Confused atoms

Part 1 : Part 2: Part 3: Oh look, another flashback. How very creative. Amina had always prided herself on her ability to give very few fucks. The only thing she enjoyed more than not getting involved in other people’s affairs was people not getting involved in hers. Live and let live. Even so, there are some sights one just can’t ignore. Like an injured kitten looking at you with pleading eyes. Or a scrawny kid sitting on the stairs of your apartment at 11pm. -- He was a skinny, tiny little thing. He was sitting in a corner, his arms around his knees, probably trying to take as little space as possible. His brown, curly hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in months. He had tired grey eyes, a crooked nose, and more notably, a huge knife scar that slashed across his left cheek. His jacket and jeans had tears on them. Teenage boys had a notoriously bad sense of hygiene, but this was just a kid, and Amina could smell him long before she could see him. As she stepp...

  Part 1 :   Part 2: There is something eerily comforting about knowing that you’re slowly losing your mind. For one thing, trivial things no longer concern you as much. You stop taking things seriously. After all, your mind is slowly deteriorating, and there isn’t much you can do about it. So you decide to do dumb shit just for the sake of doing dumb shit. Like inviting your teenage neighbour over to smoke weed on a Monday night. --- Amina woke up much earlier than usual. It was still dark outside. She stretched, let out a loud yawn, and got out of bed. There was a makeshift mattress below her, where her neighbour had crashed. He was curled up in a ball with his hands on his knees, softly snoring. She quietly took off the glasses he still had on, put a blanket on top of him, ruffled his hair affectionately before stepping out to the balcony. The first dilemma Amina was faced with was whether to start her day with a joint. She easily solved it as she stared at a...

  Hi there, I have no clue what I’m doing, and I have never done this before. Please bear with me. Actually, I lied. I did this once when I was 12. It was a long Facebook message. She was my first love and she preferred we remained friends. You know how you keep thinking about something over and over again, and somehow your brain tricks you into believing it is true? We’ve never talked before. I said hi to you a couple of times but you never said it back. You just stared at me until I felt like a creep and ran away with my tail between my legs. But then the next day, we stumbled into each other on the staircase and you smiled at me. I was too flustered to react. I thought you hated me. So my brain was indecisive. Just like teenage girls deciding on their feelings by peeling a flower, I had a different answer every time I thought about it. Does she like me? If she didn’t, why did she stare at me for so long? If she actually liked me, why didn’t she say hi back? It’s a lo...

  Part 1 --   What is the most polite way to inform someone that their breath smells like rotten onions? Amina pondered this ethical dilemma as the man hovering over her desk  enthusiastically  regaled her with tales of his latest fishing trip. His name was Allal. He was in his fifties, bald except for exactly five stray grey hairs that sprang out of his skull. Amina tried covering her mouth, coughing, glaring at him with mild hostility, but it seemed to only encourage the man. He was now enumerating for her pleasure, the list of the best fishing spots in the country, what type of bait to use, and the optimal way to land the hook. She considered telling him about an alternative place he could stick his hook, but it was only her first week here. First impressions are important, she reminded herself. - “Hey Allal, I just got off the phone with Mike. He wants to see you urgently.” That voice came from her desk mate Mourad. Amina quickly noted two facts:...