Peerzada Salman’s first collection of 15 short stories is an e-book, Ephemera, which comprises tales that work as a short spell — as perhaps life itself is.

The opening line of the first story, ‘Lizard’, is a courageous proclamation: “I’m not scared of lizards.” It invites readers to shed their own fears as well, and indulge bravely in this reptilian encounter. The protagonist of ‘Lizard’ goes on to explain how the very fact that his right eye suffers from ocular toxoplasmosis — which has often given him cause for depression — also ends up securing him a hero card in front of his wife. In a light-hearted tone he explains how, not being able to see properly, he drives the lizard away by waving a stick aimlessly in its direction.

This juxtaposition of a dark theme with effortless humour is a characteristic trait of Salman’s stories.  For example, ‘Numbness’ deals with the dark labyrinth into which the narrator falls when faced with the death of H, a young illustrator. This is juxtaposed with an attraction towards Rosy. Whereas the narrator feels “numb, like a dead fish” on the one hand, on the other he is struck by Rosy’s eyes, “black like a moonless night.” The tone is mournful and alive at the same time, almost marking life that goes on, in spite of facing death at close quarters.

Meanwhile, in ‘Space’, the characters muse over how the dead are “traces of our bygone days, the vestiges of our past” but, as in ‘Numbness’, there is a quick switch in discourse to animalistic urges and their difference from love.

The case of contrasts persists in ‘Bring Along Your Kafkas and Shakespeares’, where the woman in the story finds a reference to Sylvia Plath “gross, unhinging”, while the man had thought it would be an “interesting” remark. She had, after all, acknowledged that she loved reading. However, none of her actions support her claims.

Peerzada Salman’s first collection of short stories is a musing on life and mortality, love and estrangement, and memory and perception

An intellectual divide separates the characters, and yet there is talk of love. The story is a comment on love that inherently lacks compatibility. The woman claims she “knows” that the man loves literature but, every time he tries to talk of it, she is in a hurry to get away. She prefers going to the gaming arena Sindbad rather than the library, which she finds boring. Her constant want to escape reminds one of the story ‘Blue’.

Both ‘Blue’ and ‘Bring Along Your Kafkas and Shakespeares’ are written in dialogue form. In both, the women want to leave, but the men are captivated and want the conversation to linger. The stories showcase an almost comical stance at the exchanges that take place.

In ‘Blue’, the woman is eager to leave because she can’t live up to the standard the man has set for her. He showers her with praise and tells her how much he is moved by her work as an artist, especially the use of the colour blue: “You seem to have something going on with blue…a torrid love affair, I guess.” He even asks if she would paint his grave blue as he has decided to die. After resisting his request for a while, she finally confesses that she doesn’t use blue paint at all, but rather computer software to make her sketches.

Talk of encounters between men and women continues in ‘Love Story 1’ and ‘Love Story 2’, which playfully raise the question of priorities in a creative person’s life. Both stories are connected, their lengths very short, like the first meeting of the two characters. The love was real, but now lost because, once in the moment right before lovemaking, the unnamed male protagonist suddenly abandoned the act and took to writing a short story instead. In ‘Love Story 2’, they run into one another after 21 years. Overwhelmed, he is unable to confess how he still feels.

‘Boys and Girls’ and ‘Top of Forms’ are stories of younger protagonists, and the theme of love continues. One relates the story of how a boy follows a girl, wearing a frock and with a chipped tooth, while the old Bollywood film Waqt [Time] plays on the projector set up on the roof of their residence.

The other is wound around the songs of another Bollywood film, Teri Qasam [Swear on You]. The girl in this story loves music and wants a cassette of the film’s songs. The tale starts with a captivating line: “When boys listen to music, they appreciate art. When girls listen to music, it is art.”

‘Scent of Cyberspace’ is situated in the year 2089 and the narrator is the son of one Peerzada Salman. This story depicts a future world in which the media is trustworthy since record-keeping devices are attached to people’s thumbs and journalists cannot help but be true. The narrator thinks about his father who preferred to be known as a writer, even though he was a journalist, for back in the day journalists were “unscrupulous, agenda-driven, inarticulate.” By placing his own name in this story, the author adds a mysterious layer to the telling of the tale. He has indeed made a tune that can be heard “70 years later.”

In ‘If on a Winter’s Morning a Traveller’, the protagonist tries to read in a public place. It is early morning and he is in a chilly Karachi; the last time the city had been this “cold as a dictator’s heart was in the 1970s.” This line hits the reader with the same brutal intensity as a line from the story ‘Naked’: “naked as truth told to a tyrant’s face.”

In a cold Karachi, the protagonist is having a breakfast of halwa puri and faces constant interruptions: a cat licking his chappal [slipper], a piece of chicken thrown on the ground, a girl-child beggar asking for money. In between all this, there is the interior monologue of the protagonist, who muses over Italian writer Italo Calvino’s text. This story, too, carries the striking wit running through many of Salman’s stories.

The language is light-hearted in the telling of these stories, but a strange complexity lies buried underneath. It is as if Salman knows well that “Sadness has a dagger in one hand and a cricket bat in the other. It stabs and crushes” and, thus, he has kept even darker themes in a context that is enchantingly humorous.

The e-book is available for purchase after registration at The Little Book Company website.

The reviewer is a poet and educator. She can be reached at Fatimaijaz4@gmail.com

Ephemera
By Peerzada Salman
The Little Book Company, Karachi
ISBN: 978-9692278089

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, October 31st, 2021