Ashes of Yesterday
The rain had left its mark. The city was wet, shining in spots where streetlights hit the damp ground, and still in a way that felt heavier than usual. From the window of his small, dimly lit room, Suryansh looked at the world outside without really seeing it. His eyes followed the water drops that stuck tightly to the glass, refusing to fall. For some reason, they reminded him of himself—always holding on, never quite letting go.
The desk behind him was messy with open notebooks, pens without tops, and papers filled with words that seemed to have lost meaning. Once, writing had been his escape. He used to say words were his spark—his way of understanding the chaos, his way of surviving. But now, words let him down. They came in pieces, half-sentences, unfinished ideas. Every time he tried to write, it felt like he was only making his heart hurt more.
Silence filled his room, his mornings, and his nights. He carried it like some carried scars—hidden, but always there. On the outside, he looked normal enough: a young man in his early twenties, with hair a bit long and dark eyes that seemed older than he was. But inside, he was broken. He was nothing but remains.
Love had once been his belief. He used to trust in it like one trusted in the sunrise—something sure, something unavoidable, and something worth waiting for. Back then, he had loved without holding back, with a passion that burned brighter than reason. And for a while, it had been enough.
Her face still bothered him, though he tried not to think of it. Sometimes it came in parts: a smile across a café table, laughter like bells, and the warmth of a hand holding his during a crowded event. Other times, it came back clearly, as though no time had passed at all. He would feel her presence in the soft sound of a song, in the smell of jasmine from a stranger’s hair, in the quiet pain that stayed in his chest.
She had been his spark, his beginning. But like every spark, she had used him up.
He never talked about what happened. Friends asked, kindly at first, then impatiently, then not at all. His family learned to avoid the subject. All they saw now was him who smiled less, who avoided parties, who liked being alone more than being with people. They thought time would heal him, that wounds always closed if they had enough time. But Suryansh knew better. Some wounds did not close. Some wounds were not meant to.
Because love, he had realized, was not just about light. It was about fire. And fire always left something destroyed.
That evening, the air was cold and wet. Suryansh sat by his window, a half-written poem in front of him. He read the lines again:
“We were sparks in the dark,
But sparks die too fast.
Now I carry the smoke of us,
Breathing in the past.”
He crumpled the paper before he could finish. It landed near a pile of similar crumpled sheets on the floor. His words felt weak, not good enough for the storm inside him. How could language ever show the weight of what he had lost?
The city outside was full of life—cars honking, people laughing somewhere far away, sellers shouting—but it all felt distant. Suryansh lived in another world, one where time moved slowly, where every minute carried the weight of memory.
Sometimes he wondered what it would feel like to forget. To wake up one morning and not feel her name in his chest. To drink his tea without remembering how she used to steal sips from his cup. To walk through the streets without worrying he might see her face in the crowd.
But forgetting, he realized, was impossible. Memories did not disappear; they smoldered, quietly but alive, like hot coals under ash.
He pulled open the drawer of his desk. Inside was a small silver bracelet, a bit dull from time. He picked it up, holding it gently in his hand. It was hers. She had left it behind one evening, forgotten in the rush of leaving, promising to get it the next day. That day never came.
His thumb touched its curve, and his chest tightened. It was strange, how something so small could carry so much weight. To anyone else, it was just a piece of jewelry. To him, it was the last thing connecting him to her.
Sometimes he wanted to throw it away, to bury it somewhere he would never find. But every time he tried, he couldn’t. It was as though letting go of the bracelet meant letting go of the last piece of her, and he wasn’t ready for that. Maybe he never would be.
Love, he thought sadly, was not a gift. It was a curse that pretended to be warmth. It tricked you into thinking it would save you, only to break you apart.
Weeks passed like this—days turning into nights, nights into days. His friends called sometimes, asking him to meet, to go out, and to laugh again. But he always said no, giving excuses that became less believable each time. His parents worried, though they didn’t always show it. He saw his mother watching him when she thought he wasn’t looking, her eyes full of quiet worry.
The truth was, he didn’t know how to go back to the world. The him that had existed before her—before love, before loss—was gone. And he didn’t know who he was supposed to be now.
He had dreams once. Big ones. He wanted to write, to publish, and to leave behind words that would live on after him. But now, even his dreams felt heavy. Every goal seemed pointless in the face of emptiness.
There were nights when he lay awake looking at the ceiling, asking himself questions that had no answers. Why did love come if it was only meant to leave? Why give someone the power to change your world, only to take it all away? Why build castles if they were going to fall?
He never found answers. Only silence.
It was on one of those nights, when the city was quiet and his room was dark except for the light from a lamp, which something changed— though he didn’t know it then.
He was walking back home from a bookstore, holding a bag of used books he had bought without thinking. He told himself he would read again, that maybe someone else’s words would fill the spaces his own could not.
As he turned into a narrow street, he heard laughter—light, nice, almost like the sound of wind chimes. He stopped, surprised by how alive it sounded in the quiet night. For a moment, he thought it was his imagination. But when he looked up, he saw a girl across the street.
She was standing under a flickering street light, talking excitedly to a seller, her hands moving as though words weren’t enough. She wore a simple outfit; her hair tied loosely, some strands falling to frame her face. He couldn’t see her clearly from where he was, but there was something about her—bright, brave, warm—that pulled at him in a way he couldn’t explain.
He didn’t stay. He kept walking, looking down, and feeling sad. But long after he got home, the sound of that laughter stayed with him. It echoed softly in the silence of his room, quiet but constant.
And though he didn’t know it yet, that was the first spark.
Suryansh lay in bed that night, looking at the ceiling, the bracelet still in his hand. His heart hurt the same way it always did. His life still felt like remains, dull and falling apart.
But somewhere in his mind, under the ruins, faint warmth stirred. Not enough to burn, not enough to change him yet—but enough to remind him that remains existed only because there had once been fire.
And sometimes, fire returned.
