COUNTING Votes and Other Stories is a collection that lingers in the spaces where ordinary lives brush against extraordinary shadows—where grief lingers on a river’s edge, where fear climbs into the back seat of a late-night drive, where ballots promise hope but deliver betrayal.
These stories move from villages torn apart by war to cities overwhelmed by rain, traffic, and corruption. A boy in Kandahar learns that a simple smile can be more powerful than guns and bombs. A daughter scattering her mother’s ashes is haunted by a voice she thought she had lost forever. A Lagos driver takes one last ride through storm and fear, only to realize that courage itself is being tested. A vote cast in hope becomes a weapon in the hands of those in power. Each story explores what it means to endure when survival requires compromise, when dignity teeters on the edge of despair, and when even silence can carry weight.
