~~The Calm Before:
Winter arrived in silence.
Not with the howl of storms or the shriek of gales but softly, like ash falling from a forgotten fire. Snow dusted the edges of the beach, curling around their bench in pale fingers. Zaman still came every evening.
Yelda too.
She brought tea wrapped in scarves to keep it warm. He brought his notebook , now heavier, filled not just with poems but fragments of stories they built together between sips and shared silences.
"You're quiet today," she said one night, her breath misting between them like ghosted words.
Zaman smiled a small thing that never quite reached his eyes anymore but she didn't notice. Or maybe she chose not to see.
"I'm always quiet," he replied gently.
"And I love that about you." She nudged him again, same way as always the soft bump against his shoulder that made him ache inside more than any symptom ever had. "But tonight… you feel further away."
He looked at her then not just AT her face...but into it , memorizing its shape as if trying to burn it into memory through will alone.
The stars above blinked coldly over Scotland's edge, scattered like salt on black velvet. Somewhere beneath those stars, Safaan lay buried under an unmarked stone outside Salzburg woods , his final words etched only on Rukshar's heart:
"Tell no one why I died."
And now here stood another man living and dying with a secret no one else knew existed within him either...
Because *Soul Withering Syndrome* wasn't real at least not medically speaking…
It was something far worse:
A condition born from sorrow so deep it rewired biology :a rare psychosomatic collapse seen only three times in medical history , all victims poets or artists whose souls fractured under unbearable emotional burden until their bodies simply refused to go on without meaning.
No tests could detect it.
No X-rays showed tumours.
Doctors would call them "healthy."
But each heartbeat grew weaker… slower… until the soul gave up whispering "keep going" and instead began murmuring "rest now."
Zaman had been diagnosed once in secret after collapsing while reading Neruda at a midnight poetry gathering two years ago.
Two lines into "I Want You"… he fell mid-verse.
They rushed him away.
An old physician who once wrote sonnets himself recognized what others missed:
"The heart hasn't failed," he whispered behind closed doors to Zaman's mother—"but hope has."
That doctor handed Zaman a folder labelled: *Terminal Emotional Exhaustion.*
Life expectancy: 6 months perhaps a year if calm sustained.*
"Then give me peace," Zaman said quietly.
"Not treatment."
So they let him go back to write…
To love…
To live unaware days while slowly slipping deeper into death's quiet tide…
And Yelda?
She never knew anything was wrong
Because all symptoms were invisible unless you stood close enough to feel how hard each breath was taken,
to hear how sometimes when he thought she wasn't looking he'd press both palms flat against his chest as if holding himself together by will alone
Or catch those fleeting moments when pain twisted behind his gaze for half a second before vanishing behind another smile shaped just for her...
~~~~
One morning snow fell thickly over coastal hills , the sea hidden beneath fog so dense even sound seemed muffled by white hands pressing down upon everything alive.
Yelda arrived later than usual with frost clinging to eyelashes and laughter melting clouds around lips red from wind-kissed coldness.
"You're late," he said again , one word ritual unchanged since day one , even now when speaking took effort masked by discipline forged daily since diagnosis time began running out faster than ink dried on new pages...
"I lost my scarf trying to save an injured crow stuck near my window ledge!" She dropped beside him excitedly unfolding soaked cloth revealing tiny bundle inside covered carefully a trembling bird curled weakly against wool warmth
"He'll be okay?" asked Zaman softly staring beyond feathers for moment seeing boy ten years past trapped beside road watching ambulance carry father lifeless body toward hospital long after truth already known deep within child-heart screaming without voice
"Yes…" Yelda nodded firmly squeezing little creature gently "With care...yes...he must survive…"
Like someone needing belief most right then , not certainty but faith offered open-handed across fragile moment thin ice holding breaking surface below unspoken fears rising closer each day closer though neither named growing hollowness widening slowly widening where future meant less certain ground footing shaky unknown dark water running underneath bench where sat side-by-side writing dreaming being alive despite worlds apart different paths chosen silently walked forward step after painful beautiful step
"He reminds me of your poems…" She looked up finally catching look passing quickly masking something unnamed hidden depths reflected mirrored sadness saw couldn't name yet felt bone marrow ache recognition kinship loss loss loss cycle repeating human existence carrying unseen burdens wrapped silence dignity courage disguised apathy indifference