The Missing Page:—

The past sends sermons.
The future keeps marketing.
Both are very busy.
The present is different.
It doesn’t call.
Doesn’t send reminders.
At the tea stall, I sit with my tea.
Burnt biscuits smell somewhere behind me.
A street dog looks at me.
Not friendly.
Not unfriendly.
Still deciding.
For once, I stop thinking about yesterday.
Tomorrow can wait.
Then—
a mosquito.
In and out.
My lips close.
The tea gets cold.
The dog looks away.
The moment is gone.
Or perhaps I missed it.
Then my phone vibrates.
Tomorrow is calling again.

A flower by the road.

I took it.

It didn’t ask why.

Even not objected.

At home, inside a glass,
it stood upright and important.

For three days.

Day four—

the edges curled.

The colour left.

I held it over the dustbin.

My hand opened.

I stopped.

In my head,
it is still fresh.

Bright.

Open in the wind.

The vase stays empty
on the table.

The flower is still here.

The OTP Queue:—-

11 a.m.

He is not angry.

He is confused.

“My phone retired two years ago,” he says.

“Money retired this morning.”

The manager looks at the screen.

I look at the man.

The bank wants an OTP.

The OTP wants his old number.

The old number lives in a SIM card.

The SIM card lives in a drawer at home.

The money lives in the bank.

Everybody is alive.

Except the phone.

We format the phone.

We don't format the bank.

He came for his money.

I came for my passbook.

Same queue.

Different problems.

Both waiting for a number.

— Subhash

Sometimes It Was My Well-Wisher:-

It never arrived with a warning.

It came quietly.

So quietly, I sometimes mistook it for a well-wisher.

A missed call—

You shouldn't have cared so much.

A small pain—

You knew this would happen.

Someone doesn't reply—

I told you not to expect.

Fear always had an answer ready.

Very helpful.

Very tiring.

Happiness was never so organised.

A cup of tea before it gets cold.

Rain beginning while I'm under a roof.

A dog finding shade.

Someone remembering my name.

Small things.

They don't give advice.

They don't predict tomorrow.

They just happen.

Perhaps that's why I listened to fear for so long.

It sounded concerned.

It sat beside me

and called itself care.

These days, when it starts talking,

I listen a little less.

I look around first.

Sometimes it's only the wind.

Sometimes it's tea.

And sometimes—

nothing is wrong.

The Answer:—

They asked about my life.
I had no answer.
So I lit a cigarette.
For a moment,
it looked like an answer.
It burned.
The ash fell on my shirt.
I brushed it off.
They were still waiting.
The smoke went out.
The smell stayed.
Morning didn’t care.
I put it out.

The Five-Minute Kingdom:—

Maya says,

“I love to play simple video games on mobile phone.”

I like the word simple.

No kingdom.

No prize.

No serious business.

Just a screen

and a thumb

going somewhere.

The kettle whistles.

She doesn't move.

One more game.

For five minutes, nobody needs anything from her.

The phone doesn't ask what she achieved today.

It doesn't ask what comes next.

It just waits for her thumb.

And she keeps playing.

The tea gets cold.

The kettle gives up.

The game doesn't.

Then she looks up.

Five minutes gone.

The kettle whistles again.

The Cosmic Screen:-

Lily texts him:

“Come outside. The solar eclipse.”

He replies:

“What’s it about?”

He thinks it’s a movie.

We laugh.

Outside, the light turns strange.

The sun disappears.

He is still waiting for the plot.

I go out.

The Baby in the Cradle :-

Karen sent me a haiku from Australia.

I read it once.

Then I pictured her outside

with her first cup of Italian coffee, before

the sun has properly arrived.

No cars.

No voices.

No hurry.

Just a woman, a cup of coffee, and a

magpie waiting for one small mistake.

Karen says that, at that hour, the world

feels like a small baby asleep in a cradle.

I like that.

But I kept thinking about the spoon.

The magpie is already awake.

It knows something is coming.

And somewhere, perhaps a few streets

away, a crow is opening one eye.

Then another.

Soon the whole morning will begin.

The baby will wake.

The birds will start their arguments.

The quiet street will remember itself.

And Karen will probably still be holding

her coffee.

For one brief moment, though,

before the crows—

Australia is still asleep.

Moment by Karen Earl — @karenearl1

she shakes the secret

he smiles

The Gift Inside:—

He takes it away.

“Distant land,” he says.

Interrogation begins.

Ribbon — trash in ten minutes.

Box — gone by evening.

Two detectives,

one gift,

zero evidence.

Maybe the secret was never inside the box.

Moment: Paul J. Doty

Didi sent a photo.

Just dog face.

Full screen.

Snout. Dark eyes. One white paw left on

the cushion — forgot to pack it.

He isn’t asking for treats.

He isn’t waiting at the door.

He isn’t judging my life choices.

He has simply put his head down.

Day is over.

He knows.

I stared at it for ten minutes.

No advice.

No solution.

Just dog, sofa, and a face that says—

put the day down, idiot.

Dog knows.

I’m still in training.

Photo by Didi — Amrita Skye Blaine

The Acorn:-

Roger watched a squirrel eat an acorn this afternoon.

Nothing else happened.

The squirrel found its meal.

It settled down to work.

Roger stood there.

He watched.

I keep thinking about that.

Not because it was unusual.

Because he noticed it.

The world has breaking news.

It has endless notifications.

He chose a quiet spot in the grass instead.

Then he shared it with me.

Today’s most important headline:

A squirrel having lunch.

A squirrel.

An acorn.

Someone paying attention.

The day didn’t need to be bigger than that.

Moment sent by Roger Scott

One More Hour:—

Undefinedgal1h sent me her morning arrangement.

The alarm rings.

She stays.

One more hour.

The body remains under the blanket.

The mind has already gone somewhere else.

No emails.

No meetings.

No being an adult.

Just one more hour.

The day can wait.

The alarm has done its job.

She has decided not to do hers.

Moment sent by Undefinedgal1h — your bedtime cheerleader.

Looking for Jupiter:—-

Anthony sent me this small moment.
Every night, he takes out the trash and looks for Jupiter.
Then he goes back inside.
That’s it.
No telescope.
No astronomy lesson.
No conversation with the universe.
Just trash.
Jupiter.
Home.
I like that order.
Maybe this is how we meet the universe.
Not while searching for something profound.
Just while taking out the garbage.
Tomorrow, the trash will be waiting.
Jupiter probably will too.
Thanks, Anthony, for sending me this little piece of your evening.

Before The Book Comes Out:—-

Most books reach us after everything is ready.
The writing is finished.
The cover is finished.
The date is announced.
Then the book arrives.
But sometimes, someone gets there first.
A beta reader opens a book before the rest of us.
I like that.
The book is still finding its way.
A sentence may move.
A chapter may change.
Something may disappear completely.
But the reader has already met it.
Not as a finished book.
Just as a book becoming itself.
There is something intimate about that.
Before the book has to introduce itself to thousands of readers, it sits quietly in front of one person.
One reader.
One copy.
One early meeting.
On September 1, Cognito will meet the larger world.
Its beta reader has already met it.
For a little while, the book has two lives:
one before publication,
and one after.
Perhaps that is what I like about being early.
You get to meet something
before it has to introduce itself.

Peter sent me this small moment about becoming a beta reader for Cognito, written by Gabrielle Marie Kozak.

The Lock Has No Opinion:-

The lock knows only one word.
Click.
It doesn’t ask who you are.
It doesn’t ask whether you belong here.
It waits for the key.
Sometimes it keeps a stranger outside.
Sometimes it keeps the rain outside.
Sometimes it keeps you outside your own house while you search every pocket twice.
The lock doesn’t care.
You may have lived behind that door for twenty years.
You may have paid the bills.
You may even have painted the door yourself.
No key?
Click.
It doesn’t recognise faces.
It doesn’t remember promises.
It doesn’t listen to explanations.
It has only one question:
Key?
And one answer:
Click.
Perhaps that’s why I like old locks.
They never pretend to understand us.
They don’t ask for a story.
They don’t take sides.
They simply wait.
For the right key.
And tomorrow morning, someone will stand outside again,
checking the same pockets.

The Rival:—

Some subscriptions arrive with unexpected competition.

My wife has finally identified the other woman.

Her name is Substack.

Every evening I disappear into the same room.

I smile at my phone.

I laugh at strangers’ comments.

Sometimes I whisper,

“Thank you for reading.”

When she asks whom I’m talking to, I say,

“My readers.”

She raises an eyebrow.

Yesterday she picked up the broom.

Not because the floor was dirty.

I told her she was being unreasonable.

She said,

“When was the last time you smiled

because I walked into the room?”

I looked at my phone.

She looked at me.

The broom won.

The Look Before the Gulp:—-

Apparently, even a squirrel wants someone watching.

Debbi watched a squirrel drinking at her bird bath.

Gulp.

Look up at Debbi.

Gulp.

Look up at Debbi.

Again.

And again.

About a dozen times in thirty seconds.

At some point, I began to wonder if the squirrel had decided that no gulp should happen without adult supervision.

Was it checking for danger?

Checking on Debbi?

Or simply making sure she was still watching?

We may never know.

But I do know one thing:

Apparently, drinking water is a two-person activity.

Thank you, Debbi, for sharing this wonderfully strange

little moment.

_In memory of Arnab Roy Choudhury, 33_

I got an email at 9:29 PM.
haiku by Subhash Choudhury

hospital corridor—
someone carries
a death certificate

Below it: “We’re happy to report we just published it! Please share wildly.”

This was my first acceptance at Haikuniverse.
It is one of 20 international acceptance.

I wrote this for my only nephew, Arnab Roy Choudhury.
He was 33.
He expired on 14/07/26 at P.G. Hospital, Kolkata, India.

Some grief is too big for a paragraph.
So I put it in a corridor.
In the moment someone had to carry what no one wants to carry.

Haiku doesn’t fix anything.
It just lets a moment be witnessed without looking away.

Haikuniverse was the first to say yes to this.
Thank you to Rick and the editors for holding it carefully.

If you’d like to read it where it was published:
https://haikuniverse.com/haiku-by-subhash-choudhury/

Thank you for sitting with this line with me.

— Subhash

The Best Moment:—

Ami sent me this photograph and called it “The best moment.”

I understood immediately.

The dog had other ideas about photography.

It came so close to the camera that almost everything else disappeared.

There is a face somewhere behind it.

A pair of glasses.

Purple hair.

But the dog has clearly taken charge.

No posing.

No careful composition.

No attempt to look serious.

Just a dog getting very close to someone it seems to trust.

Perhaps that is why the photograph works.

We often try to preserve a moment by standing back and looking at it.

This dog did the opposite.

It came closer.

Much closer.

Close enough to become the moment.

Maybe that is what Ami was sharing with me.

Not a beautiful photograph.

Not a story with a lesson.

Just one ridiculous, affectionate second that happened to be worth keeping.

Sometimes the best moment doesn't fit neatly inside a photograph.

Sometimes it takes over the photograph.

And leaves you smiling at whatever is left.

Moment sent by Sacred AF — Ami

The Room:—

I have lived in the same room long

enough to stop noticing it.

The chair is where it always is.

The books are where I left them.

The fan makes the same small sound.

Even the temperature has become part of

the furniture.

Then one evening, I came in from outside.

The room felt warm.

Not unusually warm.

Just warm enough to notice.

I stood there for a moment.

The chair was still there.

The books were still there.

The fan was still making its small sound.

Nothing had changed.

Except that I had noticed.