Ashes of the Beloved

It began like all tragedies do - quietly

But with love.

Arman saw Meher in the old university library on a warm spring afternoon. sunlight splling through tall windows and gathering in pools across the marble floor. She stood near the history shelves, a book tucked beneath one arms, strands of dark hair falling loose around her face as she searched for something.

"Mughal architecture?" Arman asked, pretending coincidence.

Meher glanced at him briefly before smiling. 

"You too?"

That smile changed everything.

Years later, Arman would try to remember the exact sound of her laughter from that afternoon. He would sit awake in darkness, desperate to hold onto it - the softness of it, the warmth, before memory twisted it into something else entirely.

Back then, though, life had seemed impossibly simple.

They fell in love slowly, the way rain gathers before a storm. Shared cups of tea became long evening walks. Long walks became whispered promises beneath streetlights. Two years later, they married in a small ceremony surrounded by jasmine garlands and soft prayers.

No grand ballroom.

Only family.

And for a while, certainty was enough.

After marriage, they moved into a quiet town several hours from the city - a place wrapped in forests and mist, where mornings smelled of wet earth and evenings disappeared beneath the sound of crickets and distant thunder.

Their house stood near the edge of the woods.

It was small, but Meher filled it with life.

Clay lamps glowed warmly in corners. Embroidered cushions rested on old wooden chairs. Fresh marigolds brightened the windowsills every morning. Sometimes Arman would come home from work to find old songs playing softly from the kitchen while Meher hummed and cooked dinner

It felt like peace.

Then Zara was born during the monsoon season, on a night thick with rain and electricity.

When the nurse placed the baby into Meher’s trembling arms, she burst into tears immediately.

“Meri chhoti gudiya,” she whispered.

From then on, the house no longer felt small.

It felt complete.

There were tiny shoes left forgotten in hallways. Crayon drawings taped crookedly onto walls. Toys hidden beneath sofas. Laughter drifting through open windows at dusk.

Arman lived for those ordinary moments.

For years, happiness settled over the house so naturally that Arman stopped noticing it altogether.

Until the silence changed.

At first, it was small.

Meher forgetting things.

Tea left untouched until it turned cold.

“Meher?”

Sometimes she wouldn’t answer immediately, as though she hadn’t heard him.

Then she would blink suddenly and smile too quickly.

“Sorry. I was just thinking.”

But even her smile had begun to feel distant somehow - stretched thin like paper over something hollow.

Weeks passed.

Her laughter became rare.

Sometimes Arman woke in the middle of the night and found her side of the bed empty. He would walk through the dark house searching for her, only to discover her standing near the back door in silence, staring toward the trees beyond the yard.

“Meher?”

She would turn slowly.

For a moment - only a moment - her expression seemed strange to him.

Blank.

Then recognition returned.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she’d whisper.

One evening, Arman nearly fell down the staircase after tripping over an electrical cord stretched tightly across the steps.

Another morning, he lifted a cup of tea to his lips and paused.

A bitter almond smell lingered beneath the steam.

When he looked at Meher, she immediately burst into tears.

“I didn’t mean to,” she sobbed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately.”

And because he loved her, he believed her.

Or perhaps he wanted to.

His mother noticed the changes too.

“Take her to a doctor,” she urged quietly during one visit. “Some illnesses hide behind the eyes, dear.”

But Arman shook his head.

“She just needs time.”

Time.

Surely love was enough.

Wasn’t it?

Outside, the forest stood silent beneath gathering clouds.

Watching.

And deep within that silence, something had already begun to rot.