Fizza Ghanchi is an emerging writer from Karachi, Pakistan, curious about evaluating the overlapping complexities of gender and class. They have previously written essays on mobility, being politically at odds with the people you love, and performing gender for the sake of normativity. Her nonfiction has been published or is forthcoming in Reimagining Relations, Alfaaz Zine, and Dunya Digital. Their first short fiction is coming out as part of ampersand, in association with The British Council. They are currently editing and curating the first issue of The Blue Orange Magazine. Additionally, they are working on a chapbook that explores and dissects girlhood in Karachi and having to navigate its landscape and streets while being /perceived/ as a woman through an interdisciplinary textual and visual form. Otherwise found reading or getting emotionally annihilated by their cricket team. You can connect with them through Instagram @zizffa
EXCERPT
Before I came to fully ponder you, I had the sunset and the ocean waves crashing on my ankles and the stark white of the moonlight touching, bathing every window in the house that faced it. I had my friends’ tender beckoning each time I refused them, the muted shadows of unwashed curtains on my wooden floor, the soft laughter of my mother trickling clumsily towards me. Before you, I had many beautiful, terrifying things I went to, to sit beside and openly lay out my grief. This grief of life.
None of it was subtle still, it was the loud toll of a truck horn that shakes the floor of a house on the main street. It said, “Look, look don’t you see? I am sitting here as if by choice but really, I couldn’t stand if I wanted to, not without leaning, without putting my share of the weight onto an object, for the weight carries with it each night and each day’s every hour I spent and do spend and will spend finding meaninglessness in the rigidity of a routine. To the breathtaking sun going down in an avalanche of colors, the broken and hearty chuckle my mother let out and to the glass window shining white under the moon’s glow I say, I know you are birthed by beauty I cannot place or imagine. Look at me. Tell me what I can do. Give me a list. I will follow it religiously.”
And then, you. Suddenly, here. Not welcoming, not embracing, just witnessing my slow coming apart. You look just like your photos; I have saved many. You don’t look tired, nor in a hurry. It is strange to have you here, so near, and not know why. When I dreamt about you all this time, sleeping and awake, I always imagined a hearty reception, a coming together mirroring the likes of flowers that shrink and face away the entire night, only to brightly embrace the sun at its first glance. I want to hold your hand but I am scared you might slip through the gaps in my fingers. What can I say to make you look at me.
You are the history I lost before I knew about loss.
