Talha khan
Stories (19)
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Two Worlds, One Feeling
A Meeting That Felt Ordinary We met in a place where nothing important was supposed to happen. It was a small public library near the bus stand, the kind people entered only to escape the heat or kill time. I was there because it was quiet and free. She was there because she had time to spare between commitments that shaped her life.
By Talha khan27 days ago in Humans
Tiny Choices, Lasting Impact
Morning Habits For a long time, I believed change arrived loudly. I imagined it as a clear moment—an announcement, a decision that split life into before and after. But most mornings didn’t feel like that at all. They began quietly. An alarm I considered ignoring. A glass of water I sometimes drank, sometimes didn’t. A notebook resting on the corner of my desk, unopened. Nothing about those moments felt important. I moved through them automatically, believing real change belonged to bigger decisions. Career choices. Relationships. Major risks. The small things felt like background noise—too minor to matter. Yet they repeated themselves. Every day. Without effort or drama. And repetition, I later learned, is where impact hides.
By Talha khan28 days ago in Motivation
One Ordinary Day
Morning The day began like most others. The alarm rang once, then again. I turned it off without opening my eyes and lay still for a moment, listening to the familiar sounds of the house waking up. A spoon against a cup. Water running in the sink. The low hum of the ceiling fan. Nothing felt different, and that was the problem. At breakfast, my mother slid a plate toward me without looking up. Toast, slightly burned on one edge. Tea poured too full. We had followed the same routine for years, moving around each other with practiced ease. “You’ll be late again,” she said, not unkindly. “Probably,” I replied. It wasn’t an argument. It never was. Just an observation passed between two people who knew each other too well to explain anything. I ate quietly. She scrolled through her phone. The clock ticked loudly on the wall. If someone had walked in, they might have thought this was a peaceful morning. I didn’t know then that I would remember it so clearly. Afternoon The bus ride to work was uneventful. The same faces, the same stops, the same advertisements peeling off the walls. I stood holding the metal bar, swaying slightly with every turn. Across from me, a man argued softly on the phone. A student slept against the window. Someone laughed at a message on their screen. Life continued in its usual rhythm. At work, emails piled up. Meetings dragged on. Someone complained about the printer. Someone else asked what we were ordering for lunch. I answered automatically, my body present while my mind drifted somewhere just out of reach. During lunch, I sat alone, scrolling without reading. I felt tired without knowing why. Nothing bad happened. No news arrived. No calls interrupted the day. Still, a quiet heaviness followed me, like a shadow that didn’t belong to anything specific. Evening When I returned home, the sky was already dimming. My mother was in the kitchen again, chopping vegetables slowly. The television played in the background, more noise than entertainment. “How was work?” she asked. “Same,” I said. She nodded, as if she had expected no other answer. We ate dinner together. Rice slightly overcooked. Curry tasted better the next day, as it always did. We talked about small things—the rising prices, a neighbor’s new car, a distant relative’s wedding. At one point, she looked at me for a little too long. “You don’t talk much anymore,” she said. I shrugged. “Nothing new to say.” She didn’t press. She never did. After dinner, I helped clear the table. Our hands brushed briefly while passing a plate. She smiled, just a little, and turned away. I didn’t know then that this was our last ordinary dinner together. Night Later, I sat in my room, lights dim, phone face down on the bed. I stared at the wall, thinking about nothing and everything at once. The house felt quieter than usual. From the other room, I heard my mother coughing lightly. She had been doing that more often lately. I had noticed. I just hadn’t said anything. I almost got up to check on her. Almost. Instead, I told myself she was fine. She always was. Ordinary days had trained me to believe they would repeat forever. I went to sleep without saying goodnight. After The call came the next morning. Everything after that blurred together—hospitals, voices speaking gently, words like sudden and unexpected. People told me I was strong. They told me she didn’t suffer. They told me these things to make sense of what couldn’t be fixed. But what stayed with me wasn’t the day she left. It was the day before. The burned toast. The bus ride. The overcooked rice. The question she asked and didn’t repeat. I replayed that ordinary day again and again, searching for something I could have changed. A longer conversation. A better answer. A simple goodnight. Nothing dramatic had happened. And yet, everything had. Reflection Now, when days feel uneventful, I pay attention. I notice the way people pause before speaking. The way routines quietly hold our lives together. The way ordinary moments carry more weight than we realize. Some days don’t announce themselves as important. They don’t warn you. They don’t feel special. They don’t look like endings. They just pass—softly, politely—until they become memories you would give anything to relive once more. That day was ordinary. And it changed everything.
By Talha khan30 days ago in Humans
The Letter I Never Sent
I found the letter while cleaning my desk on a quiet Sunday afternoon. It was folded twice and tucked inside an old notebook I hadn’t opened in years. The paper had yellowed with age, and the ink had faded in places where my hand must have paused too long, unsure of what to say next. At first, I didn’t remember writing it. The notebook belonged to a version of my life that felt unfinished—a time when I wrote things down because I didn’t know how to speak them out loud. I sat on the floor beside the desk, unfolded the paper carefully, and read the first line. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this. The letter was addressed to my father. We hadn’t spoken properly in years. Not because of a single argument or a moment that exploded into silence, but because of many small pauses that slowly hardened into distance. He believed space would fix things. I believed time would soften them. Neither of us was completely right. The letter had been written the night I left home. As I kept reading, the memory of that night returned clearly. My bag had been packed and resting by the door. The house was quiet except for the sound of the television coming from the living room, where my father sat as if nothing important was happening. I remember standing in my room, waiting—hoping—he would come in and say something. Anytwhing. He didn’t. That silence followed me out of the house. In the letter, my younger self tried to explain feelings I barely understood back then. I wrote about feeling invisible even while being watched. About wanting approval without knowing how to ask for it. About how exhausting it was to pretend I was confident when I felt lost most of the time. There was no anger in the words. No blame. Just confusion, written carefully, as if I was afraid even the paper might reject what I was saying. I read slowly, surprised by the honesty. There were no dramatic sentences, no accusations, no demands for change. Just a son trying to understand the growing distance between himself and the man who raised him. Halfway through, my handwriting changed. The letters grew uneven and rushed. I could almost feel the emotion behind them now—the tight chest, the shallow breathing, the fear that if I stopped writing, I wouldn’t be able to continue. I wrote that I didn’t expect an apology. I didn’t even expect understanding. I just wanted him to know that leaving wasn’t about rejecting him. It was about surviving a version of myself that felt like it was disappearing. The letter ended abruptly. I don’t know how to fix this, but I hope one day we talk. There was no signature. No goodbye. I realized then why I never sent it. I had been afraid. Afraid he wouldn’t respond. Afraid he would. Afraid that once the words were shared, they couldn’t be taken back. Some truths feel safer when they stay folded away. I folded the letter again and sat quietly on the floor. Years had passed since I wrote it. Life had moved forward in ordinary ways—new jobs, different houses, routines that slowly replaced the urgency of that night. I had learned how to function without waiting for answers that might never come. My father and I still spoke occasionally. Short phone calls. Polite questions. Updates that stayed safely on the surface. Nothing deep enough to reopen old wounds. Nothing shallow enough to pretend they weren’t there. Reading the letter now, I expected regret. Or sadness. Or maybe anger at myself for never sending it. Instead, I felt calm. The letter had already done what it needed to do. It held the words I couldn’t carry anymore. It allowed a younger version of me to be honest when honesty felt dangerous. It captured a moment when I was brave enough to write, even if I wasn’t brave enough to send. I noticed things I hadn’t before—the care in my phrasing, the effort to be fair, the way I tried to protect both of us from pain. That version of me wasn’t weak. He was just learning. I placed the letter back inside the notebook, but this time I didn’t hide it. Some letters aren’t meant to be delivered. Some are written simply to help us understand ourselves, to mark a moment when we tried, even if the conversation never happened. I closed the notebook and returned it to the shelf. The distance between my father and me still existed. Nothing had magically changed. But the weight of unsaid words felt lighter. The conversation never happened. But somehow, that was enough.
By Talha khan30 days ago in History
The Call I Let Ring
The phone rang while I was tying my shoes. I noticed it more out of irritation than concern. I was already late, already thinking about the day ahead. Meetings. Traffic. Things that required my full attention—or so I told myself. When I looked at the screen, the name surprised me. My father. We hadn’t spoken properly in years. Not because of a fight, not because of anger. Just distance that slowly learned how to live without effort. Occasional messages on holidays. Short calls that stayed polite and careful. Conversations that never stayed long enough to matter. The phone kept ringing. I stood there, one shoe on, one shoe off, watching the screen light up the hallway wall. I told myself he was probably calling about something ordinary. Maybe a reminder. Maybe a question he could have texted. I told myself I would call back. The ringing stopped. I finished tying my shoes and left the apartment. The morning air was sharp. The street was loud. Life moved forward without waiting for my decision to settle. On the bus, I checked my phone again. No message. No voicemail. That should have bothered me more than it did. I drafted a reply in my head while staring out the window. Sorry, I missed your call. I’ll ring you later. It felt easy enough to delay something that didn’t demand urgency. By the time I reached work, the day had swallowed my attention whole. Hours passed. Emails. Conversations. Small problems that needed immediate answers. At lunch, I thought about calling him, then decided against it. I didn’t know what I would say. I didn’t know how to begin without reopening old silences. Later, I told myself. That evening, my sister called. Her voice was different. Not rushed. Not casual. “Did Dad call you today?” she asked. “Yes,” I said. “Why?” There was a pause long enough to change the weight of the room around me. “He’s in the hospital,” she said. “He didn’t want to worry anyone. He said he just wanted to hear your voice.” I sat down without realizing it. The rest of her words blurred together—terms I half understood, timelines that felt unreal. All I could think about was the call. The way I had watched it ring while convincing myself there would be another chance. I went to see him the next morning. The room was quiet in a way that made sound feel intrusive. He looked smaller than I remembered. Older. Tired. When he saw me, his face changed—not dramatically, just enough. “You came,” he said. “I should have come sooner,” I replied. He shook his head slightly. “You’re here now.” We didn’t talk about the call. We talked about ordinary things instead. The weather. The neighbor who never fixed his gate. A television show he’d stopped watching halfway through. I waited for the moment when something important would be said. It never arrived. When I stood to leave, he reached for my hand. His grip was weak, but deliberate. “I didn’t need much,” he said. “Just a hello.” I nodded, unable to trust my voice. He passed away two days later. After the funeral, I found myself scrolling through my phone more often than usual. Old messages. Missed calls. Small records of moments that had once asked for attention. The missed call from my father was still there. I didn’t delete it. Sometimes I open my call log just to see his name. Not out of guilt exactly. More like recognition. A reminder of how easily we assume time will wait for us to feel ready. The call rang. I let it ring. And now, that sound belongs to me.
By Talha khanabout a month ago in Humans
