HAROONUZZAMAN

Mira presses her thumb on the cracked power button of her phone. The screen flickers: 2% battery. She exhales sharply, then lunges for her charger, knocking over the mess on her bedside table: a lipstick stub, a greasy Cheez Puffs wrapper, and a candle labeled Monsoon Breeze that hasn’t smelled like anything in weeks.

Outside her third-floor apartment in Uttara, life moves: the jingle of rickshaw bells, the Asr azaan echoing through thick, humid air, and a street vendor’s call—“Dim paratha, gorom gorom!”—rising from the street. But Mira doesn’t really hear it. Her mind drifts elsewhere—somewhere curated. Somewhere filtered. A place where her skin glows, her smile radiates calm, and her loneliness stays out of frame.

She steps onto the small, sunlit balcony. Light catches on the iron grillwork. With careful fingers, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, lifts her phone, and tilts her face. Swipe. The “Lagos” filter warms everything. Her lips part slightly, her eyes angled upward—as if caught in a thought.

“Sunkissed and healing,” she murmurs.

Click. Post.

In the quiet corners of solitude, I bloom.

#SelfLove #DivorceDiaries #DhakaGlowUp

She doesn’t mention the unpaid WiFi bill on the fridge. Or the breakfast argument with her daughter, Annya. Or the fact she hasn’t called her parents in weeks.

Later, the apartment door slams behind Annya, loud and final.

Mira wipes toast crumbs off the counter.

“Annya, this is how things work now. I’m building something.”

Annya doesn’t look up. “No, you’re building something fake.”

Before Mira can respond, Annya walks away.

The toast sits untouched. Mira doesn’t notice. She’s still scrolling, watching her digital self unfold like a flower that only blooms online.

At school, Annya stares out the window. A crow flies low, dips, then disappears. Algebra hums in the background like a distant machine.

Jisha leans over. “I saw your mom’s post. You guys look like you live in a magazine.”

Annya forces a smile. “Yeah. A magazine where no one eats and everything’s pretend.”

After school, she waits at the gate. It’s not that she hates Mira. She misses the old version of her—barefoot in a nightie, dancing to Lata Mangeshkar, cooking shorshe ilish in their Rajshahi kitchen, hugging her close when the power went out and the dark felt alive.

Now there are ring lights. Not real lights.

At dinner, Mira scrolls under the table.

“I know when you’re posting,” Annya says. “Even when I’m talking.”

“It’s part of the job, darling.”

“I thought you were my mom. Not a brand.”

“I’m both,” Mira replies. “I need you to understand that.”

Annya doesn’t answer. The rice tastes like chalk. She gets up, leaves her plate in the sink, the grains clinging like stubborn little lies.

In her bedroom, Mira lays out her off-white kurti and chunky silver earrings beside a copy of Atomic Habits. She plans to quote it in her story.

“Purbachal’s going to be divine,” she says to her phone. “Healing weekend with my girls.”

Hearts and comments pour in: “Queen energy! Slay, ma’am!”

She breathes it in like medicine. But something aches beneath it all—a hollow she can’t quite name.

She packs her ring light, false lashes, the herbal tea she never drinks. Leaves behind a rejection email. A message from her sister: “You’ve changed. I don’t know if I like it.”

Makes sense, Mira tells herself: “People hate growth. Especially when they’re stuck.”

Rupa Khala’s house smells of cinnamon and something older. The fan squeaks. Cushions sag with stories. No filters here. Just chipped mugs and quiet.

“Want to bake?” Khala asks, holding two blackened bananas. “They’re begging to be something.”

Annya grins. “Okay.”

They mash, spill sugar, and laugh when the batter overflows. Later, they sit on the roof with mismatched mugs. The sky over Purbachal glows dusty orange.

Annya checks her phone. A new video—her mother again, swirling dupattas, laughing for the camera. Caption: “Healing looks good on us.”

Her stomach drops. One frame shows her journal—blurred, but unmistakable. She switches off her phone. Slides it under her pillow.

Mira wakes early. Her head aches. Her friends scroll silently beside her. No one talks.

“You’re always so curated,” Lata says. “Even your sadness matches your aesthetic.”

“It’s what people want,” Mira shrugs. “Light. Not shadows.”

“But it’s heavy,” Rekha murmurs. “Pretending all the time.”

Mira checks her latest reel—likes slowing, comments dying. She scrolls through her gallery and stops at a photo. Not planned. Not edited.

Annya, asleep. Rain streaks the window behind her. No filters. Just her. She stares at it. Later, she tries to record something raw—“Breaking cycles”—but the words sound hollow, like someone else speaking through her.

A comment appears: “You’re so fake. Your daughter deserves better.” She doesn’t delete it.

In the school library, dust floats in warm shafts of sunlight. Annya breathes in the quiet—the paper, the pencil shavings, the stillness. She doesn’t check her phone.

She writes in her journal: “When the camera’s off, I breathe differently. I stretch wider. I disappear less.”

She speaks to the counselor: “She uses my life like wallpaper,” Annya says. “I want to be the foreground.”

“Do you love her?” the counselor asks.

“I do. But I hate her new version the world claps for.”

Outside, boys shout across the field. The sun hangs low and unforgiving.

That night, Annya deletes the app. She opens a new page in her journal.

Stop cropping me.

I’m not a backdrop.

I am the frame.

She doesn’t show it to anyone. Not yet.

Mira stands outside Annya’s room. No phone. Just her.

“Can I come in?”

Annya looks up. Nods.

Mira sits on the edge of the bed, staring at the old cartoon sticker on the wardrobe.

“I deleted the reels,” she says.

“Which ones?”

“All the ones with you. I never asked.”

Silence.

“I got scared,” Mira admits. “After your father left, I didn’t know who I was. So I tried proving I existed.”

“But you disappeared from me,” Annya whispers.

Mira’s voice breaks. “I know. I’m sorry.”

No camera records the moment. Just something small and real beginning again—like roti rising on a pan. Quiet. Alive.

That night, they burn the onions trying to cook daal. They laugh anyway, and eat cross-legged on the floor, licking lentils off their fingers.

No hashtags. No posts. Just presence.

Two weeks later, Mira knocks. A notebook in her hand.

“I saw your poem on the fridge.”

“You weren’t supposed to—”

“I didn’t take a photo. I just read it.”

A pause.

“Can I read more? If that’s okay?”

Annya pulls out her journal—the one Mira once used for a flat lay. She hands it over.

“No stories. No sharing.”

“No hashtags,” Mira promises.

She flips a page. Her eyes mist over.

Annya waits, listening for a shutter that never clicks.

“Want to go for a walk?” Mira asks.

“No phones?”

“No phones.”

Annya smiles. “Let’s walk.”

And they do—past honking rickshaws, sizzling chhola carts, under a Dhaka sky that glows without needing a filter.

Haroonuzzaman is a translator, novelist, poet, researcher, and essayist. Besides teaching English in Libya and Qatar for about 12 years, he has had 20 years of teaching experience in English Language and Literature at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB).