# The Rain Stops Falling The rain doesn't fall anymore. It's been three months since water touched the earth. The wells have gone silent. The rivers have turned to dust, their beds cracked like old skin. What was once a symphony of monsoons has become a memory—something people speak of in whispers, as if sound itself might summon what has been lost. The old woman sits on the veranda each morning, her weathered hands folded in her lap. She watches the sky with the patience of someone who has learned that waiting is sometimes all we have. Her name is Malini, though no one calls her that anymore. They simply say "the old woman from the house by the dried-up tank." "It will come," she tells her grandson, Ravi, when he asks her why she sits there. "The rain always comes back." But Ravi is sixteen, and he no longer believes in the guarantees of nature. He has seen the crops fail. He has watched his father's shoulders bend lower each day beneath the weight of debt. He has heard his mother weeping in the darkness, when she thought everyone was asleep. "How can you know?" he asks her, not unkindly. She turns to look at him then, and her eyes hold something he cannot name—not quite hope, not quite resignation. "Because I have lived long enough to know that the world forgets nothing. Even silence is a kind of memory." The town has begun to empty. Families load their belongings onto carts and wagons, heading toward the cities, toward the factories, toward lives they imagine will be less brutal than this slow starvation. The schoolhouse has closed. The temple sees fewer visitors each week. Even the merchant who used to sit by the crossroads, selling sugarcane and coconut water, has moved on. But Malini remains. Ravi sits beside her one afternoon, drawn by something he cannot quite explain. Perhaps it is the stubbornness he sees in her posture, the refusal in her silence. Perhaps it is because his grandmother is the only person he knows who has not yet surrendered. "Tell me something," he says. "Tell me about the old rains. The ones you remember." She smiles then—a smile that transforms her face, erasing years. "Which rains?" she asks. "There have been so many." She tells him about the monsoon when she was a girl, when the rain fell so heavily that the entire village seemed to dissolve into water and sky. She tells him about the year she was married, when the rains came late but so abundantly that the rice fields turned emerald overnight. She tells him about the rains that fell during the drought of 1943, thin and inadequate, but still—still—they came. "I learned something," she says, her voice growing quieter, "from each season. I learned that rain is not a promise. The earth cannot demand. We can only open ourselves to receive, and accept what comes." Ravi listens, but her words feel like poetry spoken to a dying man—beautiful, but unable to save him. Days pass. The heat becomes unbearable. The sky stretches out above them, vast and indifferent, a dome of pale, harsh blue. The earth beneath their feet is like stone. Dust rises with every step, coating everything—clothes, skin, hair, the inside of mouths. One morning, Ravi wakes to find that his grandmother has not come down from her room. He climbs the stairs slowly, knowing what he will find, yet hoping anyway. She lies on her bed, peaceful, her hands folded across her chest as if she has only fallen asleep. The window beside her stands open, facing the sky. There is no note, no explanation. Only the silence of her absence. At the funeral, few people come. Those who remain in the village gather out of obligation rather than affection. Ravi stands apart, watching the smoke rise from the pyre and dissolve into the merciless sky. That night, unable to sleep, he walks to the veranda where his grandmother spent her mornings. He sits in her place and looks out at the town—this town that seems to be slowly erasing itself. He thinks about her words, about rain, about memory, about the strange faith that allows one human being to sit quietly, day after day, asking nothing of the world except perhaps to endure alongside it. The darkness is complete and suffocating. No stars are visible through the dust that has risen and settled in the upper atmosphere. The darkness tastes of ash. Ravi closes his eyes. And then—so faintly he almost misses it, so quietly that he wonders if he is imagining—he hears a sound. A whisper against the dust. A kiss upon the earth. Rain. Not heavy. Not the violent, joyous downpour that the land desperately needs. Just a thin, hesitant murmur, as if the sky itself has forgotten how to speak and is trying to remember. Ravi stands. He steps forward, away from the shelter of the veranda, and lets the drops touch his face. They are cool and real, and they carry with them something like a benediction. The rain does not fall abundantly. It does not transform the landscape. In the morning, the earth will still be dry, the wells still empty, the town still dying. But for this moment, for this brief and fragile now, the heavens have remembered. Ravi opens his mouth and tastes the rain on his tongue. And for reasons he cannot explain, he begins to weep—not from despair, but from something his grandmother understood, something she tried to teach him. Not hope, perhaps. But not surrender either. Something else entirely. The rain continues, soft and uncertain, like a prayer whispered by someone who has almost forgotten the words.

I don't remember the date, or perhaps I don't wish to speak of it. The night before, I'd fought with Mother over something, refused to eat, and fallen asleep in anger. The morning I woke, I left the house without a word. My heart was heavy—I needed to get out, so I went to meet friends. I got into an auto. We'd gone only a short distance when a vehicle came from behind and hit us. In that instant, before my eyes could even blink, I was thrown from the road. That moment—I felt my entire skeleton crumble to dust. It must have been half past eight in the morning.

They took me to the General Hospital. After two days of tests, the doctors ran an X-ray and discovered that two vertebrae in my lower spine had fractured. Blood had clotted throughout my entire back. My family was told that without immediate surgery, my spine would gradually curve, and the chances of my ever walking again were slim. From the General Hospital, I was transferred to PG. But the surgery would be delayed there, so they admitted me to Bangladesh Specialized Hospital. The very next day after admission was set for the operation. Every hour that passed increased the risk that one side of my body could become completely paralyzed. The doctors asked my parents to prepare themselves mentally for the worst.

At nine in the morning, they wheeled me into the operating theater. Right up to that moment, I couldn't quiet my mind—one thought kept hammering at me: *Will I be able to walk after this?* The surgery required massive blood transfusions. My brother searched like a madman for blood donors. I lay there thinking: *I've spent my whole life running about for others, and yet not a single person came forward with a bag of blood for me.* My brother sat on the road outside the hospital for hours, helpless and lost. After searching desperately, one of his friends finally found a donor. The man who gave me blood was a stranger—I'd never seen him before. Isn't that how it always is? In our darkest hours, salvation comes from those we don't know. And those we do know? They're nowhere to be found. Though it's also possible—maybe if I hadn't helped others all those years, God wouldn't have sent that blood donor to save me.

It was Ramadan. My parents fasted from dawn to dusk and spent their days at the hospital. I was taken to the operating room in the morning and brought out at five in the evening. After iftar, they brought me back to my bed. The day they discharged me from the hospital and wheeled me out in a wheelchair, I couldn't bear to look at my mother's face. Her eyes were overflowing with tears as she gazed at me. I lay in that bed for four straight months. Those four months taught me what it means to be unable to walk—the suffering of those whom we call disabled. You cannot truly understand the pain of sickness unless you have been sick yourself. My throat was damaged, and for seven consecutive days I couldn't speak a single word. Until then, I had no idea how much agony silence could bring. Lying in that hospital bed, I thought: *There is no greater torment in this world than lying here broken and ill.*

# The Fall

One day I was seized with terrible thirst. Mother wasn’t in the room. I called for her again and again, but she didn’t hear. I tried to fetch a glass of water from the table beside my bed, but in reaching for it, I tumbled down. I tried so hard to get up on my own, but that day I couldn’t. Four months later, I began to walk slowly, holding Mother’s hand. Every day she would massage my legs so they wouldn’t suffer any lasting damage. Six months later, I could walk properly without anyone’s support. But the doctor had warned me that another surgery would be necessary in four years. This was because a rod had been inserted along my spine to keep it straight and to allow the broken vertebrae to fuse gradually. After that, I lived with that fractured spine. It was such a confined, suffocating life.

The doctor had forbidden me from moving about. I was told to take a two-year gap from my studies, because to study I would have to go to school and college, travel by car. But I didn’t listen. I had come to understand very well that I would have to fight to live alongside my own life. Life teaches you so much without saying a word! Life itself reveals what life is.

I passed my HSC on time. I got admitted to university. Alongside studies, I started an online business. I was a management student; I understood business well enough. At the same time, I began teaching at a cadet coaching centre. In the midst of all this, one day while coming home by rickshaw, I fell out. It caused terrible pain in my back. When the back pain worsened, I saw a doctor. After an MRI, the doctor discovered that one of the screws in the rod that had been placed in my spine had broken because of the fall from the rickshaw. This had created serious complications. The surgeon from BSMMU who had operated on me was no longer there—he had moved elsewhere. We made inquiries and went to find him.

After examining all the reports, he said the rod was supposed to stay for four years. But now that it’s broken, it can’t remain. If it does, there will be serious problems. When three years have passed, we’ll have to operate and remove the rod. The fractured bones have fused quite a bit, but there’s a risk the spine might curve slightly. I got admitted to the hospital in December, even during Covid. The day before the surgery, I was tested for Covid. The report came back negative.

There was someone I loved deeply in my life. He was a doctor at Sohrawardi Medical College. My dear ‘Doctor Sahib’ was the only one. He had told my family many times to have the surgery done at Sohrawardi, but my father refused, because he couldn’t accept our relationship. Before my surgery, he had spoken to me about marriage many times. But no matter how much I tried to explain, I couldn’t make my family understand. My family refused to accept him under any circumstances. He was supposed to come to the hospital the morning of my surgery. Four or five days before I was admitted, he had a trip planned to Cox’s Bazar with his friends. I begged him not to go. He ignored my pleading eyes, my tears, and said coldly that he had to go. He had given his word to his friends.

# The Man Had Become a Stranger

I had begun to feel like a stranger to him long ago, and today that feeling became truth. He would always wonder—when would I be completely well again? How would we live a whole life together when my spine was broken? I could see it in his eyes: his mind was drifting away, little by little, to somewhere else entirely. When they wheeled me into the operating room that morning, I broke down in a suffocating storm of tears. Over and over, one question: when would he come? With a cannula in one hand and a phone in the other, I kept calling him. I didn’t stop calling even after they took me into the operating room. But he didn’t answer a single call. I could accept death coming for me. But the man I lived for—the man I was alive *because* of—was neglecting me. That was unbearable.

Perhaps he was in Cox’s Bazaar, lost in laughter with friends, having the time of his life. At that very moment, his beloved was writhing in the agony of death, and he didn’t even notice. He was drowning in happiness. At eleven in the morning, I made my last call to him, my face drowning in tears. I so desperately wanted to hear his voice. Even then, I asked the doctors for a little more time. I kept thinking—I won’t survive if I don’t see my man once more. I think I’ll die carrying this fierce longing to see him. The doctor saw my tears and waited for a while, then put me under. I came to at four in the afternoon.

When I woke, I was in the ICU, on life support. It felt like I wouldn’t make it, like my whole body was fading, growing dim. And with it, my heart was dying too. That night, so many people came to see me—but not one face among them was his. I felt like a completely defeated person. My body was so weak I couldn’t even cry.

The next morning, he called.

That was when I think I felt the real blow. He said, “Your surgery went fine, thank God. Pray you get better soon. One more thing—don’t ever call me again. I can’t keep this relationship going anymore.” For a moment, I thought my breath was stopping. “Take care of yourself,” he said, and hung up. I went silent. Completely silent. A moment later I started gasping—fighting for air. They gave me oxygen. Then I could breathe again. Seeing my distress, they sedated me.

When I woke, I was desperate to go to him, like someone mad. They moved me back to my bed. I stayed in the hospital for weeks. Injections after injections, pain after pain—until I became numb to everything. I stopped talking to anyone. All I could do was cry. Not once in all this time did he call. Not once did he come to see me. How can a person forget another person so completely? Is it really possible?

# From the Hospital

I came home from the hospital. It felt as though only my living body had returned—my heart had died that day. With each passing day at home, my madness only deepened. Nothing in the room stayed intact; whatever I could reach, I’d destroy. I’d cut my hands at any moment, terrifying my mother. Sharp things—knives, blades, scissors—were kept out of my reach. They started giving me sleeping pills, keeping me sedated all day long to contain my madness. I could think of only one thing: why did he do this to me? No matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find a single fault in myself. What worth did my honesty have? My sincerity? My love? Were they worth nothing at all?

After many days, I suddenly learned that his life had become entangled with someone else’s. Someone else stood beside him now; someone else’s hand rested on his. When I learned this, it felt as if life itself had come to an end. How could he break years of love like this? On the last day he held me, he held me so tightly—my chest had trembled. I didn’t understand then. He held me so fiercely because he was about to leave. Never before had he pressed me to his chest like that. I can accept that he is no longer mine—even that much I can bear. But that he is now someone else’s, how can I accept that?

Consumed by these thoughts, my pain only grew worse each day. Unable to bear it anymore, I decided to end it all. I tried to loop a rope around my neck, and that’s when my mother’s face appeared before me. Her face flashed in my eyes—my mother collapsing from grief the day after my death, unable to bear my absence. In that very moment, I cried out loudly for her, calling “Mother, Mother,” and everyone came rushing through the door. I held my mother, weeping like a madwoman. I understood then: if something happened to me, I could never save my mother. After holding her and crying for a long time, I finally grew calm. I fell asleep with my head in her lap. When I woke, I found a strange peace. Now I know what it feels like to return from the edge of death.

I thought: this man who has caused me such suffering—does he love me anymore? No, he doesn’t. Then why should I end my own life for him? We walked a long road together. He left me halfway because he no longer loved me. Or else we’d have had a home together by now. What wasn’t meant to be, won’t be. The world doesn’t grant what’s not destined for us. I didn’t understand this before. Now that I do, why should I act like a fool? Why should I destroy myself this way, loving someone who no longer thinks of me? He’s fine with someone else! Why do I torment myself alone? When I was gasping in death’s grip, he was off enjoying himself without a care! If he had any feeling for me at all, could he have done what he did? I understand it all now, and yet my heart won’t accept it. Nothing is more shameless than the human heart.

# Translation

My suicide attempt became known to him the next day—my girlfriend told him. He came rushing to my house. My family didn’t let him inside. My father and brother didn’t approve of our relationship, though the rest of my family loved him dearly. There was only one reason they wouldn’t agree to our marriage: my illness. My father had one condition: I had to get better first. I would finish my honors, then they would marry me off. Not before. But he couldn’t accept that at all. He’d asked me countless times to run away from home. I never agreed. That’s why we stopped talking so many times. I always told him: my family has promised to marry me to you, so why can’t you have a little patience for me? With my illness, I won’t be able to make your home happy. But nothing I said ever satisfied him. I could read it in his face.

Standing outside my house that day, his tears made me weak. How shameless I am! How desperate for love! I ran down four flights, opened the gate, and stood before him. Despite everything, I wanted so badly to embrace him. The next instant, I remembered: he was already entangled with someone else now. He wasn’t mine anymore! I held myself back with great effort. Even as I steeled myself, he wrapped his arms around me and wept like a child, saying over and over, “Rimi, forgive me! Rimi, forgive me!” I couldn’t hold back my tears. I cried too. After that, I brought him inside. How foolishly we invite disaster into our own homes!

My father and brother came toward him with eyes so furious they looked ready to kill him. I immediately gripped his hand. My brother asked me, “What do you want, Rimi?” I said, “Brother, I want him! I’ve forgiven him. He made a mistake. If I can love, why can’t I forgive?” Brother said, “Look at you, learning things!” And he slapped my cheek. Then he said, “You’ll regret this dearly, mark my words.” I just looked at him, and sighing deeply to myself, I thought, “Nothing will happen. We’ll be very happy together, you’ll see.” There’s really no difference between those who are blind and those who fall in love.

That night his family was called over. A decision would be made about what to do with our relationship. They all came. His family spoke about our engagement. When we looked at each other then, I felt such a peace that I can’t even describe it! But my brother wouldn’t agree to anything. Four days later, the date for our engagement was fixed. No matter how much I tried to convince my elder aunt and my uncle, I couldn’t win them over. I stopped eating and sat in my room. I wouldn’t leave until my brother gave his consent. My brother got angry and said, “If Rimi marries him, I have no relation with anyone in this house anymore. I’ll leave this place entirely. Either Rimi stays in this house, or I do.”

When brother heard all this, everyone’s opinion in the house began to shift. I didn’t know what to do, couldn’t make sense of anything. I sat in my room and called him, crying. Even when they tried to feed me, I couldn’t eat anything. I went without food for two straight days. I fell ill. Seeing my condition, brother was deeply pained. Eventually, he gave in. And then—I couldn’t stop smiling, I was so happy! It was decided: our engagement would be grand, this coming Friday. I’m the youngest in the family. On top of that, being unwell had made me even more cherished. Everyone went shopping for us. My eldest uncle and aunt went to buy our wedding rings. The others went to buy saris, panjabis, cosmetics, and such. His whole family lives in the village, so the engagement would be at our house. From his side, there was just his mother, father, and younger sister. A modest, middle-class family, really. I used to think boys from middle-class families were always good. Now I understand—there’s no connection at all between a person being good or bad and their wealth.

Friday morning. He came to our house with his elder cousin and friends. How beautiful he looked in that panjabi! That day I was dressed up too, in a sari. There was so much cooking—every dish he liked was prepared. After noon prayer and lunch, everyone gathered together. It was four-fifteen in the evening. Our engagement, just as a family should be! That feeling was so strangely beautiful, I can’t even describe it. And then I kept hearing people say that after brother’s wedding at Eid, they’d set our wedding date. What greater fortune could there be in this world than to marry the person you love!

Brother took a while coming down from his room, so all the guests waited for him. In the meantime, I went online too. I sent our couple photo to the friends who hadn’t come, and even scolded them for not being there! Then, for some reason, I checked my message requests. I saw so many messages piled up there. One girl had sent me several messages. There were so many photos too. I accepted the message request. Right after, she started calling me continuously. For some reason, I felt afraid! I kept declining her calls and started looking at the messages and photos instead. I saw intimate pictures of him with this girl. They’d gone to Cox’s Bazar together. There were so many videos from there. I stared at them without blinking. Reading the messages, I understood everything. While I was lying in a hospital bed, the man I loved was in someone else’s arms.

# A Sudden Call

A call comes through to my number out of nowhere. The moment I answer, she tells me, ‘Do you want someone like your cousin sister to end her life? I’m the girlfriend of the man you’re getting engaged to today. We were together at a resort. He promised to marry me too. Said he’d marry me this very year. You can ask him if you want. And if he marries you now, I’ll end his life. I’ll destroy him, and then I’ll destroy myself too.’ I put the phone on speaker. My hand grips his tighter. I tell her, ‘Sister, we’re having our engagement today, and what are you saying! He loves me. Everything’s been settled for our wedding after Eid. I don’t believe a single word you’re saying.’ Then she says, ‘If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself—is it a lie or the truth!’ I stare at him like an idiot and say, ‘Tell me it’s not true! Everything she’s saying is a lie!’ But in that moment, he doesn’t say a thing. The girl hangs up. And he lets go of my hand. I can’t quite put into words the unbearable feeling of that moment. Death would be better than facing something so vile!

He leaves after saying just one thing. ‘Rimi, I’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake. Please, please forgive me.’ One by one, everyone leaves our house. That day my mother hits me however she wants. She’s never beaten me like that before. Not a single tear falls from my eyes that day. Mother keeps hitting me, keeps crying. And everyone keeps pushing him, shoving him out of the house. All he keeps saying is, ‘Rimi, forgive me.’ My brother locks me in the room. And he leaves, crying out. My mind, my senses—nothing’s working anymore.

But even if I forgive him, can I ever forget this wound? That the man I loved spent the night with someone else while he was with me? Can I accept that another person’s touch is on his skin? I can’t forget this! I can’t make him mine again! It’s not possible anymore. Everything’s finished! I could bear anything, but this kind of treachery—I can’t bear it, I just can’t.

The whole house is quiet in some strange way. Not a sound. Like the city of the dead. I understand then—he’s said goodbye to us for good. I sit in the room, staring fixedly at our couple photo on the wall. We’ll never stand side by side for a picture again. Never hold hands, never walk together. In an instant, everything just ended before my eyes. That second blow had turned me to stone. My chest is breaking, but there’s no water in my eyes. Life has stopped again for a second time! That chatty, restless Rimi who used to talk so much—now she barely speaks four or five words the whole day. I understand that God must have saved all the cruelties of this world just for me! I spend all my time thinking, but nothing adds up.

# The Wedding

A few days after that incident, on a Friday just like any other, I heard the news. He was getting married—a grand affair in Dhaka itself—to that same girl. The one whose father was some big businessman in Old Dhaka. The girl who had taken him away from me. That very girl. He was choosing her for life now.

I felt it then—a hollow ache spreading through my chest. Inside and out, I was utterly, completely empty. Yet I couldn’t scream. I tried desperately, but no sound would come. Nothing. Not a single word from my mouth.

Mother said, “Rimi, cry! Break something today! Shout until your voice cracks! You can’t stay silent like this—something will break inside you. Don’t keep the pain locked away like that!” Even after all her pleading, I couldn’t cry. The agony of hurting so much yet being unable to shed a single tear—it was unbearable. Only those who have lived through such a moment can truly understand. The rest can only guess, and even that would fail them.

I swallowed four or five sleeping pills and surrendered to oblivion. That became my routine now—pills, bed, escape. My phone lay somewhere far away, abandoned. One day I found myself on his profile. The relationship status that once bore my name was gone. In its place: *Married*. To someone else.

I couldn’t bear it. When something that is yours—someone who is yours—becomes another’s without any fault of your own, there’s a pain that words can’t capture. It devastates me when people sit beside me and say, “Your person belongs to someone else now.” It tears at me every time I see another face beside his in a photograph. It chokes me when someone else calls you *mine*, when you were always mine. So many people have so many reasons to keep living. And I—I had only one thing to hold onto. And I lost even that.

There’s one thing I cannot understand. He broke five years of us while I was lying in a hospital bed. And then he came back. Came back to wound me again. How could he deceive me like that? Didn’t he think even once about how I would survive without him? He couldn’t go a day without seeing me. How will he live? But no—he never thought about any of it. Not once. He only thought of himself, his own happiness. If he hadn’t, we’d have had a home by now. Our home. I wanted it so badly—something small, just ours. Two of us, and even if we had nothing, we’d have had everything that mattered. Our child would have been the proof of our love, living and breathing among us. All of it—just dreams now. Dreams shattered.

I won’t forgive him for breaking those dreams. Not ever. But still, from the depths of my heart, I wish him well. I wish it for his sake. For his sake, I wish him everything good.

# My Reckoning

After some time had passed, I began, slowly, to accept it all. The first surgery cost four hundred thousand taka, and the second two hundred thousand. I made a decision. I *would* live. I would be well, whatever the price. I had to become someone great in this world. Perhaps six hundred thousand taka was nothing. But still, I swore to myself: I would earn it back. Every taka. I would repay my family with my own hands. My mother has dreams—such dreams—that her daughter will be a BCS cadre. So I threw myself into my studies.

While my friends were busy with gossip and plans, building their lives through chatter and romance, I found that whole chapter unbearable. I cut ties with the boys I used to talk to, the ones I used to laugh with. My friends saw the change and told me to get into another relationship. Everyone isn’t the same, they said. They seemed to think there was only one path to being happy: being in love with someone.

But I had erased the word “love” itself from my mind. I wanted to forget everything about it. My only goal now was to become something good—something real—in this life. Love would never bring me peace again. I would carry his pain with me, yes, but I would build something good from it. Let my suffering be a blessing. One day, I want him to cry for what he did to me. One day I want to tell him: I didn’t become a doctor like you. But I became a good person. I never learned how to cheat anyone the way you did. You have so much in life now—was deceiving me part of your success?

I started praying five times a day. But the moment I stood for prayer, tears would come. During my supplications to God, I couldn’t ask for anything—I could only cry. And I kept thinking, over and over: *Let him be well.* I gave up all my bad habits. The late nights, staying online until midnight or two in the morning—all of it gone. I became relentlessly busy. Along with my studies, I read books, traveled to different places. I enrolled in an online course on entrepreneurship. I thought I needed more to fill the time. I revived my old online business. My voice is quite good—I practice singing every day, taking care of my throat. I started online courses in various hobbies. Then I began writing a little poetry, doing some writing. Why should I stop my life for him? He’s doing fine with his own.

I was a primary section teacher at a cadet school. Because of COVID, classes moved online. After my surgery, I had stopped teaching for a while. It took much thought, but eventually I returned. I started taking classes again online. Most of my days now are spent with children, teaching them through a screen. It brings me joy. There’s a kind of happiness that settles in my chest. Sometimes I think: if I had gone through with it that day, if I had ended it, I would never have seen this beautiful chapter of life. There’s enough reason to live just to see what comes next. Mother used to lock me in my room because of my recklessness! But now—now Mother herself says, “Why don’t you go out somewhere once a month? Spend time with your friends. Go out and live!”

# My Mind No Longer Wants This

My mind no longer wants any of this. All I desire now is to stay busy—consumed by myself, by my own life. Yet I truly don’t know when our relationship ended. Everyone asks, *When did it end between you two?* I have no answer for them. I fall silent and ask myself instead: When exactly did it end? The day she held me one last time? Or the day she let go of my hand? I really don’t know when our separation happened. But yes—our hearts have drifted apart countless times. Once the heart separates, the final goodbye is just a matter of time.

At twenty-one, I’ve already witnessed so much breaking and rebuilding in life. I’ve learned well that the fight to survive must be fought alone. In this world, no one truly dies for another; only the will to live dies. Yet no one’s life stops for anyone else. Life simply finds another path and moves forward. Now I earn nearly thirty thousand a month. I work for myself, live by my own means. I’m independent. My family values and accepts me far more than they did before. My friends encourage me, respect me. These days, my heart breaks rarely. I barely have time to suffer.

This day would never have come if that person hadn’t wounded me so deeply before leaving. I don’t even have time anymore to sit quietly feeling sad, or to ache remembering them. In the midst of everything, I moderate four or five poetry and writing groups. I’m an admin for several pages. I write in different groups and pages. At night, I sit down to write my own story—Rimi’s story. I don’t want rest or exile; I just want to live. I keep myself frantically busy with one thing or another. This is how life passes beautifully—as a wisp of cloud against the blue sky.