative, someone who

The City That Swallows You Whole You step off the train at Howrah and the city doesn’t greet you — it ingests you. The crowd

The Last Lamp in a Burning City You are sitting in a room that smells of dust and scorched wood, and outside the walls of

The Cell That Made the Poem You are sitting in a cell in Montgomery Jail, Lahore, in the winter of 1951, and the light that

The Letter You Never Sent You have written it three times already. The paper is still there, folded along a crease you made without thinking,

The Man in the Mirror of His Own Films You are watching yourself disappear and you know it, which is the worst part. Not the

The Man Standing at the Edge You are standing with your back to everything you have ever known. The fog below is not atmospheric effect

The Boat That Never Arrives You are standing in front of it, and you cannot explain why you will not move. There is no violence

The Forest That Does Not Care You are standing at the edge of a treeline as the last of the afternoon light collapses behind the

The Rustling Behind the Wainscot You are reading in a rented room, late, the kind of late where the building has gone quiet in a

The Locked Room at the Center of the House You are sitting in a room you have lived in for years, and something is wrong.