There once was a woman who was a flashlight. That’s right, a flashlight. A sturdy hunk of a thing, neon yellow, filled with four AA rechargeable batteries, and a loop at the back end for slinging through a carabiner and onto a belt. The next day she was a table. A heavy glass of chocolate […]

It was a quick procedure. Quick enough for the men to fit it into a lunch break or the gap between a ten o’clock meeting and a gym session. Nazneen would usher the men, one at a time, into her office from the waiting room with its television screen stuck on ESPN. Some wore suits,

If she could not find plastic bags to tie around her wrists and wrap over her palms, she would have to sleep with her hands dangling off the bed, avoiding the duvet cover at all costs, and that would mean a night of fretful sleep, inevitable smudges of brown paste on the lilac sheets and