Vocal does not approve any stories with the slightest mention of the Creator.

I wrote this fictional piece for Vocal but they asked me to remove the religious content in…

Lost in my vague thoughts is Lai, an innocent 10-year-old. She was a typical child full of life, loved and pampered by everyone she knew. She had everything a child could wish for, I remember her being really picky, maybe even a little bit spoilt.

Shams was her dad’s younger brother. They all lived together in their family home. Dad loved and supported Shams. He spent all his savings so Shams could go abroad and study at a prestigious University. Within months Shams spent every penny and returned home empty-handed. …

Every morning I try to come downstairs before anyone is up. I open the door to my front room and after pulling back the curtains I sit in my little corner where the rising sun brightens my day. I soak in the warmth.

There is a wide glass window opposite to where I sit. I can hear the birds singing, the trees silently sway to the music of the winds. I absorb the feeling of gratitude and say a silent prayer.

It is mostly just me staring in thin air and letting my imagination work. …

Dear New Year,

How eagerly I have been waiting for you! at last, you were welcomed with the most awaited news of vaccine approvals.

As I look back and gather some sense out of the past 12 months, I see nothing but chaos from devastating bushfires to never-ending effects of the pandemic. Highlights of the year were nothing but lockdowns, the daily count of COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 deaths.

I want to leave all this behind and enter you afresh. Yet, there are some things I do not want to leave behind, the depth of emotions I have felt in these testing times. I never want to let go of them. …

Oh yes, we knew it was coming, with the current covid numbers exceeding spring 2020. We were all just waiting for the prime minister to spell it out for us. It might have taken him another week or so but I believe the pressure from the teaching unions and opposition rolled the ball for him.

This time around even the kids were prepared for it. We all wanted to get back to work after the ‘Not so festive’ break.

The kids got up early in the morning like they would for a normal school day. All online devices were set. …

Finally, it is new year’s eve, like every year I swept all the clutter and packed up for the new year. I wanted to carry my belongings along, it always felt like the right thing to do.

This year my satchel was huge, obviously, it was the end of 2020.

The excitement of moving forward was in the air, the kids running around anxiously waiting for the fireworks, busy in their usual fun and games, apparently oblivious of my actions.

Unexpectedly, my six-year-old stopped his game and had a long stare at my sack and murmured, who is going to carry this? …

My husband and I were having a discussion about how we used to play outside all day and our parents had to make an effort to call us inside for dinner and now we have to drag our kids out to play.

Times have drastically changed children have much less free, unstructured, unsupervised time compared to what we had just a couple of decades ago. The landscape played on by children and youth has contracted rapidly over time.

The evidence is still subjective, but it’s likely that technology’s ubiquity from the earliest years onwards — a fifth of children aged three and four have their own tablet — is reshaping our bodies. Short-sightedness has doubled since the 1960s, and obesity is increasing. …

June 2020 I wrote this poem while in lockdown six months down the lane, not much has changed.

I added this last bit especially for the festive season Christmas/New year…