Faraz Parvez

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...

Ten Vignettes from a Restless Subcontinent By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA The vignette is a brief flame of a story — it flares, dazzles, and fades before you can name the colour of its light. In the lanes of the Subcontinent, where the past lingers like the scent of old rain and the future hums like wires above crowded bazaars, a thousand stories breathe in every street corner. Today, dear reader, I bring you ten of them . They may be fleeting, but each holds the weight of a novel. 1. The Man at the Railway Bench He wore a white kurta, his beard soaked from the drizzle. The train had left hours ago, yet he sat unmoving. When asked, he said, “I’m waiting for the 1972 express. My wife is on it.” The station master did not tell him that train had been discontinued decades ago. 2. Mangoes in Winter Shazia opened her fridge in Karachi and gasped — mangoes, fresh and golden, lay there. A note rea...

  The Widow Who Lived in the Mirror By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA In the narrow lanes of Lahore’s Mochi Gate , where the houses leaned toward each other like old gossips whispering over steaming cups of chai, there stood a crumbling haveli that everyone avoided after sunset. The windows were always shut. The courtyard always damp. And behind a rusted iron gate covered in jasmine vines, there lived Bibi Rukhsana , a widow who no one had seen in daylight for decades. Children said she was a ghost. Adults said she was cursed. But the truth was stranger — Bibi Rukhsana lived in a mirror . The Mirror in the Haveli The tale began long before most of the city was born. Rukhsana was once a celebrated beauty, married into wealth, her husband a silk trader with ships sailing to Muscat and Zanzibar. One evening, on a trip to Delhi, he returned with a gift — a full-length, Venetian mirror framed in ...

  The Grave That Moves at Night By Faraz Parvez (Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal — Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA) In the far-flung outskirts of Lahore, beyond the crumbling brick walls and the lazy canals where buffaloes swam in the heat, there stood a graveyard the elders called Maqbara-e-Sukoon . “Graveyard of Peace,” they called it — though no one had felt peaceful there in over fifty years. It was said that one grave in Maqbara-e-Sukoon did not stay in its place. By day, it looked like any other — a simple mound of earth, a weather-worn headstone with no name, only the word “Ajeeb” ( strange ) carved crudely into it. But at night, villagers claimed it shifted. Sometimes to the left. Sometimes to the far right of the graveyard. Sometimes it disappeared entirely, only to return by dawn. The elders swore this was no illusion — footprints would appear around it in the morning, as if someone had been pacing. The Dare One hot July evenin...

  🩸 “The Jinn in the Lantern” By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) Part I: The Inheritance In the old walled city of Multan , known for its saints, graves, and cursed air, lived Rehan , a 28-year-old software engineer from Lahore. When his maternal grandmother passed away, he was the only one willing to visit her derelict haveli to claim her belongings. The family had long whispered about that place — that it was haunted, cursed, protected by something older than the jinn themselves. Rehan didn’t believe in tales. He believed in electricity, logic, and clean code. He reached the haveli just before Maghrib. The smell of dust, dried roses, and rusted metal greeted him. In the center of the drawing room stood a single item his grandmother had left for him: A bronze lantern , centuries old. Attached was a parchment: “Do not light it.” Naturally, he lit...

🧠 “The Man Who Forgot His Name” By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) Part I: The Awakening It began on a Thursday — the most forgettable day of the week. Dr. Umar Fawad opened his eyes in his sea-facing apartment in Clifton, Karachi. The sheets were unfamiliar. The room too bright. There was a woman in the kitchen humming an Urdu lullaby he couldn’t name. She walked into the room holding a mug. “Your espresso. Two sugars, like always.” Umar blinked. “Who are you?” Her face stiffened. “Umar, stop joking.” He wasn’t. He walked to the bathroom. The mirror showed a tired man in his early 40s. Deep hazel eyes. Slight greying on the temples. Hands trembling. He examined his wallet: ID card: Dr. Umar Fawad — Consultant Psychiatrist, MindLab Institute. CNIC, driver's license, even credit cards — all confirmed it. But the name meant nothing. Not a flicker of...

  🎭 Absurd One-Act Play #2 "The Interview for Nothing" By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) 💡 What is an Absurd Play? Absurdist plays reflect the strangeness and irrationality of existence , challenging logic and order. Inspired by the likes of Beckett and Ionesco, such plays embrace chaos, circular dialogue, and metaphysical confusion to explore life’s deeper absurdities. 🕰️ Setting: A soundproof, windowless corporate interview room in an unknown Pakistani city. A digital clock on the wall blinks “00:00” eternally. A blinking sign reads: “Applicants must know what they are applying for. No clarifications will be provided.” 🎭 Characters: The Applicant (Man in a Suit With No Resume) The Interview Panel (Three Identical People with Different Voices) The Peon Who Replaces People Randomly HR Robot With a Broken Smile A Revolving Door...

  🎭 Absurd One-Act Play #1 "The Queue That Never Ends" By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) 💡 What is an Absurd Play? For our readers: an absurd play is a theatrical form that defies conventional storytelling. It presents a world that appears illogical, circular, or meaningless — yet holds a mirror to the human condition. Think of life’s most repetitive frustrations and unanswered questions — now imagine them as theater. 🕰️ Setting: A dimly-lit corridor in Lahore’s mythical “Ministry of Unfinished Affairs.” A worn-out sign reads: “Please Wait. Change Is Under Review.” 🎭 Characters: Old Man with a Broken File Young Woman with a Vanishing Token Government Clerk Who Never Blinks Silent Child Who Has Aged Waiting The Queue (yes, the line itself speaks) 📜 Plot Summary: People stand in an endless queue. They've forgotten what the...

  🕯️ Voices from the Eighth Floor A Psychological Thriller Set in Islamabad 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 New Beginning After her bitter divorce, Amna , a 32-year-old journalist, moved into a high-rise apartment in Islamabad’s Blue Area. Tower 7, Eighth Floor, Unit 803. Clean, modern, and eerily quiet. Just what she needed to rebuild. But from the very first night, something felt… wrong. A whisper outside her bedroom. A faint knock when no one was there. The light in the bathroom flickering exactly at 2:13 a.m. daily. She blamed her imagination. Stress. Trauma. Anything — until her neighbor across the hall, Dr. Adeel , approached her. “Have you started hearing them yet?” he asked, eyes hollow. II. The Vanishing Tenant She learned that her flat had been empty for five years. The previous tenant? A young woman named Nashwa , also divor...

  🕯️ The Guest Who Knew Too Much A Psychological Thriller Set in Lahore By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) I. Gulberg, Lahore — Where Luxury Hides Shadows Zoya and Faris were the perfect couple. Young, successful, beautiful. Their Instagram told the world that much. Nestled in a leafy lane of Gulberg, their modern, marble-floored villa was as much an achievement as it was a statement. Recently married, they turned part of their spacious home into an Airbnb suite — “to add a stream of passive income,” as Faris proudly declared. They received guests from Karachi, Dubai, even Sweden. All left five-star reviews. Until Mr. Kamal checked in. A man in his late 40s, he arrived with a duffel bag and a laptop. Polite. Reserved. But… too observant. He requested no housekeeping. Ate in silence. Stared too long at the wedding photos on the hallway wall. II. The...

  🌧️ The Last Monsoon Meeting A Psychological Thriller Short Story | By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) 🕯️ “Some reunions are not meant to heal wounds. They come to reopen them.” It was the first rain of July in Islamabad. A private reunion had been planned in a dilapidated but grand old house in Sector F-6, once owned by the late industrialist Bashir Sahab. His grandson, Zayaan , a quiet screenwriter from Karachi, had returned to the capital after 17 years. Invitations were sent to five people . All of them were once childhood friends —now strangers joined by a single, shared past they refused to talk about. None of them knew why they were invited. 🎭 The Cast of Shadows Zayaan – The quiet host. Traumatized by the death of his twin brother in 2008. Now obsessively writing a screenplay about a murder nobody believes happened. Sameer – Now a ...

🌒 The Forgotten Passenger A Psychological Thriller Short Story | By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) 🚆 "People get on. People get off. But sometimes... someone vanishes in between." It was supposed to be an ordinary journey. The Lahore-Karachi express had just departed from the platform, humming with late-night murmurs, the scent of rain-soaked earth trailing behind. Among the passengers was a young woman in a blue shawl—seated by the window in Compartment B-17. Quiet, polite, and barely noticeable. Three hours later, as the train pulled into the Rohri junction, the seat was empty. She was gone. No one had seen her leave. The door was locked. Her bag was still there, untouched. Her ID was missing. Panic broke out. Was she kidnapped? Did she jump? Did she ever exist? 👴 Enter: Inspector Haider Karim (Retired) Among the passengers was Inspect...

  The Judge's Envelope By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) Chapter 1: The Whisper Before Dawn Karachi woke up that morning with the usual din of rickshaws, hawkers, and hurried commuters. But inside Courtroom No. 4 of the City Sessions Court, the air was unusually thick. Judge Sarfaraz Mirza sat erect, his seasoned eyes scanning the courtroom through his thin-rimmed glasses. For twenty-five years, he had ruled his bench with iron discipline and an unswerving commitment to justice. Today was different. The trial of real estate tycoon Feroze Baig had the entire city watching. Baig was accused of illegal land acquisitions, forced displacements, and orchestrating a fire that had killed seven slum dwellers. ACP Hania Asif , the fearless investigating officer, sat with her case file clasped tightly. She had been mentored by Judge Sarfaraz years ago and admired ...

  . Echoes in the Safe House By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) Prologue A thick fog curled over the hills of Murree like a lingering secret. The safe house stood still — worn-out, isolated, and buried in snow — much like the truths it was meant to contain. Tonight, it would witness betrayal, madness, and the final exhale of silence. Chapter 1: The Vanishing When Colonel (R) Azhar Qureshi didn’t show up for his weekly call with Rameen, she felt the unease in her gut twist like a dagger. Rameen, a seasoned investigative journalist based in Karachi, had always been at odds with her father. He was stoic, fiercely patriotic, and secretive — trained in Pakistan’s deep intelligence services. She, on the other hand, stood for press freedom and accountability. Their calls were formal, mostly polite. But never missed. When she arrived at his Islamabad farmhou...

  🏙️ The Staircase at Apartment 108 A Heartwarming Tale of Urban Connections, Small Gestures, and Unsaid Words in Karachi By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) Karachi – Clifton Block 4 – Apartment Building “Seaview Heights” It wasn’t a posh high-rise, but it had character. Paint peeled off the stairwell walls, but the plants at the entrance were lovingly tended. The lift often groaned and sighed but worked — most days. At Apartment 108 , lived Mrs. Zehra Farooq , a widowed school principal in her 60s, stern with words but soft with her evening prayers. Known across the building as “Madam,” she wore neatly pressed white shalwar kameez and had a reputation for correcting grammar mid-conversation. Down the hall in Apartment 112 , Shayan , a young software developer from Islamabad, had moved in recently. Introverted, polite, always wearing headphones. His p...

☕ Coffee, Chaos, and a Missed Call — A Slice-of-Life Romance from the Urban Heart of Lahore By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) Lahore – Tuesday, 10:42 AM It had rained earlier. The co-working hub “NicheDesk” in Gulberg buzzed with muted conversations, the low hum of laptops, and the unmistakable scent of fresh espresso. Here sat Inaaya , a fiercely talented graphic designer freelancing for Dubai-based clients, finishing a pitch for a fintech app. Her laptop bore stickers: “Creativity over Chaos” and “Women Who Work.” Across the space, Sarmad , a Harvard-returned startup founder in his late 20s, was silently fuming. His entire team had bailed on the morning standup, and a VC call was due in 30 minutes. His power tie remained in his bag — he hadn't worn it since his last breakup. In the café attached to the hub, Bilal , once a research scholar in Canada,...

  💖 Romance Tale #1: “When the Monsoon Came Back” Urban Romance | Lahore & Karachi | Fate, Family & Forbidden Love By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) “Some storms are not meant to destroy. They’re meant to return what was lost.” 🌧️ Act I: The Karachi Rain and the Lahore Past Zoya Hadi , a fiercely independent Karachi-based documentary filmmaker, travels to Lahore to film a series on disappearing heritage homes . Her latest assignment? The crumbling Qasim Manzil , a pre-Partition mansion now claimed by a trust and tangled in family disputes. What she doesn’t know is that Qasim Manzil belongs—at least partly—to her college ex-love , Haider Shah , a UK-returned architect with his own wounds and grudges. They haven’t spoken in eight years , not since a bitter breakup caused by family pressure and ego clashes. Now, fate pulls them into the same...

13-E: Gulberg’s Silent Floor Psychological Thriller | Lahore Shadows By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) “Some addresses are not meant to be lived in. They live in you.” In Lahore’s bustling Gulberg III , the apartment at 13-E , top floor of the newly-built but mysteriously vacant Sulaiman Residencia , became the talk of whispered conversations. It had been bought in full cash by a young woman named Sundas Areeba , a clinical psychologist who’d just returned from London, seeking peace after a traumatic incident in her past. But what she found was not peace—it was the unraveling of reality itself . I. The Perfect Silence Sundas moved in on a rainy Tuesday. The elevator didn’t show a button for the 13th floor. She had to swipe a keycard to access it. The strange thing? All other floors had tenants—families, children, working professionals. But the 13th? Si...

  The Glass Room Psychological Thriller | Karachi Noir By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) “There are two kinds of silences: the peaceful one, and the kind that watches you.” After retiring early from a decades-long career in forensic psychology, Dr. Irtiza Arif moved into Qasr-e-Tasneem Towers , an upscale yet oddly quiet apartment complex near Clifton’s sea breeze zone. The building was the kind that drew in Karachi’s elite—lawyers, surgeons, artists—but all shared one thing: they didn’t talk much. Irtiza thought retirement would be peaceful. Instead, it became a descent into uncertainty, paranoia, and self-doubt. I. The Woman with the Velvet Voice On his second night, he met Maham Mirza , a woman in her 40s with the poise of someone who had seen everything. She curated art shows and hosted elegant, wordless dinners with neighbors who avoided eye c...

🌹 "Gul-e-Rang: A Love Story of Old Lahore" Genre: Romance | Nostalgia | Social Drama Setting: Walled City of Lahore, present-day with echoes of the past By Faraz Parvez Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA (Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal) 1 | The Rooftops of Mohalla Chunna Mandi In the tangled heart of Lahore’s Walled City, in a mohalla where pigeons outnumber people and the call to prayer blends into the rustle of kites, lived Gul-e-Rang — named after her grandmother’s favorite rose. Her name meant “color of flowers,” and she carried it like a gentle revolution. She lived in Haveli Fateh Chand , a crumbling mansion with frescoes on its walls and the past in its silence. The haveli's walls were witnesses to history, partition, heartbreak — and now, to her quiet footsteps and blooming dreams. Every evening, after attending Government College on Mall Road, Gul-e-Rang would ascend to the ro...