WALNUT is a collection of stories and poems about the stuff that sticks - memories, the traumas, the small joys that somehow survive when everything else falls apart. There's a blind diplomat who still reaches for his wife's hand in the morning. A kid holding onto a dirty Barbie through a war zone. Immigrants who nod at each other in hallways where they don't quite belong. A teenage goalie who thinks dying might be easier than facing Monday. And Earth herself, watching us with increasing impatience. These pieces explore displacement, survival, love, resistance, and belonging in a world which seems to insist on breaking us apart. This book is both a mirror and a gentle warning. The title Walnut is a reminder that our brains, overstimulated and distracted in today's attention economy, need to slow down, and reconnect with what matters, what's urgent and what it means to be human.