She was walking across the site when I first noticed how people looked at her—not with respect, not with the kind of attention a site manager deserves. No, it was that sideways glance, the smirk passed between two mouths behind a half-raised welding mask. I’ve been around this work my whole life. Twenty-three years in construction.

My phone buzzed just as I stepped off the boda. I knew the ringtone—Sharon again. I ignored it. Not because I don’t love her, but because she always calls when something ridiculous is happening, and today, I wasn’t in the mood for her chaos.

There’s a crooked pōhutukawa just outside my window. It leans east, shaped by years of salt wind off the harbour. From my bed, I can see the curve of Evans Bay and, on clear days, even a strip of the South Island floating on the horizon like a distant promise. They gave me this room because of the view. Said I’d earned it. I didn’t ask what they meant by that. I’ve stopped asking for explanations.

The mornings are the hardest. I still wake up at six, like I used to when I had the kiosk. Old habits. I lie there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the city sounds to swell—collectivo brakes, dogs barking, the neighbor's gate slamming shut. It’s all still there, Buenos Aires, Argentina, moving forward, but I’m not a part of it anymore.

It started with a look. That kind of look boys give each other when there’s already tension, and neither one wants to back down. He shoved my shoulder in the corridor between classes, and I shoved him back. I didn’t even know his name two months ago. Now we can’t seem to pass each other without something happening—comments, elbows, whatever.

The tea had gone cold again. I must’ve poured it an hour ago, but time has become strange since the accident—stretching and folding in on itself like dough. Some days I forget to eat. Other days I eat three breakfasts without realising. We live in a quiet suburb of Islamabad, Pakistan. The streets here are lined with trees that bloom pink in the spring, and the neighbours know each other by name. It used to feel like a safe place, predictable and calm. That illusion shattered the day Daniyal died.

The last two weeks have been totally crazy. I keep staring at my bank account like it's a glitch in the matrix. I refresh the app, and the numbers are still there—still surreal. Two commas. Seven digits. I'm a programmer from a town near Hannover, Germany, and until recently, I was renting a 40-square-meter apartment above a kebab shop. Now I could probably buy the building if I felt like it.

I stood outside the graduation hall longer than I should’ve, watching people take pictures, toss hats, cry. Everyone kept saying “You did it!” but I felt nothing. Well—relief, maybe. Relief that it was over. Four years of lectures, group presentations, colour-coded spreadsheets, and pretending I cared about quarterly profits. I’ve just finished my business degree at 26, older than most of my classmates. I took a year out after high school, thinking I’d figure myself out. I didn’t.

Most nights, I fall asleep with the radio on. Not for the music, but for the voices—soft anchors murmuring updates about politics, protests, rising prices, distant wars, and closer ones. I’ve always been like this. My wife says I carry the world in my chest like a stone. I’m 79 now, and it hasn’t lightened with age.

It all started because of a pigeon. Not just any pigeon—a bold, demonic, pasta-stealing monster of a pigeon that lives in the piazza near our school in Bologna, Italy. Every day after lunch, my friends and I sit on the fountain steps, gossiping and eating snacks. That day, I was halfway through a perfect arancino when it swooped down like an angry feathered missile and snatched it straight out of my hand.

When I woke up the morning after my 50th birthday, I lit a candle instead of a joint. It wasn’t a dramatic gesture—just quiet determination. I’d promised myself long ago that when I turned 50, I would stop smoking weed. Not because I hated it. Quite the opposite. It had been my constant companion since I was 15. In my neighborhood in Portmore, Jamaica, smoking wasn’t a rebellion—it was tradition. At family gatherings, joints were passed like snacks. No one questioned it. It soothed me, gave me rhythm, helped me coast.

The forest has always been my home. I know the scent of each leaf, the whisper of each tree. As a girl, I followed my father’s footsteps through the mists of San José del Pacífico, Mexico. He was a respected doctor, but he also listened to the land. My mother taught me which plants could soothe a fever or a broken heart, and my father showed me the mushrooms that open the soul.

When I started studying business administration in Nanjing, China, it felt like someone else’s life. My parents thought it was the only sensible choice—safe, respectable, promising. But while my classmates memorized charts and formulas, my mind drifted to chord progressions and melodies. I’m 24 now, and for the past year, I’ve finally been doing what I always wanted: composing music.

In our house, the marble floors shine like mirrors, and the air always smells faintly of oud. I’ve never had to wait for anything—drivers, tutors, holidays abroad, they were all just part of life. But something shifted when I turned seventeen and began noticing things others ignored. I saw the men in blue overalls working outside in the sun, sometimes for ten or twelve hours straight. No one ever looked them in the eye. I started asking questions.

Every morning I step outside and breathe in the scent of pine, frozen soil, and lake mist. That scent is home. I live in Lukkarila, a quiet place in eastern Finland that many people couldn’t even find on a map. There are maybe two dozen houses scattered between the trees, and in winter, it feels like the world ends here. I’m 35 now, and I’ve lived here all my life except for one strange week three months ago.

I still remember the heat and dust of Dakar, how the wind smelled before a rainstorm. We left Senegal many years ago—my husband, our two little boys, and I—hoping for a better life in France. We ended up in Marseille, in a cramped apartment in a quartier nord where hope and despair sit side by side. I am 58 now. My hands are rough from years of cleaning other people’s homes, and my knees ache from standing too long in kitchens that were never mine.

There’s a photograph I keep folded in my wallet—creased and faded, the edges curling like dry leaves. It was taken in 1974, the last day I saw my younger brother. I was 25, he was 20, and we were standing in front of a bakery near Mapo, grinning like idiots, our arms around each other. He left for Germany the next week to work in a coal mine. He promised to come back rich. He never did.

I am a doctor living in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Every day I walk into my clinic, smile at the receptionist, greet my colleagues, and go about my duties as a gynecologist. But behind the sterile walls of one small, windowless room, I live a second life. For the past two years, I’ve been performing illegal abortions.

We arrived in Sri Lanka a week ago, and from the moment we stepped into the 5-star resort, it felt like we’d landed in a travel brochure. Palm trees, infinity pool, fruit platters shaped like swans. My parents were in heaven. I was trying to act cool, scrolling on my phone and pretending I wasn’t impressed. But honestly, it was paradise—and absurdly cheap, compared to what we’re used to in Zurich, Switzerland.

I met him at the worst possible moment—literally as I was wrestling with a souvlaki wrap that had exploded onto my dress. We were both waiting for the night bus in downtown Thessaloniki, Greece, and he just stood there watching me try to dab tzatziki off my chest with a receipt. “You’re losing the battle,” he said. I looked up, deadpan, and replied, “I already surrendered.”