# The Manuscript of Departure The room smelled of old paper and something else—perhaps the ghost of jasmine that had faded decades ago. Chitra stood by the window, holding the manuscript as if it might dissolve in her hands. The pages were yellowed, their edges curled like the fingers of someone long asleep. "You found it," her mother said. It was not a question. "In the attic. Behind the water tank." Chitra's voice was thin, uncertain. "I didn't know Father had written anything." Her mother sat down slowly, as people do when they carry the weight of old silences. Outside, the street had begun its evening song—children calling to one another, a vendor's bell, the distant rumble of a bus. The world indifferent to what lived in this room. "He wrote it before you were born," her mother said. "Before he became what he became." Chitra opened the first page. The handwriting was careful, almost anxious—each letter placed as if the writer feared they might escape. The title was simple: The Day I Left. "Does it say where?" Chitra asked. "Read it." And so Chitra began to read, there by the window where the light was failing. As the words unfolded, her father emerged—not the man who had raised her with his silences and his newspaper, but someone else entirely. A young man, restless. A young man who had dreamed of trains and distant cities. A young man who had written, in a careful hand: I am leaving today, though I do not know how to leave. The house is still sleeping. Mother has left the lamp on in the hallway. I can hear Father's breathing from the next room—steady, certain, the breath of a man who has never questioned his own existence. The ticket is in my pocket. Calcutta to Darjeeling. Such a small distance, and yet it feels like the edge of the world. I have left a letter on the table. A letter full of lies about opportunity and independence and things I do not understand myself. The truth is simpler and more terrible: I cannot stay. The walls have grown too narrow. The sky too small. Every morning I wake and feel the weight of their expectations like a stone on my chest, and I cannot breathe. Who will I be in Darjeeling? Perhaps I will become someone else entirely. Perhaps I will become myself. Chitra looked up. Her mother was watching the darkening street. "Did he go?" Chitra asked, though she already knew the answer. Her father was here. He had always been here. "He stood at the station with his ticket," her mother said. "The train was waiting. He could see it—the great black engine, the open doors like mouths ready to swallow him. And then..." She paused. The silence in the room deepened. "Then I came," her mother continued quietly. "Your grandmother had told me where to find him. I was sixteen years old, and I had never disobeyed my family for anything. But I came. I stood on that platform in the early morning, and I said his name." Chitra turned the page. The writing changed here—it became hurried, almost frantic: She is here. She called my name. I did not know her voice could sound like that—like the answer to a question I had not yet asked. The train is leaving. I can hear the whistle. I am choosing to stay. The manuscript ended there. The pages that followed were blank, as if the writer had no further need for words. Chitra held the manuscript against her chest. Outside, the evening had fully arrived. The street lights flickered on, one by one, and the vendor's bell grew fainter as he made his way home. "Why didn't he tell me?" Chitra asked. "Why didn't he finish it?" Her mother stood and looked at her daughter—really looked at her, as if seeing her for the first time. "Because," she said, "once you choose to stay, there is nothing more to write. The story becomes your life. And that, my dear, is not something you can put into words." Chitra placed the manuscript on the table between them. In the lamplight, the pages seemed almost luminous, as if they held some quality of light that the world outside could not reach. She thought of her father, moving through the house in his quiet way. She thought of all the small choices he had made after that morning—to come to breakfast, to smile at his wife, to play with his daughter, to live. She understood, in that moment, that every life contains a departure it never takes. And perhaps, she thought, perhaps that is the most human thing of all. "Tell me about the train," Chitra said. "Tell me everything." And her mother began to speak, telling stories that had lived in silence for so long, while the night deepened around them, and the manuscript waited on the table, its final pages still blank, still full of possibility.

April 11, 2026 1 min read By Sushanta Paul

Tell me, how many people can one reach, in those final moments before death?

People take their own lives for the smallest of reasons, don't they? I've kept some letters over the past three years—each person who wrote them chose death for a different cause, but there's something remarkable about it...each letter bears its own singular truth.

It's astonishing, really. A little girl ended her life simply because her parents were divorcing. Just two lines of a note, that's all—"Why think so much about life? Is life itself not still?" That was it! What a strangely mature way of seeing the world, that child possessed.

A young man couldn't bear the shame of despair or failure, so he chose death instead. The reason is plain enough to see. Those who lost their fascination with life and picked the path of suicide—their number is not small; yet each of them was sufficiently wealthy. And then there are the dead who never had the one they loved, and so deemed life worthless—their count is hardly insignificant either.

Truly, life is merely an uncertain gift from God. Mystery lies folded within its every layer. I don't want to tell anyone in this world the real reason I'm leaving. In this final letter, you will never quite grasp the true cause of my death—I've written it so you cannot. From today on, you will never find me again.

Time feels so strange, bound as it is by invisible chains! Did I ever manage to believe in myself? This harsh truth alone transformed me into a weak person.

I remember—the first letter I gave you was not one of love, but of departure. Yet somehow, through regular contact with you, I suddenly began to write. Without even thinking how relevant any of this was to me, I fell into your deep love. Do you know, in those days I felt like the most beautiful-hearted person alive—every time I touched you with my deepest feelings.

Clearly, I lack the merit to truly have you in reality. With some measure of firm self-assurance, I savor the joy of creation.

I know one perfect definition of beauty—I learned it when I touched you. In your embrace, I imagined myself a deeply happy person. Was it all a mistake? It doesn't pain me to think—how much longer I might have seen the light! The pain comes only from this: I will never write again.

In life, certain decisions must be made against our own wishes—perhaps the greatest decision of all: to end it.

I raised both my hands before God's throne and asked for peace, and in return—did I not receive love instead?

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