When we moved for the first time, I was stowed in the attic like an empty suitcase. The room was barely high enough to stand and terribly insulated, but I only had eyes for the two triangular windows, one on each side of the house. We never bought curtains, so that winter I rose with the sun. Looking out, I’d put my cheek to the glass and see the tree outside the far window turn pale behind the condensation of my breath, the blue peaks blanching in the distance, as if, from their vantage point, they had seen something coming.
When my mother’s sister-in-law came to visit, she sat in the kitchen not touching her coffee as usual. She wore a necklace with a real compass on it and I was convinced she was the most glamorous woman alive. Every time she came, I would make her show me how it worked. That day she showed me the qibla. ‘It’s helpful to have,’ she said absent-mindedly, picking at a knot in the chain that held the compass between her collarbones, ‘because on the day the world ends, the sun will rise from the west’.
I stood very still, focusing on memorising her exact words. As soon as she was gone, I raced upstairs to the attic. A sliver of orange coming through one window was making jewels out of specks of dust. I shuffled back and forth, bent over slightly, using the direction of prayer that she’d shown me to figure out which way my windows faced. I guessed that one looked southwest and the other northeast.
I had been hoping this discovery would be comforting: waking up with the sunlight on my pillow would assure me life would go on. Instead, I began to worry about the logistics of her claim. Where does the sun rise first? Sunrise for one half of the earth is sunset for the other, so would the sun make a U-turn?
When we moved on to flats, the new room had a singular small square window on one side. When she came over, she told me that it faced east. If the sun ever rises backwards, I thought, I’ll find out too late: the light would kiss concrete while I slept through the spectacle, and by the time I got the news, my last day could well already be over. That year I spent hours in the library drawing turrets with windows on all sides. No-one has ever explained to me how on earth the sun could ever set off on its usual rounds, change its mind, throw the towel in and turn its back on creation, but I still don’t sleep with the curtains drawn. If I can just find that turret, I’ll be the first to know when it happens. And in the glory of the end, the whole left side of my sleeping body will be lit up like a beacon.
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About the author
Tayiba Sulaiman is a writer and translator from Manchester, England. She recently completed a literary translation mentorship in German with the National Centre for Writing. As the judges discussed her piece, there was a unanimous sense it was ‘complex’ and ‘mysterious’ – other words reverberating around the room were ‘mystical’ and ‘dark’, ‘rich’ and ‘alive’. ‘Her story holds a great deal of power,’ says judge Hamish Bowles, with Jeremy O’Harris agreeing: ‘I felt like I was in VR.’ Shelley says the opening line ‘hits you like a gut punch’.
Further reading on The World of Interiors Writing Prize:
- Meet the US winner, Mary Bergman
- Read the winner’s announcement, as featured in our November 2024 issue
- Meet the judges: Emily Tobin, Hamish Bowles, Jeremy O’Harris and Shelley Wanger
- Read the runner-up entries that were too good not to publish
- Sign up to The World of Interiors newsletter, and be among the first to know details of the 2025 competition
