A Place That Endures

Altamash Zehri Young Sana comes to Karachi from Quetta to meet his love Miraal, but will his story end well? The bus passed the heavily marble-laden trucks which lumbered on the highway like a row of snails bound for Hub city. Through the window, Sana observed the green tarpaulin otherwise pulled taut by rope, but flapping from the sides to expose the pink marble blocks on the cargo bed of the trucks. Kalat passed by with its dense farms of apple and wild cherry trees. The treetops were covered in white winter smoke. The harvest season was over; the cherry trees stood barren. As the winter ended, he thought about the last kind of apples that grew in Kalat, Shin Kolo—the small, yellow-green ones—and about his paternal cousins and uncles who had worked hard throughout the harvest in the leased farms; he realized that they didn’t know he was travelling through here or else they would have forced him to stay in Kalat. He wished he could stop, leave the bus, sling his bag over his shoulder and visit the green farms and lay under the thick canopy of the trees, picking apples off the ground, eating and laughing with his cousins; to sit by the fireside under the immense firmament strewn with mysterious stars, shining proudly over them and the pleasent land.

Sana sat by the window. Satori in Paris lay dog-eared in his lap, only a few pages left. The bus curved through the narrow mountain road. He had opened the book as soon as they pulled out of Karachi. Badar had dropped him at the terminal just after sunrise. Through the dusty glass, the city had fallen away in layers—flyovers, billboards, satellite towns with names he couldn’t remember. Karachi stretched so far it felt like it might never end, like the sea itself: no edge, no final street where you could say, here, now it’s over.

He didn't rush or linger. He kept reading steadily, as one does when a great story is before them and the pages turn smoothly. The window was cracked open; the wind blew on his face from time to time. It was quiet. A man coughed now and then, and two boys chattered very quietly behind him.

The sun moved, and long shadows slipped along the hills, turning brown into grey.

He read on and hours passed. The road climbed and bent. Outside the window, the first outline of Quetta began to appear—low roofs huddled together, suspended in a white winter haze, the whole city cradled by the mountains. He finished the book just as they began the descent toward the city. And when he finally closed the book, putting it slowly down in his lap he thought, unlike Kerouac, he hadn’t found any satori in Karachi.

*

During his stay in Karachi, Sana lived in his cousin Badar’s apartment in Clifton. The apartment was on third floor and had a lounge attached with a small kitchen. There was a small balcony from where one could see the Sunset Boulevard bridge stretching ahead between the white houses toward the large residential buildings in the east. Down on the road next to the apartment building was a medical dental institute and Sana often saw pretty girls in lab coats come out of there in the morning. He spent the mornings standing on the balcony watching the busy traffic, the cheerful medical students who walked under the flyover bridge to get to the other side. Sana came to Karachi hoping to see a friend. Lately, she hadn’t been saying much.

'I Saw Through Her' by Ishmal Rizwan

He had texted Miraal when he got to Karachi: Let me know if you’d like to meet. No pressure. She had responded the next day, Car’s in the shop. My place is pretty far from yours. But stay a few days, we’ll figure it out.

Three days passed and he tried to reach her again. No answer for hours. When she did reply it was midnight. Can’t come, she wrote. It’s too late to come alone. He offered to meet halfway, but she said no. You don’t need to come halfway either. Some other time.

The days crawled. Then the weekend came. Badar was in the same room, hunched over an old ironing board he used as a desk, working through scenes of an animated film he was proud of. He was a film editor in a good studio. He moved carefully, frame by frame, adjusting lines, smoothing the motion with soft clacks of the keys. The sunlight came in and fell over his desk. His charpai was pushed up against the wall, clothes stuffed in a laundry basket in one corner. The door to the balcony was open just enough to let in the sea wind. He stepped out sometimes to smoke, leaning on the rail, staring out, quiet.

Sana sat on the cold marble floor. There was nothing on the floor. He held the phone in both hands and read her message:

Even if we don’t meet, it’s fine. I’ll see you in Quetta someday.

Badar looked back from the ironing board, “She reply?”

Sana nodded.

“You meeting her?”

Sana said, “No.”

Badar didn’t say anything for a while. Then he turned back to his screen.

Sana didn’t reply to the message. He set the phone down. That was it.

*

After that night, he tried not to think about her. The mornings after that went by slow. There wasn’t much to do. He would spend the morning on the balcony. All their conversations swarmed back to him and he remembered all of it. How Miraal would message around two or three in the morning. She had been that way. As if the nights made it easier to talk. She sent voice notes in a calm, confident manner, and he sent back lines from novels he'd never finished reading, poems with no titles, little fragments of a world he wanted to bring life to. She sent him birthday pictures; the wind in her hair, a teacup in her hand, sunlight across her face. He sent some too. His cluttered desk, a pink colored mug the same as hers, and once or twice, his face, when he felt brave. We should go to the North. I want to see the Fairy Meadows, she said once.

I’m not much of a traveller, he told her, but I’d love to go with you.  She knew cities wore him down. Still, she’d say come to Karachi, come on, we’ll go everywhere. She seemed drawn to him at first, curious, always wanting to know more. There were long messages about books, stray thoughts, and the kind of fears people usually keep to themselves. Then, slowly, that part of her went quiet. He thought of all this now, standing on the balcony. He couldn’t see the sea from here, but it was only ten minutes away by car. He had wanted to go to the sea with her. Now that she wasn’t there, he couldn’t bring himself to go alone.

Every face that passed below reminded him of her. He could see her right beside him, leaning on the railing of the balcony. Her eyes laid upon his face.  He could see her tawny skin and her long hair ending at her narrow shoulders. And below the front fringes of dark hair, her gentle eyes which saw much more of him than he thought he could ever see. The cool wind blowing from the ocean side trailed her essence.  Miraal was melded seamlessly with the unending city that sprawled in front of him. She was the evergreen foliage of neem trees that sheltered its quiet public places, she was the sand on the beach upon which the crabs walked their graceful walk.

Badar came home in the evenings after work and his face always carried the easy charm of someone who belonged to the city. He said things like, Let’s get out, the city’s too big to stay in.

They drove around Clifton and DHA, never really crossing over. But once, from a bridge, they caught a glimpse of the port, the heavy cranes standing still like giants by the water, quiet and watching. They passed cafés strung with golden lights, bright and humming. The city pulsed beneath it, restless and alive. They felt caught up in a fever dream.

It was February and Karachi’s weather was pleasant and everyone could go outside and have a good time. Mostly they dined at good restaurants and Badar showed him all types of food joints. There was a café where there was live music. A woman sat on a stool and sang in a shrilling a voice that scraped the sky. A man sat beside her and strummed a guitar and repeated the same melodies over and over. Badar told him that the elites came to this place most often and that they didn’t come for the food, but to be seen.

Then there was another café that had a sitting place in the open with wicker chairs and small tables. Badar and Sana sat there. There was a big wall next to the sitting area where a projector showed Pakistan Super League matches at night. Nobody watched the cricket game. “Is something wrong?” Badar asked.

“I don’t feel good,” Sana said.

Badar looked at his face, half-jokingly, “There are plenty of hospitals nearby. If anything happens, God forbid, we’ll take you straight away.”

Sana shook his head slowly. “The city gets to you,” he said finally. “Eventually, it always does.”

“How?” Badar replied

Sana didn’t answer. He watched the traffic go past the café, headlights flickering against the pavement. The boys and girls were all around him, talking fast, laughing and leaning in close with their hair falling forward, arms brushing, knees knocking under the table. A group played a card game in the corner.  He watched one of the girls from the card game turn toward him, laughing, a fan of cards held loosely in her hands and for a moment, he saw Miraal. It wasn’t her. He told himself he had to forget her face. It was the only way the world could go on. You lay down what you could not carry. If you don’t, the road will break you. Some things are not yours to keep.

He turned away and looked down at his tea. It had gone cold and his heart thumped somewhere outside the city limits. Before, he had thought of it all as complicated stuff, but in reality, it was next to nothing. All it took was trust, or maybe not even that. He felt betrayed for some time and then he put the blame on his lack of experience with such friendships. It was solely his fault to have had such great expectations, although he hadn’t asked for much from her.

A motorcycle went by. Then it was quiet again.

“I think the city’s too much for me,” Sana said.

Badar smiled a little. “You didn’t come here just to see me, did you?”

“No,” he said. “But I’m here now.”

He didn’t look at Badar. He leaned back in his chair and kept watching the street.

He thought of Quetta and the long winters, when there wasn’t much to do but wait. The people waited for something all the time. For snow that rarely fell. For the noise from the hills to settle. There was always something happening in the mountains. There were emerging check posts and sudden blasts, and boys who left home one day and never returned. The city moved carefully. No matter what happened in the hills, the cold returned on time, the trees shed their leaves, and spring crept in again. It was a place that had learned how to endure.

He got up from his chair and told Badar he needed to get some air. Badar nodded and told him he would come shortly to join him.

Miraal was the evergreen foliage of neem trees that sheltered its quiet public places, she was the sand on the beach upon which the crabs walked their graceful walk.

Sana walked through the commercial area. It was late but still busy. Two cars slowly drove by. He kept his hands in his pockets. The air smelled faintly of grilled meat and sea salt.

He stopped near a restaurant with big front windows. There were people inside. Mostly young and well-dressed couples. Some leaning close over their food. Others sitting back, smiling at each other, saying nothing. A candle flickered on one table.

He stood there a while. No one looked out. No one noticed him.

A woman reached across the table and touched a man’s sleeve. She smiled and tilted her head toward him. Their faces moved slow, comfortable. Like they had nowhere else to be and the night belonged to them.

Sana looked down at the wet pavement. His chest hurt, not sharp, just slow and heavy. He breathed in, then out.

He turned into a darker street. The lights didn’t reach here. He leaned against a lamppost and wiped his face with the back of his hand and he stayed there.

It took him a while to steady his voice. Then he reached into his back pocket, took out his phone, and called his mother.

I’m coming home, he said.

*

Now, days later, as the bus rolled north, he watched the land change. The weight in his chest had eased. The long grey mountains slowly became visible as the afternoon sun melted the snow. The bus emerged through the Lakpass Tunnel, the road steep and slick with falling sleet. From there on, the road turned dangerous. In two hours, the bus arrived into the Sada Bahar bus terminal in Quetta and Sana’s father was there to pick him up. It was evening and the lights of the terminal were radiant in the rain. Everything was clear and blue in the cold twilight. The ground was muddy with slush, his boots getting dirty, drenched in cold rainwater as he trudged toward his father’s Potohar Jeep; the old white government vehicle that his father had taken good care of for years.

“I hope you are not feeling cold. Take my jacket,” Sana’s father said.

“No, I am good. Let’s go home.”

---

Altamash Zehri is a writer from Balochistan whose work maps the intersections of place, memory, and estrangement. He writes both poetry and short fiction, drawing on the rhythms of city life and the silences of the frontier. His short fiction and poetry often address themes of longing, mental health, and belonging.

Ishmal Rizwan is a Lahore-based visual artist working primarily in hyperrealistic oil painting. She graduated with Honours from the National College of Arts, Lahore in 2020, and studied Fine Arts and English Literature at the University of Oxford’s Summer Program at Somerville College. Rizwan’s practice explores themes of gaze, identity, intergenerational memory, and emotional inheritance. Her work is known for its technical precision and symbolic layering, often drawing from personal and familial archives to navigate intimate psychological spaces. She has exhibited extensively across Pakistan and internationally. Her work was also featured in the prestigious Arjumand Painting Award Exhibition in 2023, held in collaboration with Gallery 6 and PNCA. In addition to her studio practice, Rizwan has collaborated with collectives such as ‘Drown Munday’, conducted art workshops for emerging artists, and written and compiled an artist book on Amber Hammad. Her work has been featured in Dawn, The News on Sunday, Libas Now, Medium, Folklore Magazine, and Pandemonium Journal. We are grateful to O Art Space for their help in contacting the artist.