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“Notes from the Ruined City,” by Aria Aber | The New Yorker

newyorker.com · 175 words · saved by 1 readers

“God has no clock / but the muezzin’s song.”

Save this story Save this story Audio: Read by the author. On the mud-spattered steps of Kabul’s blue mosque, a pomegranate half vibrates with worms. God has no clock but the muezzin’s song, which veils the city’s vascular glass and dilapidated buildings each fifth hour—it must. Evenings, I rinse from my face the city’s grime, its fried oils. My eyelashes sweep, then blacken, like battery grease, the handkerchief of time until I see new again. In the night markets, fruit clings to soft rain, fish with eyes like milk warm the ice. Each apple wears, for a moment, your face— I lost you. I lose yo

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