The Compass of Lost Desires
Written by Faraz Parvez (pen name of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal)
In a near-future Istanbul, where poetry drips from balconies and minarets still sing their sacred call, the government has implemented a technology that can map the human heart. Emotions are no longer private—they are scanned, stored, and interpreted by the Ministry of Harmonized Living. Everyone now wears a sleek chrome wristband that pulses in response to your feelings, recommending life decisions like which career to pursue, whom to love, or even when to grieve.
Aariz, once a celebrated poet and now an ethics researcher at the Ministry, has spent the last few years in quiet compliance. But when his beloved, Mina, disappears after rejecting the wristband’s influence, Aariz begins to feel the tremors of rebellion in his soul. His dreams are haunted by her voice, her scent, her unfinished verses. One night, he receives an untraceable message: “Some desires must remain wild.”
He follows this message into the underbelly of Istanbul’s ancient streets, where graffiti speaks louder than sermons and emotion-mappers are burnt like heretics. He meets Rashka, a renegade technician who once helped build the system but now regrets her part. She introduces Aariz to The Forgotten Pulse, a secret circle who have removed their wristbands, choosing to live through unfiltered grief, joy, anger—and love.
Among them is Echo, an old prototype diary that has somehow developed a sentience. Echo has been collecting the raw, unsorted emotions of hundreds who have dared to rebel. Through Echo’s archived memories, Aariz sees Mina again—uncensored, alive, terrified, but defiant.
Each page of Echo’s entries reads like poetry from a broken world:
“They told me to love only within approved ranges of compatibility, but my soul picked a man whose sorrow tasted like freedom.”
Driven by Echo’s revelations and his own burning grief, Aariz decides to confront the very core of the system. Not to destroy it, but to remind it what it means to feel without guidance. He hacks into the Ministry’s mainframe using Mina’s final codes, and transmits an unscripted, chaotic, beautiful sequence of raw emotions—joy, guilt, lust, despair, longing—across all devices in the city.
The city pauses. People cry, laugh, scream, dance. They remember.
The Ministry’s grip begins to loosen, not through violence, but through remembrance.
Aariz is arrested. But his story spreads like wildfire, his name whispered in streets and scribbled on forgotten café napkins: “Desire does not need permission.”
As for Echo, it escapes into the data stream, whispering forgotten desires into the hearts of the next generation.
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