Maps Left in Rain

<p>If the novel is a house this book is a shoreline. The stories in Maps Left in Rain were not constructed with scaffolding or linear foundations. They arrived like postcards from an unreliable past-each carrying a smudged return address. I did not write them to explain; I wrote to preserve what explanation might erase: the glint of sunlight on a flooded runway the shape of a mango tree's shadow long after the tree is gone. Some of these pieces unfold in a single moment others across decades. They are unified not by plot but by weather: emotional literal or imagined. Memory here is not chronological-it is tidal. There are stories that begin in endings and others that dissolve before they resolve. You may enter this collection in any order like wandering a museum of forgotten rooms. I invite you to read slowly. Let each piece echo. There are no final maps. Only the ones we leave behind in rain.</p><p>-Fazal Abubakkar Esaf</p>