Short Story by Raconteuse

 Ananya had always believed that people left in instalments. Not always all at once—sometimes in quiet fractions. A delayed reply. A canceled plan. A slow fading of laughter that once came easily. She had learned to notice these things early, the way some people learn to read the weather. At ten, she learned what it meant for someone to leave completely. Her father’s absence did not arrive loudly—it seeped in, like dusk. At eleven, grief returned, less patient this time, and took her sibling too. After that, she stopped asking life for explanations. Loss, she realized, did not negotiate. Her mother remained—the only constant, the only proof that love could endure even when everything else slipped through your fingers. But even love, she understood, could not stop change. It could only soften its edges. So Ananya grew up becoming fluent in goodbyes. Teachers changed schools. Friends changed cities. Laughter changed its address. She carried people like pressed flowers in the pages of...

"How much is enough?" A question that clings to my thoughts like ivy on crumbling stone — persistent, quiet, but impossible to ignore. Today, that question has anchored itself deep within me. The interview didn’t go as I had hoped. Not even close. When we prepare for interviews, we expect a binary outcome — either we crash and burn or we emerge victorious. For me, I was bracing for the former. I’ve always had a tempestuous relationship with interviews. Once, I grew so anxious that I forgot foundational terms from my own profession. That memory still burns. The interviewer, expression unreadable, had said,  “Ma’am, if you do hear from us, it will be solely based on your stellar CV. The person described there and the one who sat here today are worlds apart.” Two years have passed, yet I recall every detail — especially because, in a 20-minute interview, all I managed to say was:  “I don’t know, Sir.” Not “I don’t recall,” but the raw, unfiltered, and utterly unforgivable:  ...

 The rain had started falling just as the sun dipped below the horizon, a gentle murmur of droplets against the window that seemed to echo the stillness in Raavya’s heart. She sat on the edge of the couch, her legs curled beneath her, a cup of warm tea cradled in her hands. Outside, the world was painted in soft shades of grey and silver, the streetlights casting long, quiet shadows. Inside, the room was calm, bathed in the soft glow of a lamp in the corner, the warmth of the space wrapping around her like a soft blanket. She thought of him—Dru. How could she not? In just a few months, he had become a part of her life in ways that were both surprising and inevitable. From the first moment they’d met, something inside her had known that their paths had crossed for a reason. There was a magnetic pull between them, one that neither of them had expected, but neither could deny. Raavya had always been independent, her heart wrapped in a protective shell she had built over the years. She...

Cumulonimbus. I murmur it softly to myself, the word slipping out like a secret, knowing that no one else around me on the subway would understand it. They never do. The hum of the train, the faint rhythm of tired footsteps, and the distant murmur of conversation—everything is so achingly ordinary. Yet, I am anything but ordinary. I’ve always been the quiet one, the odd duck. I suppose it’s something I’ve accepted. The people I share my subway ride with, their faces masked in exhaustion, know this as well. The train car is dense with bodies, the evening rush hour pulling us all towards the same unspoken end. My job as a stenographer doesn’t help matters. It’s mundane, lifeless—taking shorthand, typing notes at a fancy office building—nothing that demands more than my fingertips. My business degree, my graduation summa cum laude, all feel like distant echoes. I never asked for this life. But here I am, spending each day in the throes of discontent, earning the minimum wage that barely a...

In the hushed stillness of a rainy evening, as the world outside was cloaked in muted hues of grey, I sat beside the window, letting the soft, insistent drizzle obscure the sharp lines of my thoughts. The past three months had unfurled before me like an unexpected letter, one I hadn’t foreseen but could not now imagine living without. Marriage, at least the way I had envisioned it, was supposed to be tidy, like a perfectly folded letter, crisp and direct. But this—"we"—was something far more intricate, far more exquisite. I had assumed I knew what love was. After all, doesn’t everyone at some point believe they understand it? But then I found him. I found "us", and the shape of it was unlike anything I had anticipated. I recall, in passing, before we were even engaged, saying that I would not take his surname after marriage. To me, it represented a deeper autonomy I wasn’t willing to surrender. But months later, standing at the altar, the priest casually mentioned t...

  Oh Mom! I was so scared after I saw Suki’s letter. I mean who does something so crazy? I met Avyaan today and he was fine. Not that we ever have any heart to heart discussions. He was not discernibly disturbed. I think if she went ahead with the discussion, he obviously, comfortably, chose her. I am relieved they are still together. Not once did I expect it to be otherwise. Why would he choose me? Today, in the library, he asked all of us for movie. He, then, messaged a girl from our class asking if she wanted to go, too. She promptly said yes. I started giggling because a thought ran in my head. Being the child he is, Avyaan started pestering me with the reason for my giggling. I gave in and said that she said yes so promptly because she thought it was a date with just two of them. He said, “How could she? She knows about Suki.” I replied, “She does but you can never bridle the secret expectations that one has.” The conversation that ensued perturbed me. He said, “Do you think S...