by Kunal Sharma
We were at the hardware store on a Sunday, where nothing was broken
and everything was being held in place. She wanted lightbulbs—soft ones,
the kind that make a room forgive itself. I followed her through the aisles
holding nothing. Ladders leaned like interrupted sentences.
Screws sorted into sizes as if order might outlast us.
A man clicked flashlights on and off as if something might answer.
A child asked why everything smelled like metal and oranges and dust.
His father said, that’s just how it is.
She turned the bulbs in her hands like something she expected to survive her.
Paint swatches—thin promises splitting from themselves.
An older couple argued over a hose fitting, not angry—just practicing
what they could still do together. She came back with bulbs held like a decision.
I said yes before the question arrived. We had practice.
At checkout, everything moved forward with the patience of things
used to carrying intention. The cashier had a tattoo at her wrist, half-hidden.
Each scan reduced objects to proof they had once mattered.
Outside, the parking lot was too bright. Cars looked abandoned
even with people in them.
Then it happened—
A name rose—
then snagged—
a fishhook in the throat of the afternoon.
then wasn’t.
Then almost-name, almost-voice. A classroom without coordinates.
Pencil sound. Chair scraping too hard. Someone laughing after my name failed.
A name rose halfway then stopped being a name at all.
She reached for my hand—not for comfort, not for balance,
but to see if I was still there. My pulse betrayed me.
The air went still. Didn’t return. We walked to the car.
Coffee, she said, as if naming it could hold things together.
Yes, I said, too quickly, like repetition. She opened the door.
Light caught her briefly—like something leaving without permission.
In the window glass, carts moved back in metal rows as if nothing had been taken.
She got in. I followed. The door shut.
The store stayed behind us—bright, indifferent, keeping its inventory
that may or may not have happened the same way twice.
Kunal Sharma is a poet from Delhi, India. Their interest in writing began at an early age, during their time at the National School of Drama (NSD), New Delhi, where they spent their early years learning and experiencing acting. Those days on stage left them with a lasting curiosity about people, their stories, and everything that happens beneath the surface of a performance. Somewhere along the way, the stage gave way to the page, and writing became another way of exploring that curiosity. Today, Kunal Sharma works as a stock market analyst, spending their professional life around numbers, patterns, and uncertainty, while continuing to return to writing in their own time. They find something strangely familiar between markets and stories: both are full of human behaviour, unpredictability, and things that cannot always be explained. In 2026, Kunal’s story “Without Condition” was longlisted in the 2026 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. In July 2026, their nonfiction story “The Park Wasn't Ours” won a monthly international writing contest hosted by Off Topic Publishing, a literary press that supports independent writers. Their piece was selected from a competitive pool of global submissions, earning them a win along with professional feedback on their work.