It was the night she learned that the moon shone brighter in a village than in the city. So bright she couldn’t open her eyes. So bright that the bones of the dead in the illuminated graveyard lay wide awake.

It was the night she was afraid of the moon.

Soofia Mahmood taught herself English as a teenager in Pakistan so she could become the first girl in her family to attend university. She found a love for writing strange things instead. Now in Toronto and having a late-midlife crisis, she just wants to be read. Read her short-story thought experiment, Tiny Tyrannies.