The House
Some prisons never need walls.
For twenty years she had been hiding from her uncle.
She kept her world small.
No photographs on the walls.
No letters.
No laughter that carried too far.
Every footstep outside her room made her hold her breath.
She was thirty-five.
She knew this because the calendar insisted.
Birthdays came.
She never marked them.
What was the point?
Still, every morning she woke up fifteen.
She waited for her mother who never returned.
She waited for the sound of a key turning in the lock.
Sometimes she spoke to herself in whispers.
“He won’t find me today.”
Then she sat perfectly still, convinced silence could make a person disappear.
The neighbors called her strange.
The shopkeeper said she always looked frightened.
The doctor never asked about the scar.
People wondered why she was never seen beyond the same few streets.
She smiled. There were places you never really left.
Years slipped past like forgotten seasons.
Her hair silvered.
Her hands aged.
Only the girl inside remained untouched.
Still fifteen.
Still waiting.
Still listening for footsteps.
One night she heard them outside her room.
Slow.
Heavy.
Familiar.
She pulled the blanket over her head.
Same threadbare corner.
The same reflex she'd carried for twenty years.
The bedroom door opened.
“You still awake?”
She closed her eyes.
She did not answer.
She never did.
Morning came.
The neighbors saw an old man watering the plants outside the same house he had owned for decades.
Inside, a thirty-five-year-old woman quietly made his breakfast.
She placed the tea beside him without looking at his face.
When he finished eating, she washed the cup.
She returned to her room.
She locked the door.
“He won’t find me today,” she whispered.
Tiny Paws Inside Me
I was standing by the newsstand, leaning on the metal roof, waiting for a friend who was late. The air smelled of wet asphalt and old paper. Rain dripped from the roof in uneven taps, tiny drums over the city noise.
Wow! That's heavy. Great writing Tahir.