fiction
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Some moments don’t arrive suddenly.They grow quietly—like a feeling you don’t name because naming it would make it real. That’s how it began with him. I don’t remember the exact day I noticed him, only that one morning he existed differently. We were colleagues—shared meetings, shared corridors, shared deadlines—but suddenly, he also shared my awareness.…
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I didn’t plan to talk to her.Libraries are silent places, and strangers usually stay strangers. But there was something about the way she stared—not reading, not scrolling, not sleeping—just staring. As if her body was present, but her mind had stepped out long ago. When I tapped her gently, she flinched. Then she looked at…
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The café was unusually quiet that evening. It’s early winter air outside that has pushed people indoors, and the warm lights bouncing off the wooden counters felt comforting. That’s when I saw him—my friend of many years, walking in slowly, one hand pressing the left side of his forehead as if trying to hold something…
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At sixteen, Aanya believed that love meant never letting go. Her world was small then — a handful of school friends, dreams scribbled in notebooks, and a heart that fluttered every time Aarav smiled at her. He was everything she thought she wanted: popular, charming, effortlessly confident. Girls in school would whisper his name with…
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Ravi was content in his marriage. He wasn’t particularly happy, though. Like a peaceful sea without tides, their friendship remained steady. Grocery shopping, bills, hospital visits for parents, festivals, and even a couple of vacations were all well-managed by them. His wife eventually admitted that she had found someone. Someone who restored her sense of…
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I have spent the last 20 years living and working in a world that, for the most part, didn’t look or sound like me. In a culture that valued men, I was a woman who was strong, quick, nimble, and constantly alert. Somewhere along the line, I forgot that I am not a guy as…
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Today, I share a deeply personal and true story — one that belongs to a close friend whose journey I have witnessed up close, so much so that his pain often felt like my own. With his permission, I bring this story to light in the hope that it reaches someone, somewhere, who needs to…
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I was in my teens when I picked up the habit of reading books, now after 3 decades, with around 300 books in paperback or hardcover plus 175 e-books in my kindle and 42 books in audible, I feel my quest to find the hidden treasures in the books is still unearthed. I have not…
