Love
Timeless Love
The world froze at 2:04 PM. Cars halted mid-intersection. Birds hovered like ornaments in the sky. Conversations turned to statues, caught in half-spoken syllables. Ezra Kane, a quiet bookstore clerk, was the only one who moved through the stillness.
By Salah Uddinabout a year ago in Fiction
The Rose of Gbaye. AI-Generated.
In the quiet hills of Gbaye, a remote Liberian town untouched by the pace of modern life, time moved differently. There were no phones ringing, no electric hum from screens, no cars honking impatiently. The people lived by the sun and the stories, the ones whispered over fires at night and carved into memory like scripture. One story, however, stood apart. A story too strange to be true, too real to be fantasy, the story of Jomah and Satta.
By Altrick_ Nellabout a year ago in Fiction
Stuck With Mr. Billionaire
“You seriously expect me to sleep in a cabin with him?” Harper’s voice echoed off the pine walls of the snowbound lodge. Her suitcase hit the floor with a thud, narrowly missing the foot of the man leaning against the fireplace, smug grin firmly in place.
By USAMA KHANabout a year ago in Fiction
The Weaver’s Song
The morning sun spilled over the rooftops of Sylhet, casting golden streaks across Arif’s tiny apartment. At twenty-eight, he was a math teacher at a local school, known for his quiet demeanor and knack for making numbers feel like stories. But today, his mind wasn’t on equations. A letter lay open on his table, its edges creased from being read too many times. It was from his aunt in a village near Moulvibazar, a place he hadn’t visited since he was a boy.
By Shohel Ranaabout a year ago in Fiction
The Lantern’s Keeper
The rain tapped softly against the window, like a friend asking to be let in. Rhea sat in the corner of her small Dhaka apartment, cradling a cup of tea that had long gone cold. Her eyes held a distant gaze, as if she were searching for something just out of reach. Outside, the city’s chaos—honking rickshaws, vendors’ calls, and the hum of life—blended into a familiar hum. But to Rhea, it all felt muted, like a song played too far away.
By Shohel Ranaabout a year ago in Fiction
The Letter She Never Sent
The Letter She Never Sent Nora had always believed in writing things down. From grocery lists to unsent love letters, her life was inked in journals and forgotten scraps of paper. Words were safer that way—silent, controlled, trapped between margins where they couldn’t betray her. She had written hundreds of letters over the years, but there was one letter she could never bring herself to send.
By Shohel Ranaabout a year ago in Fiction
My Grandmother’s Mirror Only Reflects the Dead
The Mirror’s First Secret I almost sold the mirror the day after Grandma Lillian’s funeral. It was an ugly thing—a heavy oak frame carved with twisting vines, the glass smoky with age. But Mom insisted: "She wanted you to have it. Said it was special."
By MUHAMMAD Abbasabout a year ago in Fiction
Signed, Your Ghost
The first letter arrived on a Tuesday. Mara found it tucked neatly into her mailbox, nestled between bills and a coupon booklet. There was no return address—only her name handwritten in a script that looked strangely familiar. The envelope was pale gray, sealed with an old-fashioned wax stamp bearing the impression of a feather. She opened it on the kitchen counter, next to a half-drunk cup of coffee and a vase of wilting sunflowers. > Dear Mara, You left the bedroom light on last night. It’s okay—I didn’t mind. It’s strange, watching you sleep. I used to sleep beside you. Do you remember that? I’d count your breaths when I couldn’t count sheep. You always exhaled in threes. I never told you. I’m still here. Just quieter. Signed, your ghost. Mara stared at the letter for a long while, her fingers trembling slightly. She assumed it was a joke—some elaborate prank. But no one knew about the breath-counting. No one could’ve. She folded the letter and shoved it into a drawer. By Thursday, she had nearly convinced herself it was a one-time thing. A trick of memory. Maybe she had written it herself, during one of her sleepless nights, and forgotten. But then came the second. > Dear Mara, You made pancakes this morning. You forgot the vanilla, but they were still good. I remember how you used to hum while flipping them—“Moon River.” You don’t hum anymore. I wish I could eat with you. Sit across from you like before. But the table only sets for one now. Still, thank you for making them. The smell reminded me of Sunday. Signed, your ghost. It had been two years since Leo died. Two years since the accident. The sharp turn. The tree. The endless silence that followed. She had buried him with his favorite blue scarf and the book he never finished. Mara had tried to move on. She even dated someone briefly, a man named Owen who worked at the bookstore downtown. But she always ended things early—before she got too close. Before she had to explain the shadow that still sat at her table or the phantom weight beside her in bed. Now, the letters came once a week. They never asked her for anything. They were simply observations. Memories. Moments only Leo could’ve known. The smell of their favorite candle. The way she cried at commercials. The time she broke her toe dancing in the kitchen. Each one ended the same way: > Signed, your ghost. At first, they terrified her. Then they made her ache. But over time, the fear dulled, replaced by something else—comfort, perhaps. Connection. She started writing back. Nothing elaborate—just notes scribbled on napkins or the backs of receipts, left on the windowsill or taped to the mirror. She never knew if they were read, but somehow, she felt less alone. On the anniversary of his death, she made his favorite dinner—spaghetti with too much garlic and a bottle of wine neither of them could ever finish. She lit a candle. She poured two glasses. The next morning, she found a final letter. > Dear Mara, Thank you. For everything. For the dinners and the dancing, the laughter and the late-night walks. For remembering me. For not forgetting yourself. You’re stronger than you think. You always were. I’ve been holding on, afraid you needed me to. But I think you’re ready now. Not to forget—but to live. You’ll always carry me, but you don’t have to wait for me anymore. You are not alone. You never were. Goodbye, my love. Signed, your ghost. Mara wept, but it wasn’t the same kind of sorrow. It was softer now, almost sweet. She tucked the letter into a box with the others. Then she opened the windows, letting in the morning air. The sun spilled across the floor like forgiveness. And for the first time in years, she felt light enough to move forward.
By Azmat Roman ✨about a year ago in Fiction
We Fell in Love Between the Pages
It began, as the best stories often do, in a bookstore. I had just moved to the city, the kind of move you make when you're not sure what you're running from or chasing. A fresh start, I told myself. I wandered into a little secondhand bookstore tucked between a laundromat and a coffee shop. It wasn’t anything special at first glance—dusty shelves, faint smell of paper and cinnamon—but something about it felt like home. I didn’t know then that he would be there. That he always came on Saturdays. That he had a favorite spot, tucked in the back corner beneath the poetry section, where he’d sit on the floor with a stack of books like he was building a fortress made of words. I noticed him before he noticed me. He had messy dark hair that refused to stay put and glasses that kept sliding down his nose. He was completely absorbed in his book, lips moving slightly as he read—Shakespeare, I think. Something about sonnets and stars. I didn’t say anything, just watched for a moment longer than I should have, then found a book of my own and curled up on the armchair near the window. The second time we crossed paths, I was the one reading Neruda. He glanced at the spine of my book as he passed by and said, “That’s my favorite poem.” I looked up, startled. “Which one?” “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines,” he said. Then, without asking, sat across from me and quoted the first line. “‘Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’” He smiled, as if the words were his own. I smiled back, despite myself. We didn’t exchange names that day. But after that, we kept meeting there. Saturdays turned into habit. We began talking about books, always books—Tolstoy, Angelou, Plath, Márquez. He’d recommend something, and I’d come back the next week with thoughts scrawled in the margins. I’d lend him my copies, and he’d return them with pressed flowers tucked between the pages and underlined phrases like hidden confessions. Eventually, it became more than literature. He told me about his late nights writing poetry and the dog he missed back home. I told him about my childhood in a small town where stories were the only escape, how my parents used to fight in the next room and I’d bury myself in novels to drown it out. Still, we never met outside the bookstore. It was like we had built our own little world between the pages—untouched by reality, suspended in ink and time. I wasn’t sure when it turned into something more. Maybe it was the way he looked at me when I laughed at a line from Austen. Or the way he always remembered how I took my coffee—black with one sugar, no cream. Or maybe it was the note he left inside a dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre. “If we’re both fiction, I’m glad you’re the chapter I got to live in.” I didn’t say anything that day. I read the note, closed the book, and walked out of the store with my heart louder than the city traffic. The following Saturday, I didn’t go. I was afraid, I think. Of what it meant. Of what we were outside of that space. But he showed up at my door that evening, holding the book and looking like he’d read a sad ending. “How did you find me?” I asked, breathless. “I asked the bookstore owner. He said you left your number on your membership form.” I stood there, unsure of what to say. He handed me the book. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” I opened it. There was a new note inside. “Love is not limited to chapters. It spills over margins, scribbles into the real world. Maybe we can, too.” I looked at him. “What if the real world ruins us?” He smiled. “Then we rewrite.” And just like that, I fell in love with him again—not between the pages, but in the space beyond them. In the way he waited. In the way he hoped. In the way he believed that stories didn’t have to end where the book closes. Now, years later, our apartment is filled with books—some old, some new, some with scribbles in the margins and little drawings only we understand. On our wedding day, he read from Neruda again, and I finally underlined the lines that had defined us all along. “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving.” And so we keep reading. Keep writing. We fell in love between the pages— and built a life in the lines that followed.
By Azmat Roman ✨about a year ago in Fiction
The Gym Rat Trap
When I met Chad, I thought I’d finally cracked the dating algorithm. He was funny, ambitious, and had biceps that could probably cradle a small cow. A real gym rat — not just one of those guys who “occasionally hikes” and thinks whey protein is a type of shampoo. He had the full package: personal trainer certification, veins that mapped his forearms like Google Earth, and a way of saying “macronutrients” like it was a poem.
By Muhammad Abdullahabout a year ago in Fiction
