Short Fiction

It was a sunny afternoon in the middle of May, the kind of afternoon when the city does not move so much as endure. The sun stood above everything with a punishment that felt personal. Heat fell on the head, rose from the road, entered the eyes, and made even silence seem tired. Shadows had grown short beneath parked cars and compound walls. The trees beside the road stood without movement, as if their leaves had accepted defeat. The dogs slept under shutters. The hawkers sat with wet towels around their necks. The roads were empty and quiet, not because the city was peaceful, but because everyone who could hide from the afternoon had already hidden.