# The Life Cloaked in Dust / Two The news arrived like a thief in the night—uninvited, unwelcome, but impossible to ignore once it had slipped past the threshold. Mohan heard it first from the milkman, who heard it from the sweeper's wife, who had overheard it at the tube well. By the time it reached him, the story had grown tendrils, sprouted whispers, become almost unrecognizable from its original form. But the core remained: someone had seen Ranu with a man. Not just seen. Seen them together, in a way that made the seeing matter. He was in the courtyard when the milkman mentioned it, casual as mentioning the weather. Mohan's hands went still on the rope he was coiling. The rope continued to exist between his fingers, but he no longer felt its texture. Around him, the morning proceeded as it always did—sparrows quarreling over grain, a child crying somewhere in a neighboring house, the distant sound of the water pump groaning to life. The world had not stopped. The world never stopped. That evening, he did not ask Ranu where she had been. They ate their rice and lentils in the way of long-married people—a kind of comfortable silence that had once felt like understanding but now felt like a wall made of words never spoken. She moved about the kitchen with the same efficiency as always, her palms darkened by turmeric and ginger, her sari pulled low across her hips in that way she had developed over the years. He watched her without appearing to watch. This was a skill he had perfected—the art of observation disguised as indifference. That night, when she slept beside him, he did not sleep. He lay in the darkness and listened to the sound of her breathing, trying to hear in it something that would explain or deny what the milkman had said. But breath reveals nothing. Breath is neutral. Breath is merely the body keeping itself alive. By morning, the story had spread further. Now it had a location: the old banyan tree by the canal. Now it had a time: afternoon, when the sun was high and fewer people ventured out. Now it had details that made it seem both more real and more absurd—details like the color of her dupatta, like the way they had stood close, like the man's hand on her elbow as if steadying her though no support was needed. Mohan went to work as he always did. He was a clerk in a government office, a position earned through examinations and confirmed through years of unremarkable competence. He moved papers from one desk to another. He filed forms. He stamped documents with a stamp that made a sound like a small death each time it came down. His hands knew these motions so well that his mind could wander elsewhere, and it did. He thought about the old banyan tree. He had passed it countless times. Its roots had erupted from the earth like the knuckles of an ancient, arthritic hand. Its canopy was so dense that beneath it, even in the brightest part of the day, there existed a kind of twilight. It was the sort of place where things might happen unobserved, or at least unobserved by anyone who mattered. That afternoon, on his way home, he took a different route. He told himself he had no particular purpose. He was simply curious, the way one might be curious about a pain that had announced itself in the body—one probes it, searching not for relief but for understanding. The banyan tree stood where it always had. The canal ran beside it, sluggish and brown. A woman sat on a stone near the water, feeding pieces of bread to the fish. Mohan recognized her by her posture before he recognized her face, and by then it was too late to turn away without making his turning away seem deliberate. It was Ranu, but not the Ranu he lived with. This Ranu sat with her back straight. This Ranu's face was unguarded. This Ranu had about her an air of waiting—as if she were a person in the midst of becoming someone, and the someone she was becoming had not yet fully arrived but was on her way. Mohan stood at a distance and watched. He was good at watching. It was perhaps the only skill that truly mattered in a life like his—the ability to see without being seen, to exist in the margins of other people's moments. After a while, a man approached. He was younger than Mohan, or perhaps not younger so much as younger in bearing. He carried himself as if the world had not yet had time to disappoint him thoroughly. When he sat beside Ranu, there was a space between them—proper, chaste, the space that law and custom demanded. But it was the space itself that was remarkable, the way it seemed to vibrate with what it contained rather than contained. They spoke, but Mohan could not hear the words. He had not expected to be able to hear them. What he was watching was not words but something quieter and more insistent: the way Ranu's mouth moved as she listened, the way she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a gesture so familiar to him that seeing it performed for someone else felt like a betrayal of his own memory. He turned and walked away before they noticed him. He had seen enough. Or rather, he had seen nothing that was not already known to him in some deeper part of his being—the part that had been waiting for this confirmation the way a plant waits for rain. When he reached home, Ranu was already there. She was grinding spices for the evening meal, and the sound of the grinding stone against the mortar was rhythmic and purposeful. She did not look at him as he entered, but she lifted her face slightly, as if acknowledging his presence in the way one acknowledges a sound—not with surprise, but with simple registration. "You're late," she said. Not a question. An observation. "The office was busy," he replied. This was not true, but he did not believe she was asking for truth. She was asking for the maintenance of the form that held them together, and he would give her that. He sat on the floor in the corner of the kitchen and watched her work. Her hands moved with a certainty that suggested they knew their purpose. The spices accumulated on the grinding stone—turmeric, coriander, fenugreek—their sharp smell rising into the humid air. "Mohan," she said, and he realized she had said his name more than once before he had heard it. "The girl next door is getting married." "Is she," he said. "Yes. The wedding is in a month. Radha is already picking flowers for her hair." He said nothing. He did not know the girl next door. He did not know Radha's intentions regarding flowers. These were things that happened in a life that he lived alongside but did not fully inhabit. "We should give her something," Ranu continued. "A gift. Everyone will give a gift." "Do what you think is right," he said. She stopped grinding. The stone stilled. In that moment, without the sound of her work to fill the space between them, the silence seemed to expand and become almost visible. He could see it, a shimmer in the air like heat rising from the ground. "I always do what I think is right," she said quietly. "That's the problem, isn't it? That I do what I think is right, and you do what you think is right, and somehow it is never the same right." He did not answer. He had no answer. The truth was that she was right, and the truth was that knowing this changed nothing. She returned to her grinding, and the sound resumed, filling the space as it always did. The spices emerged, darkened and fragrant, ready to flavor the lentils that would be their dinner. The world would continue. It always did. Even when a life was being lived beneath the weight of dust, even when truth and desire and duty stood in opposition to one another with no resolution in sight, even then—the world continued, and people made their dinners, and spoke of weddings, and maintained the forms that held them together like the soil holds the roots of a tree that has long forgotten the sun.

Only you know when we'll speak again. It's been so long now, and you've stopped talking to me. I ache to talk with you the way we used to—to hear you recite, to listen to the stories of your life. I miss your voice so much. I don't know when this silence of yours will end. I miss everything about you, terribly. Don't think that because I'm online, I'm wasting time. I barely come on—I pop in for a few minutes, scroll through the news feed and the papers, and I'm gone. You know as well as I do that I have no one else to really talk to, no real friends to speak of. Going day after day without talking to anyone—it's suffocating, truly. I talk with Apu sometimes, but only every few days, and she's the one who calls. With her, though, I'm not comfortable enough to really open up, so the conversations never go very deep. And at home, with Abbu and Ammu? We talk only when we have to. They don't have that easy warmth with any of us children. So I don't even know what to say to them anymore. And honestly, sitting with them for too long just makes me sad. Abbu only ever talks about the afterlife, about prayer, about all the world's troubles and problems—nothing good anywhere. Listen to that long enough and it wears you down. It feels like God sent us to this world for nothing but prayers and fasting, that we shouldn't do anything to find happiness here, that we can't enjoy anything, can't go anywhere—thousands of these things!

I love Abbu and Ammu, don't misunderstand me for a second. But no one wants to hear only negative things all the time. If the world is really that bad, how are we still alive? Shouldn't everything have fallen apart by now? Anyway. You were my one place to bring all my complaints, my only refuge—but now even you are gone. Does talking to you mean nothing but wasting time? For someone with no one to talk to, this world feels impossibly small, you know? It's not that I have absolutely no one. But I don't want to talk to just anyone. What did you do all day? I'm even afraid to ask you a simple question. If I ask anything, you'll say I'm demanding an account of your time. Don't be angry with me.

When all meaning drains from a man's life, what hope keeps him breathing, tell me? I never imagined two such bitter failures of love could befall me. To disbelieve in love, I'd have to turn away from my own loving heart—and I cannot do that. Yet when I struggle to believe, everything turns hollow. Whom should I trust? What should I believe in? When selfishness casts a longer shadow than love, doesn't love fade like sunset, just like that? How selfish can a person become? When you toy with someone, surely you think of such things? Why should you? If you did, the game itself would turn to dust, wouldn't it? You understand only pleasure—let others fall into the pit, let them die there, what's it to you?

My creator is useless, you know? I can do nothing for myself, so what can my creator do! That's why my creator is useless. From today on, I will believe my creator does not exist. What use is a creator who spent my whole life striking me down, taking from me again and again? No, I received nothing from my creator. Whatever has been given to me, I've merely made do with it. I've never been given anything of my choosing, so what good is a creator? When I must accept everything, when I have nothing in my hands, when everything has become a toy—when I myself have become a toy—what use is clinging to all these stale, worthless sentiments? Better to end it all, to shake myself clean. I have no creator, not when I'm falling, not when everything I love and desire is being snatched away. Why dress up as a beggar all over again? From today, I'll carry no morality, no ideals, no sentiment. From today, I will do whatever my heart desires, good or bad, right or wrong—I care only for myself. Besides myself, I know no one.

You may have four or five people close to you in this whole world, but I—I have no one but you who truly understands me. And now you're leaving? Perhaps I've said things that made no sense, and yet—surely you could have understood? You used to say that if you left, I couldn't possibly survive, that we couldn't bear to be apart for long, not really. So how are you here now, untouched by it all? Everything feels blurred to me, do you know? I can't see anything clearly anymore, can't make sense of anything in this world. It feels as though my whole life has been nothing but wasted time—all my experiences, all of it—and I've learned nothing, understood nothing. Am I truly so foolish? So stupid? Do I always gravitate toward the wrong people? But the right person never came into my life at all! I've made countless mistakes, or even when I haven't, I've blamed myself over and over, and still I've come to you, bowed before you. What else could I have done? You tell me—what would make you stay? How should I have lived for you to remain in my life?

Now I'm exhausted—worn down from clasping at your feet, at the feet of the person I love, of a friend, of family. Is it such a grave sin that I've tried to humble myself before everyone, that I've loved you all and wanted to keep you near? I want to love you—is that my fault, you tell me? Are you all so precious that I cannot bear to be alone, so I go begging at every door for shelter? Why do you judge me this way? All I've ever asked is to move forward together, to adjust and endure—and this became your greatest proof of my weakness? But if ever I turn my face from you all, if I step away, then what? Even if you lay out a thousand nets of love and tenderness, will you be able to bring me back from the path I've chosen? Let me tell you this much: when that time comes, none of you will have the power to reclaim me. Perhaps by then I won't even have the power to return to you myself.

My love for everything in this world is draining away. I'm becoming hollow, empty. Nothing feels bearable anymore. Such exhaustion, such distrust, such dread—it's all accumulating, piling up against everything, and I don't know if all my efforts will ever melt that mountain of ice. These days, I don't even recognize myself anymore! How could I? A person who has been deceived again and again, who has burned himself over and over—he inevitably becomes suspicious of his own self. No one forces you out of illusion, you know? This illusion, it's such a thing that once you're drowning in it, you don't want to climb out. Walking along the path, stumbling as you go, everything falls away. Your eyes grow dim, your vision fails, everything seems distant, everything becomes a blur. This whole life of mine now feels like a mirage—whatever I reach toward thinking it's real, whatever I try to touch, I find nothing. I've only been chasing shadows all this time. All around me is nothing but shadows, not a single living soul anywhere, no one at all beside me.

You're utterly cruel. You know I'm suffering, dying every moment, and you're enjoying it—knowing full well what you're doing. You know I'm weak for you, that it's impossible for me to be well without you, and that's exactly why you keep hurting me for your pleasure. You're not human. You're a… I'm suffocating to death—why won't you say anything? What's the point of this game? You're a… I'd strangle you right now if I could reach you, I'd beat you with both fists as much as I want, as long as I want, I'd grab all your hair in my hands and pull, hit you over and over… Why are you doing this to me? I'm going to die. Please, come close now, say something! I'll really die if you keep doing this. Please, you've gone far enough—can't you forgive me this once? I'm at your feet, whatever you say, however you want it, whatever you want—that's how it will be, I'll rise when you say rise, I'll sit when you say sit, and I'll never complain again, never. I'm dying, please, can't you understand? Don't hurt me anymore, please. I'll never do it again, never. I'll follow your every word to the letter. Forgive me, won't you?

Without you I have nothing, I am nothing, you are everything to me, my entire life is you. Without you, it's as if my breath is caught in my throat, and at any moment I could choke and die. Please, forgive me, I'm begging at your feet, I'll do whatever you ask, I'll stay at your feet, I'll carry you in my heart all my life, I'll keep you happy, I'll keep you at peace, I'll do everything it takes to make you smile! Please, forgive me now, this has gone on too long, I'm dying, please, can't you understand me even a little? You can kill me, come ahead and do it, punish me however you like, but please don't keep silent, don't withhold your love, don't cut off contact, don't keep pushing me away and torturing me to death every single moment! I'll cherish you so much, I'll care for you so tenderly, I'll do whatever you want from now on. Please, I'm dying. Please?

My sister, really, she only calls to pile worry onto me. I don't even want to answer, but how can I escape? One day, two days, three days? Eventually I have to pick up anyway, don't I? And when I do, nothing but nonsense pours out of that phone. She calls just to steal my sleep with her anxieties. Nothing brings me joy anymore. The pressure from all sides is crushing—I think I'll die from it. And you, you disappeared exactly when I needed you. What am I supposed to do now? Where can I go? Who can I turn to? My sister brought up marriage again today, asking me for the hundredth time if I'm in love with anyone. What do I say? If I say yes, I'd have to bring him to meet them. If I say no, they'll corner me and pressure me into marriage. How many times can a person get married? I've already married someone in my heart, and he's made it clear he'll never accept me as his wife, never will. I'm not worthy of loving anyone else, and besides, I can't even get my career off the ground.

From every side they're crushing me—where am I supposed to go? Die? I'll get a job eventually, I'm studying after all, so even if it takes a while, a job will come, but how do I survive all this pressure in the meantime? I'll never marry anyone now, never know love. So how am I supposed to bear all this at once? The point is, where do I go, what do I do, where can I find even a moment's peace? My brother-in-law rejects me, my family keeps hounding me about marriage and jobs, so where am I supposed to go now? My sister told me today: what's wrong with you? You can't even fall in love! As if! Is love something you go hunting for? Am I supposed to go around grabbing men one by one and say, "Will you love me? Do you like me? Will you marry me?" Is that what I'm supposed to do? And meanwhile, my heart's in pieces—what am I supposed to do with that? I never thought I'd end up in such a catastrophe with myself. Is marriage all there is to life? But no—as long as I'm single, everyone around me will keep hounding me about marriage day in and day out. I have to get away from them as fast as I can, find any job at all, or they'll worry me to death.

Right now, I feel like I should just leave this world altogether. You all got married, didn't you? You're all so happy, aren't you? You quarrel in your happiness, you search for peace outside in your happiness. I'm sick of this endless turmoil, and you—you torment me, hurting me the same way every single day. God, do something, take me away if you can't do anything else. Sister told me today to pray five times and ask God for what I need. What do I need? A husband, a job? Anything else? If I ask them what I should want, they'd probably bring the whole world and lay it at my feet saying, "Here, take it all!"—hand me a list and sit me down on the prayer mat as if God were sitting there with Aladdin's lamp in hand, ready to grant my wish the moment I ask! They think that if you just ask God without lifting a finger, you'll get everything! What extraordinary people they all are, every single one of them!

My faith in God, my devotion to Him—these are matters of the heart. I'm a good person, honest and true, and I do what I do from genuine conviction. Why should I be forced to pray just because they demand it? Their hypocrisy, their show-off rituals—they don't appeal to me. I study, I do what needs doing, and if something is meant to happen, it will; if not, I'll accept whatever comes. What else can I do? All this worrying exhausts me, and as for marriage, love—forget it! The one I love is everything to me now, nothing else will enter my mind. There's no point forcing anything. I've done so many things against myself until now, lived according to others' wishes, but not anymore. From now on, I'll do what I want. I can't keep living for others' approval. But first, I have to get out of here, escape this dark room. Then I can think about other things. Please, just say something—I'm going mad with anxiety! Don't add to my burden. Here I am, unable to finish my syllabus, and I haven't slept a single night because of it. If the exams are in March, I'll fail again!

What am I supposed to do? I study all day long, I abandon everything and sit with my books from morning to night, and my hands ache, my feet ache, my stomach, my back—everything hurts! Today I couldn't study at all because of my back pain, I rest and then study again and study again, but nothing ever finishes! Where does all this studying come from, for God's sake! And my sister—she's become an absolute pest, calling me on the phone constantly and driving me up the wall! She was born just to torment me. She's a walking bundle of worry! What happens if someone doesn't get married? What happens if someone doesn't find a job? Why must I carry all these anxieties on my head every single moment! Where do I go for some peace? What are they thinking? They want to control me, make me dance to their tune always. But I won't give them the satisfaction. I'll make my own decisions, let all their opinions go straight to the trash. First it's marriage, then it's a job—they're hounding me about it all. Once that's settled, they'll start again: have children, have children. And it'll never end, just one thing after another in this endless cycle...

What a strange life everyone is racing through. Born, educated, employed, married, children begotten, then chasing after those children—this is how everyone goes, and since everyone goes this way, I too must do all these things on schedule, on time, in the proper order. I cannot live life as I wish, at my own pace, by my own rules—what a dreadful thing! You can imagine how life hurtles forward like a storm! Yet this speed is not something we notice. One thing follows another, each holding the hand of the last, evolving endlessly. Which means even if I sit still with folded hands, life will not pause for me for a single moment. So what's the point? What's this endless rush about? And even if I do run—can I ever get ahead of life itself? Has anyone ever managed it? Curse it all! All these pointless tasks, one after another, must be done, or else there's no progress in life! Who planted this idea in our heads? Do we even remember anymore, amidst all this busyness, all this running, that our life is slipping away?

When that final day of exhaustion arrives, life itself will be erased—there will be no living then! Better not to live at all. Let me start living a few days later than everyone else! First, let me gather myself, stand on my own feet, make something of myself—then let come what may. Even if I must bow to others' words today, let me create at least one day in my life when no one will have the nerve to force me into anything, when I can chart my own course, shape my life exactly as I wish. I've walked long enough to the tune of others' words, by others' desires. Now let me live a little by myself, without measuring myself against anyone. Instead of racing against others, let this race be only with myself. I'm growing weary, so weary of all this running. I'm grasping at nothing, yet still I run. If I keep running like this, I'll never arrive anywhere. Come what may, if I keep doing everything at others' behest, I'll never truly live my own life, not ever.

The truth is, no one takes responsibility for anyone else—I must shoulder my own burden, no one will do it for me. What I must endure, I will endure alone for a lifetime. My wounds, my blows, my gains, my losses—who else but I will live with them in the end? So why take everyone's words so seriously? The pace at which I move, the purpose I chase—I must walk that path in my own way. No one else can do my walking for me. And if everything remains a mess anyway, if I never get the life I want, so be it. What I need to do now is close my ears to everyone's chatter, let them say what they will, wish what they wish—I'll go my own way still. It's strange, really—they won't take responsibility, yet they keep pressing, keep weighing in. When everything is mine to manage, when all responsibility falls on me alone, what are they even here for? And why do I keep surrendering my peace to their words? If I fail at something, I'm the one who suffers for it, not them—yet how casually, how easily they each carry on as if my struggles are eating at their own bread, as if they're the ones losing sleep over my troubles! Where did all this sudden concern for me come from?

If I don't get a job, if I don't get married, then they'll have to bear the weight of me, drag me along as an extra burden—that's the real fear underneath it all. But they'll never say it straight; they'll dress it up in different words, wear a different mask. I won't depend on anyone anyway. Even now, no one helps me except Mother and Father, and I don't ask anyone for anything. So why all this extra anxiety? I can take care of myself, and then no one will have to worry about me. In time, they'll understand—I can manage on my own. They're afraid now, worried that I'll become a weight around their necks, and that's why they're saying these things. They don't understand: if I can take my own responsibility, I survive. I have no desire to tie myself around anyone's neck, to become a burden on anyone's head, to hang myself from anyone's shoulders. I can steer myself alone. I have thoughts about my own life, my own future. If no one else carries that extra worry, they'll be better off for it.

But this, too, is good—I've come to understand them now, who they really are. How much each of them truly cares about me, what each one really thinks beneath their wish for my welfare—I see it all now. And knowing this is strangely liberating. I could have spent the rest of my life under a false belief that everyone loves me deeply, that they all care—but that delusion is gone now. Now I can think about myself slowly, carefully. I can forge my own path, because I have nothing holding me back. I am alone—and that is my greatest fortune, my only asset.

So you want me to calm down? Stop this restlessness, this madness? Very well. I've done enough of it anyway. To a man for whom my every word is worthless, mere lunacy, who sees me as nothing but a mountain of anxious, scattered thoughts—let him say no more. You, all of you, want me to change. What kind of change? That I should go silent? That I should become someone behind a mask, someone whose inner world remains hidden? So hidden that no one ever finds out what's inside? Once they know what's inside, even friends become hunters! I've conducted myself like a drunkard all this while. Babbled nonsense to myself, to you, about you, to you. Never did I think to wonder—the person everyone understands doesn't need to have everything explained this way. The one who pretends to sleep even while awake, who doesn't really want to hear what I'm saying at all. No matter what I tell him, it will never reach his heart. From now on, I'll stay silent. Even if my insides churn and shatter, I will never let it show outside again.

Suddenly, swept away in the current of love, I lost myself—even my own shadow began to terrify me, and I've been fleeing from myself, from my own shadow, ever since. Why is this happening? Because I'm afraid to face myself. If I faced myself, I would know—I'm not who I was before, how much I've changed without knowing it, everything would become clear and unbearable, and I cannot accept this truth: I am no longer the person I was. That calm, unhurried, thoughtful, always wakeful man who was conscious of his place in the world—he no longer exists. I've lost everything inside me over these days, all that lay dormant or awakened has begun to slip away somewhere. But there will be no more mistakes now. Now everything is coming back under my control. I'll lock it all away in this chest and hide myself too, behind a mask. Without you, I cannot live; I cannot bear to leave you; without talking to you, I suffocate; I love you terribly, and even with my eyes closed you come to me; every moment, all my consciousness is filled with you; it aches so much without you; I cannot belong to anyone else; I cannot go anywhere or leave this world. I will never speak such madness, such restlessness to you again. Everything will happen inside me now, only inside.

Love alone is not enough; you must nurture it. When a relationship begins, you cannot yet fathom how difficult the path ahead will be. A relationship simply happens, but tending to it, caring for it—that often feels beyond one's reach. I came into your life with an empty box, I suppose, your box bound to me, mine to you. When I open your box, I find your loves still so vivid, so alive, yet I have filled mine only with complaints and reproaches, with words upon words. How is this possible? I loved you more, didn't I? My box should have been the heavier one. I was supposed to fill your world with purity, yet beneath the weight of my grievances, my expectations, my mountains of words, that fragile purity has been buried. Now love cannot be found—only stone remains. I have torn through your heart terribly, haven't I? Forgive me. For me, love meant only love itself, and to make you understand this simple thing, I have wandered so many unknown paths, turned through so many secret passages of your mind, day after day, and yet I no longer recognize myself. I did not notice when you arrived in my heart. I felt nothing as you pierced through the great wall of my heart and slipped into its innermost chamber.

Had I noticed, perhaps I would have stopped you at the threshold and said: Stay there, do not try to enter further—there is nowhere else left to go. I did not lock myself away, you entered deep within, and now you know everything of mine, everything of yours and me together. Now you know my weakness, and so you wound me at your pleasure, you strike as you will, do whatever your heart desires, and I cannot protest, cannot stop you, cannot cast you out or drive you away. Or even if I were to throw you out and bolt the front door shut, what good would it do? A person who has known the inside of another's heart knows it forever—from any distance, at any moment, they can strike. I know this, and perhaps it is your greatest weapon. When one person establishes complete dominion over another's heart, nothing else holds any power there. Today I understand how entirely you have become my center—my whole world is only you, surrounding me, the focal point of every thought. You have built such a vast, such a towering wall of your love around me that I cannot see beyond it, cannot look past it to anything else. The wall is so high I could never climb over it. My inner world, my outer world—everything is surrounded by you and you alone. If this is emotion, then I want to escape it. Every day I try so hard to shake off these feelings, to glimpse the world of reality beyond them, yet somehow this emotion has intertwined with my blood so utterly that it cannot be separated, no matter what I do.

Now I cannot tell what is me and what is merely emotion. How did this happen? Did I ask too much of you—ask you to be everything when you were only one? Yet you took all of me, everything, so completely that nothing of myself remains within me anymore. I am not inside myself; I am here, outside, and what is left feels like nothing but a shell. My true self departed to you long ago. Since you have claimed all of me entirely, why did you leave behind only this garment, only this hollow shell? What am I to do with this empty shell you've abandoned except arrange it carefully, piece by piece? No one takes such a lifeless, ashen, decrepit shell to decorate their home! What good am I to anyone? What use is a shell without a soul? I cannot make myself do anything anymore, you understand? These days my heart has withdrawn from everything; everything seems strangely, impossibly meaningless. Who would want a shell bereft of soul? Tell me—my inside is dead. If only you could know, even once, what agony it is to carry this corpse of a shell, to drag it with me wherever I go.

Love is a rare thing in my life—the kind you might search a thousand lifetimes and never find. Such treasure. I never knew it existed; I always laughed away the feelings of love when others spoke of them. And now look at me—so utterly drained, so helpless, undone by mere feeling. Where did this love snatch me from, and where has it flung me? A single experience, and my entire life has been rewritten. Now I understand how truly impoverished a person becomes when they have lost the one they love, don't you think? Nothing glitters for me anymore. All those things that once drew me in—they have all become suddenly, inexplicably hollow. How can I distract myself? In what delusion can I lose myself? All the enchantment I once felt toward the world has evaporated! I never knew, not like this, how agonizing it is to simply endure life out of obligation. Why does life always play such cruel games with me? Since childhood, one wager after another—as if I've been clinging to life itself while it runs away from me. If there is no mind within the mind, then there is no question of using it. But my mind is gone—I have none left—and still I cannot surrender this shell.

It's so easy to say, isn't it? I'll let go, I'll forget, it doesn't matter to me, I can live without you—what's the big deal, right? Where did all those strange ways of mine disappear to? They're not in me anymore! There's no voice inside saying this is no concern of mine. So many people crowd around me, yet my eyes search only for you. Voices come from all sides, yet my ears hunt only for your voice, like a madman sifting through them all, hoping that one of them might be you. You can't be replaced. Not everything in life has a replacement. You know, I used to think it was easy for everyone to be happy in their lives. Now I understand—buying a smile for your own lips is the costliest and hardest thing of all. Sometimes, even a whole lifetime isn't enough to purchase that small, simple smile, do you know that? The price of that pure, honest, untainted smile is far, far greater than this life itself.

Now it seems the world is so heavy, unfit to live in without you. My life's very purpose has vanished—what will become of me by merely existing? All the experiences I'd gathered in life, I thought of them as my riches, drew strength from them to keep living. Yet today they seem so useless, so groundless. Today I think—had love never come, at least I could have lived on! What sort of life is this, to have everything slip through my fingers, everything but that one vessel. You are my dearest friend, the sole kin of my soul, my very life, the pupil of my eye, my cherished flower, the garland around my neck, the bangles on my wrists and the bells in my ears, the sleep in my eyes, my lazy afternoons, the end of my nights, the only companion on my path, my love, the life within my life. All this time I couldn't accept this loss, so I raved like a madman. But now I understand the measure of what I've lost—no matter how much I give, I can never pay the price of what's gone. Come back to me. Come home. Every single thing in your house waits only for you.

Why do you speak now of love in all these ways you never spoke of before? Especially not before we became what we are? If you had, I would never have made the mistake of loving someone like you. Do you know why? Because hearing those words of yours fills me with such disgust for myself. Perhaps nothing you write is written with any thought at all. Just as the blame for loving you was never yours to carry, so too this understanding I've come to—that you will never truly be mine, that I must erase everything from my memory—I hope I needn't learn even that from you. It happens often, you know: show someone a path, and that very person pushes them down it! You're only human after all, so why did I go about thinking of you as an angel? That's my greatest fault. When a mother teaches us language, and we in turn teach that mother the lessons of life, how to raise a child, what does the mother have left to say? The one who taught you love, who showed you the way to love—you teach them to forget, to accept, to adjust! Isn't it strange? Tell me, isn't it?

There's so much more I could teach you, things perhaps you don't know. Will you learn from me? I don't think you ever will. As I said, I know many things, but why would you assume that whenever I teach you, I'll always hold you close and bind you to the lessons? There are so many ways to teach, so many paths by which to show the way of love. Even if you don't wish it, mark my words—one day you'll learn it all the same. Just as I've had to learn love's lessons from you, so too will you learn many other things as time carries you along. If you ever knew how much your words wound me, how they make me bleed, perhaps then you'd understand. But above all this: you have no right to love someone from a distance and give them peace. A person's smallness becomes clear only when they draw blood from the small.