Date: September 14, 2027 – 11:47 PM Location: Room 312, West Quad Residence Hall, Ann Arbor, Michigan The radiator clanked like it had something to confess. Emil sat cross-legged on the carpet, hoodie zipped to his chin, eating cold ramen straight from the pot with a plastic fork. One bare bulb. One cracked window letting […]
The Letter in the Dorm Read More »
Leadership
August 12, 2026 — Crestview, under a bruised summer sky The orchard back home had grown wild in their absence. Tiny blossoms clung to branches as if afraid to fall. Emil stood beneath one of them, the soft hum of insects mixing with the ache of memory. His hands still smelled faintly of paint and
The Ledger’s Weight Read More »
Peace
August 1, 2026 — The First Sapling The siege had ended in silence. The murals—veiled in breathable cloth—stood like ghosts with open eyes. But the valley did not wait. In Jammu, Neelam arrived at dawn with a cherry sapling in a clay pot. She planted it beside the mural’s base, where the mothers’ gold pulse
The Orchard of Names Read More »
Peace
July 12, 2026 — The First Coordinated Strike The siege began not with noise, but with absence. In Srinagar, the chinar’s open door was painted over in black—a thick, deliberate slab. In Jammu, the restored rose door was slashed with red, the streak now a wound. In Muzaffarabad, the cherry tree was uprooted in paint,
The Siege of Memory Read More »
Critical Thinking
July 5, 2026 — Dawn over Srinagar The Jhelum woke in ribbons of rose and ash, its surface catching the first light like a canvas before the brush. In the courtyard, the Srinagar mural stood unveiled—a sky of violet mist cradling a ghost chinar, its open door glowing in soft rose. In Jammu, Neelam’s valley
The Mirror of Valleys (Part I) Read More »
Life
July 1, 2026 Written on the back porch, Crestview, under a sky the color of old iron My dear Emil, I have not crossed a border in forty years, yet tonight I feel the Jhelum in my bones. You sent no photograph, only a ledger page—three murals, one river, 312 names. I held it to
The Mountain, the River, and the Wound (Grandfather) Read More »
Leadership
Return to Srinagar The Circle returned from Muzaffarabad under a sky the color of wet ash, their footsteps heavier, their silence deeper. The bridge was already behind them, but the river had followed — in Zohair’s rabab, in the children’s echoed refrain, in the weight of consent given freely. They did not speak of triumph.
Homes That No Longer Exist Read More »
Relationship
June 19, 2026 — Morning Mist at the Line The bridge wasn’t marked on most maps. It arched humbly across a narrow stretch of the Jhelum, not far from Uri — a pedestrian crossing long closed to the world but occasionally whispered about in quiet diplomacy. On the morning of June 19, the Circle stood
The Song Across the River Read More »
Relationship
June 16, 2026 — En route to Jammu The jeep rolled south, leaving behind Srinagar’s misty hush for the drier hills near Jammu. The river thinned to a silver thread, its banks dust-fringed and stubborn with grass — a quiet witness to the distance growing between the Circle and the valley they’d begun to know.
Dawn thinned to a pale ribbon as the jeep climbed the road north. Poplars held the sky in long, spare strokes; the river kept pace below, a quiet companion. Sofia sat up front beside the driver, counting turns as if mapping a new pulse. In the back, Emil kept the ledger in his lap while
Silence at the Line of Control Read More »
Relationship