Broken Roads
an excerpt

I could hear the music from a kilometre away. Blaring through walls and open windows, the sound of generic Trance pounded through me, lifting my spirits and brining an odd warmth in the dead of winter. Around me, snow fell like powder shaken from the sky, floating until it kissed the ground and coated everything in a brilliant white. I had always loved winter- which was odd for someone living in Southern Ontario. There was something fierce about it, as if it was made for the strong. True the blizzards could feel like a rain of knives, but once the storm passed, the result was beautiful, serene, almost eternally still.

But the stillness of winter had been punctured tonight, and I really didn’t mind. Around me, people wrapped in dark coats moved towards the well-lit house, their boots crunching on snow, and their breath rising like mist through the still night air. I smiled as I watched them. As children we used to love the sensation of our breath chilling in the winter air. We pretended we were smoking like my father did. It was the cool thing to do. The thing which set grown ups apart from children.

There were many stupid thing I did as a child, not all of them which brought a silly smile to my lips. There was the blind faith my mother expected me to adopt, and there were the foolish dreams of success and happiness that I had painted for myself. I wanted to be everything: a scientist, a tennis star, even an Archaeologist. That was until I realized that Pakistani immigrants could be none of these things. They were meant to be Doctors, or Lawyers, or Engineers.

Everything else was seen as a waste of time...