Chapter Eight
286 Words
The woman did not leave.
She remained in the village, unseen by most—like a shadow that chose not to disappear. Some said she was mad. Others believed she was sent. But no one dared ask her why she stayed.
She walked the streets barefoot, humming prayers in a language older than the stones. And wherever she passed, silence followed.
The father began to speak less.
Not because he had nothing to say…
But because he feared what might come out.
He no longer asked if she hated him in her last breath.
He knew the answer.
He saw it in his own reflection:
The face of a man who had believed lies over love.
⸻
One night, it rained.
Not the usual soft drizzle—but heavy, weeping rain. The kind that scrubs roofs and roots alike. The villagers stayed inside, but the father walked into it, arms raised, face bare to the sky.
He whispered her name.
Once.
Then again.
As if the rain could carry it up to wherever she might be.
“Forgive me,” he said, voice trembling.
Not as a father.
Not as a man.
Just as a soul… unraveling.
⸻
In the days that followed, strange things began to happen.
The olive tree by her grave bloomed—though it was not the season.
A stray dog that never barked howled three nights in a row, staring at the mosque.
Children began drawing her face in the dirt, without ever being told her name.
The wound she left behind… was not just pain.
It was a mirror.
And every heart that saw it… had to decide whether to look away—
Or finally face what they had done.
- Writer
