The Visit – S. Taufeequddin Azher

June 10, 2026

1.
I’d been invited to this old uncle’s house, a real kook and a bore and an unfortunately familiar pain in the neck. I might sound harsh. I realize it’s equally kooky and boring to complain about one’s relatives in this manner. Not good form. It doesn’t matter: I used to be very cautious re: this sort of thing; some ill-conceived sense of loyalty to the old khandaan—I didn’t want to air out the dirty laundry, as they say. It’s customary to do so, by the way, at least it seems so, among people my age. Acquaintances of mine have told me things about their parents that to me seem so embarrassing that if I were in these acquaintances’ shoes I wouldn’t confess even under extreme duress—confession’s too religious an idea to apply to this context, but no matter, for no one’s going to place me under extreme duress for such purposes anyway—to being their (rather misbegotten) offspring.
I digress. The point is I abhor my khandaan as it were: a bunch of what are known as morons, the entirety of whose cultural education comprises nothing but the most vapid films: films made for the eyes and not for the brains, films that even if our greatest critics were to attempt to dissect would divulge no deeper meaning, no meaning at all in fact; WhatsApp forwards claiming our very own Brahmins are descendants of Israel (which in some way or the other has begun in recent times to seem to me, admittedly, to be true); and the historically consistently cretinous carping of the ever intra-contradictory clergy who with their miswak-and-betel-scented words have ruined both their own brains and muddled those of their poor listeners all across the nation for God knows how many generations so far now.
But I’d been invited nevertheless, and I decided to go. I could’ve just as easily decided not to go, for it was not like I couldn’t refuse, I was under no obligation to go, and there was no question of my being obligated to go either, because none of my relatives wield any authority over me, but I decided to go notwithstanding my disdain for my uncle and his kin (whom I share with him) for no reason other than that I was bored and feeling very very lonely, and one can only imagine how dreadfully isolated I’d have to be to of my own volition spend any time with my khandaan.
Upon arriving I was told to wait in the hot, cramped living room, on one of those old floral sofas that had gone out of style much before I was born and which give you the impression that everything is hotter than it is. The blades of the ceiling fan, which by the way was hanging perilously by a wire, were shaking about more than they were actually rotating, and to me this was funny as hell, as they say, and I began laughing, because I remembered just then watching a young woman at a party trying at once to throw her hips about in a circle and move them as one mass up and down in the air, a very awkward affair.
You seem very happy nowadays. My old uncle entered, smiling, in his hands half-concealed a pack of cigarettes. Do I have your permission?
It’s your home.
It’s your home too, he said.
2.
?
No, thank you. It was, of course, on his part, an entirely unserious offer. He did not know that if I had no shame I would have smoked the entire box all at once right there in his stuffy living room, made it unbearable to breathe. But I keep my vices to myself. I always have. One always has to if he wants to keep the ends of his nerves well sheathed, so to speak, from the quickgrasping hands of his adversaries. Not just your vices—let your virtues stay up your sleeves too.
I watched him as he smoked, I watched the smoke rise, I watched its unsteady expansion.
And?
And nothing. You tell me.
And what can I tell you, son? For what’s happening? I’m only sitting here as I wait for the Day. It approaches, so indicate the signs emerging, and the Righteous are lying in wait.
Stupid old fool! Lying in wait for the Day! If I were him I’d’ve sweat the flesh off my bones thinking of the Day! And who could count himself so easily among the “Righteous” but one of the most eligible candidates for The Fire I’ve ever seen! I should’ve ripped his beard off long before it turned white and stuffed it Right up his ass!
And have you thought of marriage yet? He had put his cigarette out halfway through, the wasteful crank.
No, I haven’t. Have you? I asked with a polite smile. He probably had, the lonely old pervert!
… No, but you’re getting old, and at your age all you’ll have as options are the old themselves, you know.
I have no qualms. I’ve always liked ‘the old,’ even as a child.
The old, the fat, the dark … Leftovers, you see. He really did say this..
Everyone’s to grow old, and a happy woman no matter how thin she is will grow plump eventually, healthy, as they say in the Subcontinent, and what will our bones say of the colour of our skin?
He said nothing, but he had on his face a strange expression, almost as if he were offended by my rejection of what was no doubt his own taste in women. He had, by the way, been married to the biggest donkey of a woman I’ve ever seen, a veritable donkey, as they say, in appearance and temperament. This is unimportant, as is everything else said so far, but it must be said regardless.
L— and the others will be arriving soon, he said, rising. I’ll go lie down. My bones will fall apart soon.
I nodded.
You’ll open the door when they get here, won’t you? Don’t doze off, he laughed. Sulphuryellow grin.
I nodded again, and he retired to his bedroom, leaving me alone.
3.
I sank deeper into the couch, and, finding myself reflected in the dusty glass sliding doors of the old bookshelf in the corner, grew a bit more miserable. It was hot and silent, and I watched the dust in the sunbeams.
Dustwatcher, contemplator of dust.
4.
The American government, if you didn’t know this, said one of my uncle’s sons, who had inherited (and this was all that he would likely inherit from him) the kookiness of his father, has already made contact with the Antichrist, you know.
I see, I said, even though I didn’t see anything, knowing well from previous experience that if one can’t be convinced that the moon does, in fact, exist, he can not be convinced of anything.
So the Antichrist is controlling the United Nations. Did you know that?
I think I’ve heard of it, yes.
But so the Antichrist helps them employ the Jinn for their purposes. You may not know this, he said, but the majority of the United States Army Reserve’s members are Jinn. That is why, my uncle’s son said, the United States has won over the world, culturally and economically.
Is that why?
Yes, of course.
The Jinn?
Yes. You don’t know, he said, the full extent of it. American music also has the sounds of Jinn playing at infrasonic frequencies. You can’t hear it. Your soul does. It’s everywhere. We’re entrenched in a matrix of their making.
Not solely the army? The music industry too?
Of course.
Interesting.
He spoke on. I had long since stopped listening. A film was playing on the television. Everyone watched.
I got up and left, wearyfaced.