Out of the Flock: A Gay Memoir in Fiction

This isn't a story about everyone...
It's a story about one person.
A young man named Ahmed.

He lived among people, yet his heart lived alone. Every day he smiled at the world while hiding the greatest struggle of all: the struggle to be himself in a society that does not allow him to exist as he is.

Ahmed wasn't searching for a miracle.
He only wanted to love and be loved.
He hoped to reach out to just one person-
to find shelter in someone's eyes,
to feel, even for a brief moment,
that his existence wasn't a sin.

But every time he reached for that dream,
he collided with walls taller than his own heart-
the walls of society, religion, tradition, fear...
and sometimes, the wall of the very man he loved.

This novel is not about happy endings,
nor about extraordinary heroes.
It is about trying-
Ahmed's attempt to break out of the flock he was forced into,
his attempt to shatter the silence that clung to him for years,
his attempt to simply breathe
in a world determined to suffocate him.

Ahmed is no superhero.
But he is a hero because he resisted.
He is far from perfect,
yet honest enough to reveal his wounds to the reader.

And here, within these pages,
you will hear his voice
as no one has ever heard it before.