SmokeLong Quarterly

The Beauty

Young woman, old woman; in their heart, despite the years, both yearning to be beautiful. Young woman, old woman; they look at each other—one with envy, the other with contempt and fear. Young woman, old woman; they look into each other. One for a mother, the other for a daughter.

 Me and the Music

Music was my downfall, how it moved the air around my lungs and out of my throat. Those words related dumbly to my feelings, but were heard like string, tensed and pulled free of the body and falling.

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Smoke & Mirrors with Arzu Naqizada
Interviewed by Jemimah Wei

Can you tell us about your own relationship to writing, both in your home language and in English?

Writing is the only way to take out all the negative feelings inside me. Writing is the only thing that makes me feel good and relaxed.

In most flash stories, there is a central idea or feeling. What is that for you, in this piece?

The central idea is that everybody is made special and everyone has their own beauty, but what matters is the beauty inside a person.

How do you hope readers are changed by your story, and how did writing the story change you?

I hope that by reading this story everyone accepts that the beauty of our face is not permanent—we all will get old and lose this beauty, but the beauty of our heart is permanent and forever.

What was the most memorable moment in the process of writing this piece?

While I was writing this story I was imagining how we are born, get to be young, become an adult and one day become weak and old.

As an artist, as a writer, how would you like the world to know you?

I want the world to feel the story, the words when they are reading my story. I want them to know about me through the story that I wrote.

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About Arzu: I was not really interested in writing and stories before. I used to pass my free time by listening to music or watching movies. One day I decided to read a book, I borrowed one from school and read it. Even if my English was not perfect, I really enjoyed reading the book, so I decided to read more stories. That was when I got interested in writing and stories. With the help of my teacher Miss Ariane I joined the writing class. There I read and wrote some of the interesting stories and poems.