Zaleekhah sits on her house­boat by the Riv­er Thames in 2018, feel­ing the weight of soli­tude after Nen’s depar­ture. Her gaze is drawn to a seag­ull soar­ing over­head, clutch­ing some­thing strange in its beak. The sight of the bird, cou­pled with the over­cast sky, fills her with an unset­tling sense of unease. The clouds above mir­ror the storm brew­ing inside her, reflect­ing the tur­moil in her heart. As she begins to eat the cuneiform bis­cuits Nen brought, she finds her­self lost in thought, pon­der­ing the world around her. Her mind wan­ders to the fish in the riv­er and how they must seek shel­ter when the weath­er becomes as unpre­dictable and vio­lent as her emo­tions. Even though she knows that fish nat­u­ral­ly seek deep­er waters dur­ing such con­di­tions, she feels a sense of pow­er­less­ness in tru­ly under­stand­ing nature’s secrets. The river’s pol­lu­tion only com­pounds her con­cern. She recalls how the fish strug­gle to breathe when the oxy­gen lev­els drop in the water, suf­fo­cat­ing silent­ly. It is in this moment that she real­izes just how frag­ile the world is—everything in it, includ­ing her­self, vul­ner­a­ble to the unseen forces at play.

As the day turns to evening, Zaleekhah strug­gles to pick out an out­fit for the fam­i­ly gath­er­ing she’s dread­ing. She finds her­self lost in mem­o­ries of past birth­days, one of which stands out with haunt­ing clar­i­ty. It had been a birth­day par­ty most­ly attend­ed by strangers, a painful reminder of the over­whelm­ing iso­la­tion she had felt after the trag­ic loss of her par­ents. Uncle Malek had tried his best to make the day spe­cial, bak­ing a mer­maid-themed cake that only served to remind her of her lone­li­ness. As she sifts through her cloth­ing, she is struck by how noth­ing seems appropriate—none of the gar­ments can dis­guise the sad­ness or the self-doubt she car­ries. Despite the out­ward appear­ance of abun­dance, noth­ing feels right. The clothes she tries on serve as a stark con­trast to the warmth and love her par­ents once offered, mem­o­ries of which still linger, cast­ing long shad­ows over her every attempt to move for­ward. The absence of her par­ents is an aching pres­ence in her life, and she real­izes that every year that pass­es only deep­ens her grief.

Zaleekhah feels an increas­ing sense of emo­tion­al iso­la­tion as the time for her birth­day din­ner approach­es. She is torn between attend­ing the gath­er­ing out of duty and the strong desire to retreat into soli­tude, away from the expec­ta­tions placed on her. The thought of iso­lat­ing her­self entire­ly is fright­en­ing, though, because even in her emo­tion­al strug­gle, she still seeks con­nec­tion. Her uncle’s house, which had once been a refuge after her par­ents’ pass­ing, no longer feels like home. It serves as a tem­po­rary shel­ter, a place where she has been forced to adapt and sur­vive but nev­er tru­ly live. Every cor­ner of the house is imbued with mem­o­ries of her late par­ents, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to escape the ache of their absence. She knows she can nev­er replace them, and the weight of that real­iza­tion press­es heav­i­ly on her heart. Still, she finds her­self unable to deny the neces­si­ty of show­ing up for her fam­i­ly, even if her soul feels like it’s still stuck in the past. As she gath­ers her­self to attend the din­ner, a mix of fear, uncer­tain­ty, and a faint glim­mer of hope wash­es over her. It is not an easy deci­sion, but the desire for con­nec­tion out­weighs her dis­com­fort. The chap­ter reflects Zaleekhah’s strug­gle with her iden­ti­ty, torn between the per­son she has become after her par­ents’ death and the emo­tion­al tur­moil she still faces. Amidst the lay­ers of grief and self-doubt, she seeks solace in the small moments of human con­nec­tion, hop­ing that some­day, she might find peace with­in her­self again.