'Midnight visitor' is one of the winning entries of DS Books and Star Literature's Halloween themed writing contest "Spook-Off". One winning 100-word flash fiction or a two-line horror story will be published each day of the week all the way till Halloween.

An uncomfortable stillness emanated in the air around Rajpath road. I stood there with my suitcase in my hand, the hair on the back of my neck standing on edge. Glancing left then right, I crossed the road and entered the premises of Hotel Kaalipara.

It was another early sunset on a rainy day in Dhaka. Alamin was walking with a polythene bag of groceries back to his small, rented apartment.

As she looked up, Rukhsana noticed her eyeballs missing.

This universe’s heart is hollow now for humanity has died inside it.

I think it was closer tonight. I really did not want it inside the lift.

For a wistful moment, he was born to me. Eyes closed and never to open.

Back at home, food used to narrate stories. Here, food does not travel far to the nooks and crannies of Velutha’s heart; it only reaches his stomach well enough to leave him looking healthy and strong.

Spacious, shiny, new roads are built in my city to rent them for raw-markets

I look in the mirror, and the tides start turning,

You Are a Rickshawallah

The hush of dawn and the whispered breeze,/ that caresses nature's resting face

She stands in front of the canvas and stares.

the moon watches over you, when whales beach themselves, the tides wash them back home; the moon looks down

When I was born, my skin was dark, like my grandfather’s, in whose arms I discovered my first home. Relatives old and new, whose disappointment was being nursed by my parents’ fair complexions, looked from afar as my rotund cheeks melted into the sleeves of my dada’s discolored half-sleeve shirt.

After our spiritual journey to the Old City and West Bank, the realities of life caught up to us.

News from Gaza rips the heart open/ Idlib is burning too

Eurydice, his beloved,  lost to the shades, In the underworld's depths,  where darkness pervades.

Once on a particularly smothering hot day, on a CNG ride to work, I was stuck in the most heinous traffic for over two hours. Over the yelling drivers, honking cars, and incessant cursing over why the CNGs were trying to overtake the expensive cars, I was listening to my usual cycle of songs. As coincidence would have it, David Gilmour in his seraphic voice posed the question: “So, so you think you can tell/ Heaven from hell?”

Who is the one playing such a plaintive tune on a flute