Searching For- Qismat In- Info

Like the word hello from a voice you have never heard before, asking, without knowing it, to be remembered. — End of piece —

The walls are the color of worn toothpaste. Fluorescent lights hum a note just below hearing. Your mother is in room 317. The doctor has used words like palliative and months . You are not listening. You are watching a janitor mop the same square of linoleum for the tenth time. He wears headphones. His lips move silently to a song you will never know. Searching for- qismat in-

A nurse with tired eyes offers you a blanket you do not want. She has done this a thousand times. Is that her qismat? Or is it yours, to receive the blanket? Like the word hello from a voice you

One night, you do. The phone rings once, twice. A voice you don’t recognize answers: “Hello? Who is this?” A child’s voice. A boy, maybe five years old, speaking a language you cannot place. You hang up. Your mother is in room 317

It is something that finds you.

The word arrives like a half-remembered melody, its syllables soft as a fingerprint pressed into dust: qismat . Arabic in root, Persian in bloom, Urdu in the ache of its everyday use. Fate. Destiny. The lot one is given before drawing the first breath. It is the invisible script that some believe is written on the night of conception, sealed by an angel’s pen, immutable as a mountain range.

Like a hand on your shoulder in a crowded room.