After my mother died, everyone speaking her name gained one gram. Doctors blamed faulty scales. Physicists questioned calibration. I whispered her name every morning until climbing stairs became impossible. Grief, I realized, wasn’t carried inside hearts. It settled quietly into bones, waiting for someone willing enough to bear it.

Atif Nawaz is a Pakistani writer whose fiction has appeared in literary magazines and journals. He writes short fiction exploring memory, identity, and the human condition. He is currently working on new flash fiction and short stories.