The Khan

by Saima Mir

Life was about doing not dreaming.

Andrzej Nowak was no angel. He liked his women, and he liked them like his liquor: cold, old and hardened.

Their patriotism was lost on Jia. She wondered why they boasted about a nation that was built on blood, sweat and rape, run by power-hungry, money-grabbing misogynists.

Life would be simpler without the troublesome burden of her bloodline, without the battle for identity that drove young people to places like Syria to fight a war that was never theirs to begin with,

Our souls are both the prize and the battleground.

This had always been his favourite time, sitting in the warmth of his car, encased in the velvet night.

‘There’s a hadith that says, “Souls are like conscripted soldiers,”’

There were certain things that simply shouldn’t be said without lipstick, and times where its application gave a woman the space to gather her thoughts.

He was her son, and though buried, her love for him ran deep. And so she cut open her chest and took out her heart for him to see.

You were my weakness.’ She looked at him. ‘But I will make you my strength. If you will let me.’

‘The world is full of sharps and shards. I can’t save you from them – I have come to terms with that now – so I place you in the protection of Him in whose hands and control my life rests. He is all people like you and I have,’ she said. ‘He is all we have.’

‘Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by colour,’