Short Story
You Were Never Really Here
I used to think I remembered you. The sound of your laugh, low and hesitant. The way your eyes crinkled when you smiled. The scent of citrus and clean linen that always seemed to follow you. But memory is a traitor, and now I wonder—did any of that ever happen? You were my secret miracle. The person I needed when the world felt too loud and my heart too hollow. You came to me in pieces: a voice in my head during long walks, a shadow in the corner of my room when I needed comfort, a name I scribbled in the margins of every notebook I owned. I talked to you as if you were real. I believed in you more than I believed in myself. At first, it was innocent—something like an imaginary friend for a lonely teenager who didn’t quite know where she belonged. But it grew. You grew. I began to assign you habits and histories. You liked coffee too strong, and hated cold weather. You read poetry aloud but always skipped the last stanza. You were always late, unapologetically. You had a chipped tooth you never fixed. You told stories in half-sentences. You only listened to sad songs. I needed you to be real, so I made you real in all the ways that mattered. You were there when my parents fought behind closed doors, hurling words like plates. I’d crawl under my bed and whisper your name like a prayer, and you’d answer with silence that felt like peace. You stood behind me when I looked in the mirror, telling me I was more than enough even when I didn’t believe it. You held my hand during those empty nights when the weight of being “too much” for some and “not enough” for others left me sleepless. You were my sanctuary. Friends came and went. I had boyfriends, girlfriends, confusing half-relationships. None of them ever matched the softness you carried in the spaces between words. I searched for pieces of you in everyone I met—a crooked grin here, the way someone said my name there. But no one ever quite fit. And maybe that’s because no one could. You weren’t born from the world; you were born from the gaps inside me. When I left for college, I tried to let you go. I tried growing up. I packed boxes with books and clothes and memories, but left you behind like a diary too embarrassing to reread. For a while, it worked. New friends. New faces. Late-night pizza and early morning exams. I filled my life with so much noise that I couldn’t hear you anymore. Until the night I failed my final and sat on a park bench at 3 a.m., shivering under a broken streetlight, and I whispered, “Are you still there?” And just like that, you were. You sat beside me in the dark, saying nothing. You never said much, really. Just enough. Enough to feel seen. It took me years to realize what you were. You weren’t a person. You weren’t even a ghost. You were a reflection—of my longing, my fears, my hunger for connection. You were the version of love I thought I deserved. Not a lie, exactly, but not the truth either. You were a beautifully constructed illusion I made to survive. And now I wonder—how many others have done the same? How many of us have invented someone to lean on when the world felt unbearable? How many of us are haunted not by spirits, but by the ache of our own imaginations? Sometimes I wish I could meet you, just once, in the flesh. Just to see if I got it right. To ask you if you ever felt real, even for a moment. But I know I’d only be meeting myself. I’ve stopped looking for you in the world. I’ve started looking within. Because that’s where you’ve always been. You were never really here. But somehow, you saved me all the same.
By Muhammad Siyab about a year ago in Fiction
The Summer That Wasn’t
There was a time when I believed summer could fix anything. Maybe it was the way the sun lingered longer, casting golden spells on everything it touched. Or maybe it was because summer always promised escape — from school, from pressure, from routines, from reality. But that one summer, the one we planned for months, never really happened. And yet, it still changed everything. It was supposed to be the summer of us. Me, Amina, and Fareed — best friends since childhood, bonded by years of shared snacks, secrets, and the same neighborhood streets. We had just graduated high school, full of nervous energy and the kind of excitement that buzzes under your skin like soda bubbles. We had a list — The Summer List — written in blue ink on Fareed’s sketchbook paper. It had everything from bonfire nights to a road trip along the coast, camping under the stars, and watching every meteor shower we could catch. I remember sitting on Amina’s rooftop in May, all three of us cross-legged, laughing about how many things we’d do, how many places we’d go. “This summer,” Fareed had declared, “will be legendary.” We didn’t know how fragile time was. June arrived with heat and hope. We managed one beach day before the first crack appeared. Amina’s father got sick — really sick. The kind of sick that comes with oxygen tanks and hospital visits and whispers behind closed doors. She stopped coming to the group chats. When she did reply, her messages were short: “Can’t. Sorry.” Or “Maybe next week.” Fareed and I tried to go ahead with some of the plans. We even went to the outdoor cinema one Friday night, but it felt hollow, like pretending to enjoy a party you didn’t want to attend. We saved a seat for her. She never came. July blurred into hospital corridors and waiting rooms. I visited Amina once, and her face looked older, tired in a way that summer shouldn’t allow. Her hands shook when she poured tea, but her voice didn’t. “Go have fun,” she said. “Don’t wait for me.” But we did. We waited. Then Fareed’s brother, Sami, got into a motorbike accident. He survived, but barely. It changed everything. Fareed, always the dreamer, the one who talked about stargazing and hiking and chasing sunrises, started disappearing too. He stayed home more, angry at the world and tired of pretending to smile. The summer list remained pinned on his corkboard, untouched. I tried once — just once — to check off something alone. A small hiking trail near our town. I thought it might give me the sense of freedom the list had promised. Instead, I ended up sitting on a rock halfway through, staring at the valley and crying because nothing felt right without them. By August, I had given up. I spent most days reading old texts and watching our group photos fade into memories. The beach photos, the silly car selfies, the ones from our favorite rooftop café — they all looked like someone else’s life. Someone who got the summer they planned. But here’s what I didn’t realize then: sometimes, the summer that doesn’t happen teaches you more than the one that does. I learned how silence could be filled with love — in the way Amina’s mother offered me chai when I visited, even though her eyes looked like they hadn't seen sleep in weeks. I learned how presence could mean more than words — like when Fareed and I sat outside his house for hours without speaking, just watching the sky turn orange and then blue-black, our sadness shared like a quiet song. And I learned that not all stories need fireworks to be memorable. Some just need truth. In September, after Amina’s father passed, we gathered again — just the three of us — under that same rooftop. We lit a candle, not for celebration, but for peace. We didn’t talk much. We just sat. And that was enough. That summer, we didn’t go on road trips. We didn’t camp under stars. We didn’t finish the summer list. But we grew. We learned how to hold space for each other. We learned how to be present, even when everything was falling apart. We learned that sometimes, life writes its own plans — and while they may not come with Instagram posts or scrapbook memories, they come with something more lasting: connection. Now, years later, when people ask me about my favorite summer, I don’t say the one where I went to Italy with my college friends. I don’t say the one filled with bonfires and boat rides. I say, “The summer that wasn’t.” Because that was the summer I learned what it meant to be there for someone. To wait, to understand, to let go. That was the summer we didn’t chase the sun — and yet, somehow, we still found the light.
By Muhammad Siyab about a year ago in Fiction
Summer Holiday
The thing with being ... someone like me... is that a lot of existence revolves around not getting caught. There might be some who are brazen enough to hide in plain sight, but the thought makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. If ever They catch up with me, maybe I'll embrace notoriety. Until then, I don't want to go to prison. So I'm neat. I'm careful. I do my best to get rid of evidence. I blend in. I don't draw attention to myself. I'm pleasant. Likeable. Charming even. But I work on being more forgettable than the symmetry of my face strictly allows for. Maybe you haven't really thought about this, but, serial killers go on holiday, too, you know. We wear shorts, and flip flops, and shirts we wouldn't be seen dead in back home. We eat ice cream, and hire motorbikes, and we look a bit goofy in our swimming trunks. We get cranky on long flights when the baby won't stop screaming. Sometimes we don't even fantasise about throwing it out of the window. Sometimes, we just lean back and wonder idly what business class would cost. Would it be worth it for how much it would make me stand out? It's so much safer to be one of the plebs. There's more of them for one thing. I am a needle; they are a haystack. But, there's this as well, though it sticks in my craw to even think it... It's actually easier to blend in. I might stick out like a sore thumb amongst the wealthy. We struggle a bit, cramming our hand luggage into the overhead space. We turn on wifi mode when instructed, and fasten our seatbelts. Our eyes widen at the watches and perfumes for sale in that dull little magazine. We're very, very good at pretending to be ordinary. At some point we don't even realise the brat has quieted. We slump onto our C-shaped neck cushion, and drift off. We wake, slightly disoriented, looking like our faces have been badly ironed. Sleep crumbs glue our eyelids shut, and make them itchy. We stretch the stiffness from our limbs. Grouchy and thirsty, we shuffle off the plane, and let ourselves be shepherded. We wait for our luggage, just as impatient as everyone else. We unclick the handle, extend it, and wheel our drab, very much "blending in" case out into the grey carpark. Gloomily squinting at the drizzle spattering the windows, we remember the heat, the brightness, the carefree smiles... It all feels like a very long dream away. When we get home, we wheel that boring, black, could-be-anybody's case to our room and flip it open... It should be filled with shorts and shirts and... souvenirs... from my trip. Instead, I'm looking at several mismatching pairs of dirty knickers, a notebook filled with cramped handwriting, and a dead magpie. Someone out there has my luggage. They've got the locket I found for my mum. (It cleaned up beautifully.) All those hideous shirts. And, double-wrapped in a pair of socks, a young man's toe. + Thank you for reading
By L.C. Schäferabout a year ago in Fiction
