Murad Ali Shah
Stories (8)
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The Algorithm of Lost Things
The 'Lost and Found' corkboard at the Corner Market cafe was, to Leo, a perfect example of existential clutter. It was a chaotic, faded mosaic of laminated gym cards, singular gloves, and yellowing flyers for pets that had probably found new homes years ago. Leo came to the Corner Market every Tuesday at 7:15 AM for the same reason—reliable Wi-Fi and the precise density of their whole-wheat bagel. He wanted order, and the bulletin board was an affront to his system.
By Murad Ali Shah2 months ago in Fiction
Zero-Point Shift (2025)
Zero-Point Shift is not a film you passively watch; it’s a temporal puzzle box that you frantically attempt to assemble before the final credits roll. Director Anya Sharma, known for her minimalist and intensely character-driven work, has traded the quiet dramas of her past for a taut, high-concept thriller that is both structurally daring and emotionally devastating. The film takes place entirely within a sterile, subterranean research facility—a location that feels less like a lab and more like a high-end fallout shelter designed to keep the worst of the world out, or perhaps, keep its worst secret in. The production design, with its harsh fluorescent lighting and vast, cold steel surfaces, makes the environment feel less like a scientific venture and more like an interrogation chamber for the human psyche.
By Murad Ali Shah2 months ago in Geeks
The Catalog of Forgotten Things
My job is, officially, the most boring job in the city. I am an Inventory Specialist for the Municipal Records Annex, which is just a pretentious way of saying I count boxes and make sure they match the number on the shelf. The Annex is a cold, dehumidified tomb of forgotten paperwork—old property deeds, decommissioned zoning maps, and decades of defunct library membership cards. My workspace is a small, gray cubicle next to a humming industrial air purifier; my soundtrack is the faint, rhythmic squeak of steel shelving under a heavy load.
By Murad Ali Shah2 months ago in Fiction
The Geometry of Waiting
I’ve always hated waiting. Not the two-minute kind of impatience when a kettle boils or a page loads, but the deep, existential kind you find in airport terminals, DMV lines, or, worst of all, a hospital lobby. It’s the time that has no clock, a duration measured only by the erosion of my own resolve. In those liminal spaces, you are stripped down to nothing but anticipation and regret. Yet, it was in the echoing, cathedral-like concourse of Grand Central Terminal, during a three-hour layover I hadn’t planned for, that I learned to appreciate its strange, quiet geometry.
By Murad Ali Shah3 months ago in Humans
The Message at 9:47
By Murad Ali Shah It started like any ordinary morning — the kind where you almost forget you’re alive because everything feels too routine. The alarm went off at 7:00 a.m., my phone buzzed endlessly with unread notifications, and the neighbor’s dog barked like he always did. I made coffee, burned my toast, and scrolled mindlessly through messages until one stopped me.
By Murad Ali Shah3 months ago in Horror
“The Man Who Collected Sunsets”
By Murad Ali Shah Every evening at six, he stood by the hill that overlooked the city. In his hand was a small glass jar, and in his eyes, a quiet kind of longing. To anyone passing by, he looked like an ordinary man — perhaps a dreamer, perhaps a fool — holding up an empty jar toward the fading sky.
By Murad Ali Shah3 months ago in Humans
“The Words I Never Said”
By Murad Ali Shah She sat two desks away, always with a cup of coffee and a small, worn-out notebook. Every morning at 8:30 sharp, she’d walk into the office with her hair slightly damp from the shower, earbuds tucked in, and the faintest smile that seemed to hold a whole world behind it.
By Murad Ali Shah3 months ago in Humans
The Grammar of Marriage. AI-Generated.
It happened on one completely ordinary evening — the kind where everything seems calm and predictable until life decides to prove you wrong. I was standing in the kitchen, glass of water in hand, thinking about nothing in particular. Then, out of nowhere, the glass slipped from my hand, hit the tiled floor, and shattered into a thousand sparkling fragments. Before I could even bend down to clean it, my wife appeared in the doorway like a prosecutor entering a courtroom. Her eyes narrowed, her voice sharp, her verdict immediate:
By Murad Ali Shah3 months ago in Families
