# The Cloud of Dead Faith The evening had drawn a veil over the city. Dust and smoke hung in the air like the breath of some weary creature, and the streets had begun their nightly surrender—shopkeepers pulling down their shutters with the resignation of men closing the lids on coffins. Narendra sat in his small room on the third floor of a boarding house, watching the light drain from the sky. He hadn't moved in hours. A cup of tea, cold now, sat untouched beside him. The notebook lay open on his lap—fifty pages, perhaps more, filled with his careful handwriting. Poetry, mostly. The kind that no one reads. He had brought the notebook to show Dr. Banerjee, his old professor. That was the plan. That had been the plan for three weeks, ever since he'd mustered the courage to knock on the old man's door. But when he finally did—last Tuesday, at four in the afternoon—Dr. Banerjee had listened to three poems, nodded slowly, and said something that Narendra had been unable to unhear since. "These are competent," the professor had said. "But competence, my boy, is the graveyard where real ambition goes to die." The words had burrowed into him like insects into fruit. He'd sat there, notebook in hand, waiting for something more—a qualification, a hint of encouragement, even a gentle lie. But Dr. Banerjee had only returned to his reading, a signal that the audience was over. Now, watching the city collapse into darkness, Narendra understood something he'd been running from for years. His belief in himself—the fragile, trembling thing he'd nurtured since childhood—was not a living creature. It was already dead. What he'd been carrying around was just the cloud it left behind: shadow and weight, but no substance. A knock at the door startled him. It was his landlady's son, a boy of twelve, with a telegram. Narendra's hands trembled as he opened it. *Father gravely ill. Come home at once. —Mother* He read it twice. The words seemed to belong to someone else's life. Home was a village he hadn't visited in five years. Home was his mother, whom he'd promised great things. Home was a place where, he suddenly understood, he would have to stop pretending. He packed his bag in the dark, not bothering to light the lamp. The notebook he left behind, face-down on the table. Let it gather dust with all the other failures. As he descended the stairs, he felt something break loose inside him—not the sharp pain of loss, but rather the strange, almost unbearable relief of a weight being set down. The night train would leave at midnight. He had time. He sat in the station waiting room, watching other travelers—each of them bound for somewhere else, someone else, carrying their own dead faiths like passengers no longer welcome but unable to leave. When the train finally appeared, materializing out of the darkness like a phantom, Narendra picked up his bag and moved toward it. He didn't look back at the city. He had learned, at last, the price of looking back. The cloud of dead faith, he thought, rises and spreads and covers everything—until you learn to simply walk beneath it. Not through it. Beneath it. There was no crossing over. There was only acceptance, and the long, difficult road home.

# Sometimes I Ask Myself

Sometimes I ask myself: if I were in your place, what would I have done? Could I have endured it? How do you bear me? How much longer will you?—”For as long as dead faiths drift like scattered clouds”… isn’t that so?

“People are such misers with their lives. They weave beautiful mysteries and complications into existence, but won’t easily share them with anyone. They won’t grant others the joy of unveiling the secret”—I found these words on some page of your favorite book.

I reach out to touch you and often find myself searching for stories. After a while, I find them—brilliant flashes of lightning in the body of the story—and immediately I try to capture it with pen. But I still don’t know how much of your true beauty I’ve managed to reveal in that writing. Yet I think of you intensely. My body is so tired today! Lying in bed searching for stories has become a beloved way to pass the time.

Sometimes I stare at your eyes in wonder, thinking… How happy are you, how content?—If only I could tell you clearly about happiness, about pain and sorrow… then so many true things about you could be easily understood.

Isn’t human expression such a simple thing?—How easily one can express anger and affection, joy, the language of tears. Am I then not yet a true human being?

The light in Rahat’s eyes suddenly dimmed… Isn’t she too unhappy in married life? These small torments of relationship, jealousy—they can’t be understood that way. Only happiness or despair, plainly expressed, can be understood. Even a woman of such wisdom cannot balance the equation of domestic life.

In any case, Rahat has such handsome features, an enchanting sweetness blooms on her face, those mysterious eyes ringed by perfect restraint gleam and glow. Anna Karenina’s lover surely wasn’t more beautiful than her?—Actually, excessive love suits her well. She knows how to teach love… yet perhaps she’s not the kind of person meant to be bound by domesticity.

“How much have you learned to understand me?”—In time’s dictionary, is everything that persists true? Some terrible danger lies hidden somewhere. That demon, that ogre, might suddenly possess our souls one day, proclaiming calamity in our enchanted bond, then vanishing in an instant… The trusted companion’s fierce promise; white birds disappear at last—no one understands the language of sorrow, resentment, and pain.

Expectations grow in her mind. A wooden pencil lies abandoned in a corner, broken fragments of time, a wet towel… At her door rests a face pressed down, a voice choked with tears, the silence of death settling all around.

Are you unhappy?—It’s almost impossible to explain the devouring of one’s own beauty.

I hold your body deeply; if once you pulled me toward you fiercely, you’d see—my hands and forehead are damp, my chest warm! Holding your hands tight, I lie curled up against you—the window by the head is slightly open, a clouded sky outside, very murky light coming through; you didn’t turn to look at me even once—that pain struck my chest violently, yet a moment later it faded.

Your hands at my waist, straining to bind me with your breath—it weakens me. Your warm breath made my hair shift slightly. In one long kiss, as if my entire body went numb!

That day you loved me impossibly. Why won’t you understand—this isn’t some ordinary past we can avoid or forget. There’s no chance anymore to sustain our physical distance—I can’t go on like this… You said this and held me tightly against your chest for a long time.

So much worry… When will I be free from the pain of not having you near? Yet you believe… I never tried.

After many days, I sat beside you, our bodies touching…

I finished the last sip of tea and found peace in it. The wind blows cold, the sky arranges itself for rain; I rested my head gently on your shoulder—all of it imagined! And then, sleep… I had borrowed a lot of sleep from this week.

My vision has grown dim, and perhaps our distance too moves like silence, touching us every night. The pain grows! Yet, I dream of a beautiful time!

Even after so many years, the things I wrote, saved on your wall—how carefully you’ve kept them. You searched for me across several notifications, only me… nobody answered. It still amazes me to think about it, that you searched for me so openly! You were always such a strange person; your capacity for love isn’t easy to comprehend. Tell me, are you still the way you were?

Some time ago, I came across your work in an anthology of contemporary poets that was published locally, and the poems—how alive they are! Your writing has become even more vibrant; your name in bold letters… your photograph, a brief biography and the poems. There was a time when you hesitated so much about getting a book printed. But today, seeing your words gleam on the pages of a book fills me with such joy. I always wanted your book to come out, you know.

Today I have everything, you see… except you. You’re nowhere… it aches terribly! Outside, the wind rages, the rain falls sharp as needles… a cigarette wouldn’t be unwelcome.

I sat in the dim darkness and drew on a cigarette without effort. The way you never approved of my smoking—I only understood that much later. Once, looking at me with laughing eyes, you said—by doing all this, are you trying to keep everything normal? In this moment, that smile of yours, tinged with purity, suddenly floated before my eyes! Oh, there was such tenderness in you… do you still have it?

Tell me—did I leave your life at the right time?