The City Gardener: Prickly but pleasing cacti 

I found out war had started in Iran from my older sister’s text message in the family group chat, in the middle of my usual morning routine—barely open eyes, grab phone, click. This was on Saturday, February 28. After the initial numb silence, my first thought was: “Good thing grandma’s gone.” The last time Iran was bombed, in June 2025, my grandmother was in her nineties and living with full-time nurse care at her apartment near Salmas Square, in Tehran. The apartment she’d lived in for almost forty years, with the wide cracks on the ceiling. With the thick frosted-glass entrance and...