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Fiction, LiteratureOctober 10, 2014

The Forest

But there was no sign of the trail. He went backward and forward, then back again and forward again. He moved about in a circle, but he could not find the trail. Exhausted by the effort, he wondered: “Why did I have to leave the trail? Then again, why did I have to enter the forest in the first place? If I had stayed on in that village I’d be enjoying a comfort­able sleep now. Anyway, a trail can’t just disappear. And besides, I haven’t really gone very far into the forest yet. At most a couple of furlongs. I’m still near the edge. Even if I can’t get back to the trail, I can easily walk between the trees and get out of the forest.”

His shoes had become very heavy. He found a dry branch and scraped the mud from the soles. Then he thought of scraping the mud off of his bundle and his clothes, but he soon gave up the idea thinking that they were splattered all over and he wouldn’t know where to begin. He decided to leave them as they were. He leaned against the bundle to rest a while and soon fell asleep. Only God knows how long he slept. He woke up only when he heard a pack of jackals raising hell nearby with their prolonged howls. “Jackals!” an inadvertent smile appeared on his face. “Oh, well, what else would there be in the forest besides jackals!” Moon­light had spread over the treetops and a soft, cool light was filtering through the leaves. He felt a wonderful sense of surprise, joy and con­tentment. In the midst of his agitation he had entirely forgotten that there was going to be a moon that night. Just then his eyes fell on the trail a short distance in front of him, flashing like a long, winding thin speckled snake. “I’ll be darned,” he exclaimed. “I must have crossed it scores of times. Can’t imagine why I couldn’t recognize it even though it’s what I’ve been wandering around in search of. How is it that my feet have forgotten its touch and lost the memory of it?”

He picked up the bundle, slung it over his shoulder and started off for the village he had left behind. “I’ll go back and catch some sleep there. Tomorrow at sunup, I’ll leave for my village. The man in the shawl, the one who was insisting that I spend the night at his place, must be fast asleep by now. How could I knock at each and every door asking about a man I’d run into at the edge of the village at twilight? Lord knows how many people here, cloaked in similar shawls, had wandered to the edge of the village? I don’t even remember his face. How could I? It was half-cov­ered and it was in the dark; it looked about as distinct as a plain, flat slate. Besides, how could a person possibly go knocking on countless doors anyway? All right, I’ll go to the mosque and stay there. But wouldn’t the muezzin have already locked the door and gone for the night? He wouldn’t be back to open it again until before the dawn prayer. What good will it do then? As it is, my clothes are damp; it’s getting colder by the minute; and I also haven’t eaten since morning. My stomach seems to be on fire from hunger. My needs are many, who’ll attend to them at the mosque?  Suppose nobody opens the door to me, what then? The village dogs will keep harassing me all night long. So shall I try to go back to my own village? No, no, the residents of this village couldn’t possibly be so heartless as to deny refuge to a wayfarer for just one night. Then again, if the man who did allow me to stay at his place murdered me during the night for the five hundred rupees I’ve collected with such hardship, and quietly buried me there, no one would ever find out, and I’d have lost not just my money but also my life. So that was the cause of my hesitation earlier! It took this long to find out the real reason hiding deep in my heart.”

The branches of the trees standing in a row on his left hung listlessly like loose, limp arms, while the drab, helpless-looking butcher’s blocks were visible scattered all over the empty patch.
He stopped in his tracks and turned around. The bare, level and speckled trail rolled out far into the distance. It cut through the forest in a straight line. There was absolutely no chance of losing it in the light of the moon. Even if there were no moonlight, there was little chance of its disappearing—a piece of solid ground, two or two and a half feet wide, on which the shoe made a hard knocking sound, very different from the soft, spongy surface of the forest. “If I couldn’t find it earlier it was because when I was looking for it I must have inadvertently jumped over it, or as I was sliding my feet forward in my mud-coated shoes I couldn’t tell the difference between the trail’s hard surface and the soft earth of the forest. What I should have done, instead, was knock hard on the ground with my heels. Then I’d have known the truth right away. That was my mistake. Anyway, one learns from experience. Never again will I step off the trail. And that stupid attempt to look for the banyan—wasn’t that totally ignorant and absurd? Why would I want to do that again after what I’ve been through?”

Once again he turned his face in the direction of his village, fixed his bundle securely on his shoulder and hurried off along the speckled trail. Soon he reached the place where they had cut down all of the trees. It was an open semi-circular patch standing alongside the trail on his right. The lustrous moon was shining above his left shoulder. The branches of the trees standing in a row on his left hung listlessly like loose, limp arms, while the drab, helpless-looking butcher’s blocks were visible scattered all over the empty patch. A luminous mist suffused the dark sky, and the many stars that had been trying to outshine each other earlier had now disappeared in this effulgent haze. Only a few stars could be spotted here and there, shining dimly. The forest had started again on either side of him. He had walked a little ways when he saw a dark massive dome on his right standing apart from the others in distinguished aloofness, all bathed in moonlight. “So this is where you are!” Seeing the banyan, he turned his face away, spat in disgust and continued on. A vague and inar­ticulate thought which had been swimming around in his brain for some time suddenly became clear and planted itself before him. “Where am I running to in such a hurry? What am I going to get there? If I had already reached there what would have happened? And what would happen if I did reach there right this minute? And what will happen if I don’t get there at all? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s like my search for the ban­yan. If I’d found it when I was looking for it so desperately, what, exactly, would the discovery have given me? And what has it given me now when I’ve found it quite by accident? Just the opportunity to express a little of my contempt for it. That’s all. Had I found it when I was looking for it, I’d have shown it a little love instead. That’s all. I might have even touched it on its rough bark. So what of it? It wouldn’t have done much good, anyway. The banyan’s true substance would still have eluded me. I wouldn’t have been able to touch that.”

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Faruq HassanfictionIkramullahMuhammad Umar MemonNicholas Walton-HealyStory of the WeektranslationsUrdu

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One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at [email protected].

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

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