A Light On the Sea

A young Muslim woman must fight for her family, future, and right to exist when a hateful, fascist regime is elected to govern America.

Author's Note:
"A Light On the Sea" is a short 500 word story inspired by Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," for the #MyHandmaidsTale contest.

The main character is named Noor, which means "light" in Arabic.

This story is a work of fiction, but the hateful statements within the story are inspired by actual comments made by sitting politicians and pundits, which makes the story all the more chilling.

I wanted to use fiction to show how harmful and dangerous this kind of rhetoric is -- and how quickly it can escalate. Genocide is a slow process. No holocaust begins with physical violence. It begins with the normalization of hate speech.