Every summer the power went out at the same time, just after dinner, as if the town had agreed to it. My grandmother would light the lamp and my cousins would fight over the spot closest to it, and somebody, always somebody, would start a story.
Nobody planned these stories. They began with something small: a neighbour’s new bicycle, a goat that had eaten a sari off the line. By the time the fan coughed back to life, the goat had a name, a past, and a reason.
I’ve thought about that hour a lot since I started writing seriously. Everything I know about pacing, I learned from my uncle, who could hold a pause for so long you forgot to breathe. Everything I know about endings, I learned from the power coming back. You have to stop when the light returns, even if the story isn’t finished.