Grave Spaces imagines the afterlife through the voice of a soul resting in the grave alongside an angel named Adil. In this lyrical meditation, time dissolves into mystery as the narrator reflects on life, death, and the comfort of companionship beyond mortality. The piece blends spiritual imagery—gardens of golden flowers, lakes of stars, iridescent butterflies—with quiet dialogue that reveals longing, peace, and the anticipation of resurrection. More than a vision of what lies beyond, it is a meditation on patience, divine mercy, and the solace found in unexpected companionship.

Tea for the Hollow Man explores the quiet unraveling of a woman’s inner self as she endures the emotional erosion of an abusive marriage. Told through the shifting voice of her fading interior consciousness, the piece transforms a simple tea ritual into a surreal meditation on identity, fear, and the slow hollowing that comes from being endlessly diminished. Domestic objects warp into symbols of psychological danger—mint leaves blackening, sugar cubes melting into shadow, rooms tightening like a fist—while memories of gentler moments flicker like fragile light. More than a portrait of abuse, it is a study of how a self fractures under manipulation, and how even in the darkest unraveling, a small pulse of self‑recognition endures, waiting to be reclaimed.

Islam and The Masks is a speculative narrative that begins in the sacred rhythm of prayer and erupts into violence, tracing the aftermath of faith interrupted by bullets and fire. The narrator, left paralyzed and hospitalized, confronts a new world where grief and devotion are mediated through algorithmic companions and emotional regulation masks. Between memories of communal worship and the sterile presence of a machine‑like caregiver, the piece explores themes of identity, surveillance, and resistance. At its core, it asks what remains of faith when ritual is fractured, when belonging is prescribed, and when silence becomes the only authentic protest.

Threadfall is a speculative narrative that begins with a prayer mat humming beneath the narrator’s hands, unraveling her into a realm stitched with dust, copper clouds, and memory. In this world, verses from the Qur’an reshape the land—streams flow, trees bloom, ruins whisper—while the narrator wrestles with feelings of unworthiness and invisibility carried from her earthly life. Guided and tested by Huda, a figure both mentor and skeptic, she confronts the tension between being chosen and being forgotten, between silence and surrender. The story blends mysticism, science‑fiction textures, and spiritual longing, ultimately asking whether faith is about returning home or rooting oneself in a new, transformative landscape.

The Goodbye of Beginnings is a lyrical fable told through the voices of birds, trees, and a boy named Zaid. Set against a mountain landscape alive with prayer, memory, and wind, the story explores themes of belonging, departure, and the bittersweet beauty of farewells. As Zaid prepares to leave the mountain and return to the village, the natural world around him—saplings, nests, and the elder tree Amil‑hajj—responds with grief, love, and transformation. The piece blends mythic imagery with intimate emotion, showing how goodbyes can be both endings and beginnings, carrying memory forward in roots, ribbons, and prayer.

The Hafiz is a short narrative set in a traveling coalition, where faith and survival intertwine at dawn by a murky lake. When an elderly man appears, frail but declaring himself a Hafiz of the Qur’an, the narrator balances caution with reverence. His presence transforms the camp: children learn, prayers echo, and hardship is softened by recitation. Through vivid scenes of vigilance, tenderness between siblings, and the fragile authority of the Hafiz, the piece explores themes of trust, devotion, and the sustaining power of scripture in times of uncertainty.

The Restaurant of Sand transforms a place of hospitality into a sanctuary of memory and resistance. Once a kitchen of mercy, the restaurant becomes an archive where bowls of sand replace food and guests offer grief, ritual, and remembrance instead of orders. Each visitor carries a story—a mother’s last meal, an exile’s map, a chef’s fragrant legacy, a convert’s first fast, an elder’s spices, a silent olive. Their offerings are recorded in a ledger that preserves not consumption, but survival. Through vivid sensory detail and ritualized storytelling, the piece explores themes of famine, erasure, and resilience, showing how memory itself can nourish and resist what hunger seeks to erase.