Faraz Parvez

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  🕯️ The House That Remembers+2 By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) I. The Arrival Lahore in July was a furnace. The air stood still, thick with dust and humidity, and even the shadows seemed to sweat. Ali stood before the rusting iron gates of the old haveli his late uncle had left him. It loomed like a forgotten monument in the narrow lanes of Androon Lahore , its walls bruised by time, its windows covered in thick lattices that concealed whatever secrets lay within. Ali was thirty-two, a journalist by profession, cynical by training, and a man of facts. He had returned from Karachi not out of affection for his uncle, whom he barely knew, but because the lawyer’s call had been blunt: “You are the sole heir. The property is yours. Do as you please.” The property. That word clanged in Ali’s mind. He saw not bricks and mortar but opportunity—maybe he wo...

The House That Remembers By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) 1. The Bargain When Sajjad and Nargis first saw the colonial-era bungalow in Lahore’s Gulberg area, it felt like a blessing. White walls with moss creeping up the corners, thick wooden doors carved with faded floral patterns, high ceilings with slow-spinning fans — it looked like something out of an old film. The rent was absurdly low for its location. Sajjad’s friend Ahmed, who arranged the deal, only shrugged. "The owner lives abroad. He just wants someone in the house. It’s been empty for years." They moved in with their two children — Hamza, twelve, and little Sana, six. For the first week, everything was perfect. The house smelled faintly of sandalwood, the kind of scent you couldn’t buy anymore. The floors were cool underfoot, and the garden bloomed wildly with hibiscus and marigol...

The Wedding Guest Who Never Came By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA It was the grandest wedding Karachi had seen that year — fairy lights strung across the Clifton beach lawn, a stage covered in fresh roses, a buffet stretching endlessly under white canopies. And yet, for Sana, the bride, the evening was incomplete. She kept glancing toward the entrance, scanning each new arrival. Guests assumed she was nervous, or overwhelmed by the occasion. Only she knew the truth — she was looking for one person. Zayan. They had met four years earlier in a bookshop on Zamzama, reaching for the same copy of The Forty Rules of Love . He had smiled, let her take the book, and somehow stayed in her life ever since — not as a lover, not exactly, but as someone who always seemed to be there when she needed him most. He was the one who walked her home when her car broke down at midnight. The one who sent her recording...

  Letters That Arrived Too Late By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA The first letter came on a quiet Thursday afternoon in Lahore. The winter light was fading, turning the old city into a painting of dust and gold. Amina had been returning from her teaching job, her head full of unfinished lesson plans, when the postman handed her a thick ivory envelope. It had no return address. Only her name — written in an elegant, looping hand that felt strangely familiar. She tore it open absentmindedly, expecting a bill or an invitation. But the words inside made her sit down on the stairs before even closing the gate. "I have loved you for years, Amina. Loved the way you tilt your head when listening, the way you bite your lip when hiding a laugh. I know your hands smell faintly of books and sandalwood soap. I know your heart lives between poetry and silence." She froze. No one had ever written to he...

Two Drabbles for a Changing World By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA A drabble is a complete story told in exactly 100 words — no more, no less. It is the art of telling a universe in the space of a breath. Today, I give you two such worlds. 1. The Envelope The envelope sat on Fatima’s desk for three days. No return address. No seal. On the fourth day, she opened it. Inside: a single photograph of her standing at the edge of the Clifton beach — but it was dated ten years in the future. She was smiling in the picture, holding hands with someone she had never met. The sea behind them was calm, the sky golden. She taped the photo to her wall. And every weekend, she went to the beach, waiting for the stranger who would make that smile real. 2. The Last Bus Arif boarded the last bus of the night in Islamabad. There were no other passengers, only the driver — who never looked back. The bus move...