In the chap­ter titled “—H Zaleekhah” set by the Riv­er Thames in 2018, Zaleekhah sits in her house­boat after Nen’s depar­ture, her thoughts dis­tract­ed by a seag­ull car­ry­ing some­thing mys­te­ri­ous. As she pre­pares to eat the cuneiform bis­cuits brought by Nen, she reflects on the murky, over­cast sky, rem­i­nis­cent of storms, and pon­ders where fish might shel­ter dur­ing tumul­tuous weath­er. Despite sci­en­tif­ic under­stand­ing of fish behav­ior in adverse con­di­tions, she real­izes the true answer remains elu­sive. Pol­lu­tion in the riv­er com­pli­cates mat­ters fur­ther, as fish strug­gle to find breath­able oxy­gen and can per­ish in moments of cri­sis, high­light­ing a nat­ur­al world’s fragili­ty.

Lat­er, feel­ing inad­e­quate about her attire for an evening cel­e­bra­tion with fam­i­ly and friends, Zaleekhah grap­ples with mem­o­ries of a birth­day par­ty from her past—one attend­ed most­ly by strangers after a trau­mat­ic life change. Her rec­ol­lec­tions are marked by a mer­maid-themed cake her Uncle Malek tried to make per­fect for her, which only remind­ed her of her melan­choly. Images of her late par­ents and moments spent togeth­er evoke a sense of long­ing and loss, con­trast­ing sharply with her cur­rent super­fi­cial con­cerns.

Zaleekhah strug­gles with self-image and famil­ial expec­ta­tions as she sorts through her cloth­ing, none of which seem good enough. Her past at Uncle Malek’s home lingers in her mind, rep­re­sent­ing not a true home but mere­ly a tem­po­rary refuge fol­low­ing the loss of her par­ents. The more she reflects, the more it becomes clear how deeply she yearns for her old life, filled with the warmth of her par­ents’ pres­ence.

As evening descends, she finds her­self reluc­tant to attend her own birth­day din­ner, con­tem­plat­ing with­draw­al from the world alto­geth­er. Yet, the notion of com­plete­ly detach­ing from life stirs fear with­in her, urg­ing her to seek some­thing suit­able to wear and pre­pare for the gath­er­ing, real­iz­ing it is still her spe­cial day. Ulti­mate­ly, the chap­ter jux­ta­pos­es themes of iso­la­tion, mem­o­ry, emo­tion­al tur­bu­lence, and the strug­gle for iden­ti­ty, all set against the back­drop of a seem­ing­ly cel­e­bra­to­ry occa­sion.