The Storm

A snippet of metaphorical prose from my upcoming book & prolly one of my best pieces.

Hi, my beautiful people!

Forgive me for not being able to stay active. I was dealing with my health issues and now your girl is going to appear in her thesis viva next tuesday. Sing me some prayers and whisper me some luck.

I wrote this piece during one of the worst phases of my life. I hope you enjoy reading my misery. Also, the voiceover was done by my amazing friend Daryl, whom you know as the armchair dweller of substack.

Pour out some love for both of us, especially for his eloquent British accent :)

© 2026 Sanya Kurd

Voiceover by TheArmchairDweller

All rights reserved.

Every day I face a storm, and I don’t know how I make it out alive.

I wake up and see the dark clouds hovering over my head, laughing at my helplessness, making me even more miserable. I try to evade the darkness of the clouds, but they don’t go away. I search for the sunlight, but it seems far away. I see a hurricane in front of me. It targets me. It tries to get me. I run, but my feet are bloody from the thorns sticking into my heels. Still, I run for my life. The thorns press in deeper with every step, but I don’t give up. 

There’s a storm coming.

The darkness prolongs.

Any hope for sunlight is gone now. I run for my life, but it’s dark. I can’t see anything.

I feel like it’s my end now. I won’t be able to escape it. I won’t be able to get through it. I say to myself, “You’re not going to make it.”

Then I sit down in the middle of the darkness, awaiting my fate.

I scream, but my voice is drowned by the cries of thunder. I try to lift my head and look into the eyes of the darkness, but I’m unable to open my eyes due to fear—the fear of facing it.

I feel trapped. I can’t see or hear anything. The loud screech of thunder is deafening. Even if I want to escape this darkness, I can’t. The storm gets louder with every moment. I try to cover my ears with my hands in desperation, but to no avail. I try so hard not to focus on it, but I can’t stop thinking about it. 

There’s no hope for me now.

I wish I were long dead.

I wish I didn’t have to face this.

I ran barefoot, blood dripping from my heels, but it didn’t help me. I tried my best to find the light, but every attempt was met with the gloom of the night. I cannot do anything for myself.

It’s hard to function when there’s darkness around you. Few nights in my life have felt darker. I could see the darkness becoming deeper, taking its worst form. All of this might be metaphorical, but it feels that way when you’re stuck in a situation with no way out. 

As I was writing this, I felt like I was living those moments again. The darkness of those nights only kept getting darker. I tried my best to look at the “brighter side,” but there wasn’t any brighter side to my situation. 

You might’ve felt this at some point of your life, where hope felt distant than the sky.

You might’ve looked for solutions in desperation but you got confused with the countless doors and when you approached each of them, turns out there’s no door knob to any door.

What do you do when you’re struck this hard?

How do you keep going when there’s a storm ahead of you?

How do you motivate yourself to pass through it?

Where do you find the courage to do so? 

This form of helplessness—when you try to find doors in order to escape... it breaks you completely.

When you finally open a door after countless efforts, but in the blink of an eye, it closes again. You try to open another one, but it seems like you’re not going to make it, as this one too is going to close. 

It’s hard to carry yourself on those days. It’s hard to get up and think, “I matter.” The darkness doesn’t go away. You have to live with it. 

And I won’t say that you’re going to find a solution, because sometimes, there isn’t a solution. Sometimes, we mess up so badly that no mending or rebuilding can make it better. Sometimes, it doesn’t get better. You can counsel yourself, but you can’t fix things. 

How do we keep going in those times? What is the driving force that doesn’t let us give up in those circumstances? 

These are the questions at the core of some philosophical debates. But we’re not here to discuss philosophy. 

Whenever I faced such moments, there was one thought that always popped into my head:

This is my end. This is it. I give up. 

Then I’d cry the whole night, sitting in the same darkness that haunted me. The darkness I wanted to evade became my abode in solitude. I didn’t want to get near anybody in those moments. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to see how bad it gets. I wanted to know how long I could hold myself together. And while doing all of this, one thought was constant in my mind: I’m going to be crushed by my emotions anytime now. 

Holding back tears and displaying resilience in difficult times requires loads of courage—and I don’t know how people do it. I wasn’t able to show courage. I was constantly weeping into my pillow. I was avoiding any physical interactions with the people around me. I wasn’t eating or sleeping. I was just thinking—thinking about it over and over.

It really made things worse.

In those moments, I wished I were brave. I wished I had the courage. I wished I had the ability to stand up for myself. If only I understood that all of this was hidden within me. 

Till this day, I haven’t completely figured myself out. Till this day, I feel lost in the storm.

But I get up every day. The strong wind blows past my ears, leaving my hair tangled and filled with dust. I take one step forward, and the storm pulls me two steps back. I keep going, and it keeps resisting me. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it out of this suffering. I truly don’t.

In moments like these, we all need an anchor.
But how do we find it?
Is there a method, or does the heart simply choose someone—or something—to cling to?
Where is my free will in all of this?
Why does my heart make decisions on my behalf?
Did I grant it that much power?
When did it become so dominant that it overrides my logic?
Why am I so easily ruled by emotion?

This frustrates me. I can’t remember when my heart began to hijack my autonomy. It’s hard to comprehend.

Emotions are dangerous.
You don’t want to feel them, but you’re forced to.
You try not to let them influence your choices, but they do.
You resist surrendering to them, yet you do.
You don’t want to drown in them, yet somehow, you do.

We call ourselves free, but are we?

The same emotions that rise from within us can drag us down into storms we never asked for. They shackle us silently, invisibly.

And the worst part? It’s hard to trace the origin of this slavery.
It’s hard to name its birthplace.
But if I ever find it, I’ll cut its roots and leave it weeping, just as it does to me.

Until then, I’ll keep walking with my head down through the storm, my hair heavy with the dust of my grief.

Thank you for reading sweetheart. I hope you’re in good circumstances. I hope you’re happy with your life.

Just don’t give up. No matter what happens, keep walking in the storm with your head down. Rest, sit but don’t sleep. You matter. Your life matters.

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Stay Safe!