In 2018, Zaleekhah, a young woman, walks along the Chelsea Embank­ment, car­ry­ing a damp card­board box filled with books, a chi­na teapot, mis­matched cups, clothes, and a Tiffany-style lamp. As rain driz­zles down, she is obliv­i­ous to get­ting wet, her chest­nut curls and dark brown eyes reflect­ing her ances­tral her­itage. She moves past the lux­u­ri­ous flats and recalls a time when this area was filled with slums, now trans­formed into desir­able prop­er­ty with views of the Thames, which she finds unin­ter­est­ing com­pared to the near­by house­boats.

These house­boats, moored at Cheyne Pier, vary in size, with each bear­ing a unique name. Zaleekhah is set to move into her new home on one of these boats, an adven­ture that feels sur­re­al. Known as Dr. Z. Clarke in her pro­fes­sion­al life, Zaleekhah has had a life­long strug­gle with her name. Often mis­pro­nounced and mis­rep­re­sent­ed, she feels stung by a colleague’s casu­al dis­missal of it, opt­ing for a nick­name instead.

Zaleekhah is named after Zuleikha, a fig­ure often depict­ed neg­a­tive­ly in his­to­ry, rep­re­sent­ing the com­plex­i­ties of desire and pun­ish­ment. Unlike the seduc­tive Zuleikha, Zaleekhah feels mun­dane, eschew­ing van­i­ty for com­fort. The name sym­bol­izes both her family’s rich cul­tur­al her­itage and the bur­dens of expec­ta­tion. Her mother’s choice con­nects her to their roots in Mesopotamia, while her father humbly accept­ed it.

As she approach­es her boat, Zaleekhah reflects on her dif­fi­cult breakup and emo­tion­al pain masked in her sci­en­tif­ic pur­suits. Her husband’s remarks insin­u­at­ed she would be a bad moth­er, a com­ment that hit deep, under­scor­ing the pres­sures of famil­ial expec­ta­tions. Now liv­ing alone on the house­boat, she grap­ples with feel­ings of fail­ure – not just in her mar­riage but in life, echo­ing the immi­grant expe­ri­ence of her ances­tors.

Once inside her new home, with min­i­mal fur­nish­ings, she observes the dilap­i­dat­ed con­di­tions and con­sid­ers spon­tane­ity in her choice of abode. Zaleekhah’s thoughts turn dark­er, reveal­ing a con­tem­pla­tion of her exis­tence. Use of water as a metaphor for her own strug­gles sur­faces repeat­ed­ly. As tears min­gle with the Thames cur­rents out­side her boat, she con­sid­ers her own mor­tal­i­ty, plan­ning a qui­et end to her life in a month, wish­ing to recon­nect with a famil­ial sense of belong­ing, yet feel­ing the weight of dis­con­nec­tion.

Zaleekhah, con­sumed by inner tur­moil and soci­etal expec­ta­tions, hov­ers between life and a desire for retreat, fac­ing the abyss of her iden­ti­ty and pur­pose with res­ig­na­tion.