Nadia is thirty one and she is not unhappy. She likes her job. Her flat is fine.

She scrolls for about forty minutes after Isha most nights. Nothing in it upsets her while it is happening. A friend's second baby. Somebody from her old halaqah who has finished her hifz. A kitchen with a window she would like.

Then she puts the phone down. For about twenty minutes afterwards the flat is smaller than it was, the job is just a job, and she has one specific thought, which is that everybody else got started earlier than she did.

By the time she is asleep it has gone. It comes back the next night. Nothing about her life changed in between.