The shop was small, tucked away underneath an apartment building on Sixth Avenue. I ducked my head as I walked down the steps, and a small bell chimed as I stepped out of the frosty wind.
The summer before college, Sarwat moved to Texas. It was a small miracle that she was able to convince them to stay put through the end of high school. Her parents wasted no time packing up after graduation.
One day, I phoned my grandparents’ house just to have a talk. My grandmother picked up the phone and told me that my grandfather was taking a nap upstairs. Soon enough, we were talking as relaxed as ever. At some …
I find myself walking a paved road in the middle of a baraat, a groom’s wedding procession. It resembles a parade that will eventually pour through a small Indian village leading to a clearing where the bride and her family wait.
Six months later, with a lump in her belly, she was on her way to California. When they arrived, they were met with the sea breeze and high tax rates. While she was out working, he was inside drinking, an unorthodox contortion of the American dream.
I came to the city to write. I hoped to find a bustling literary community to feed my spirit and offer me some kind of identity in a dizzying mass of humanity.
I remember burying the seeds every time I ate an apple. They never grew into apple trees. I remember going to the airport for fun.
I remember, on Thompson Street, the moment they called the 2020 presidential race. I remember the way my childhood home smelled when it was completely empty.
At a 1949 science-fiction lecture, the prolific pulp writer Lafayette Ronald Hubbard—L. Ron, for short—opined that, “Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.