The Empty Chair

I’ve set the table again, the same way I always do—four plates, four forks, four glasses. But there’s still an extra chair. One that no one touches. One that no one dares to pull out.

And yet, it’s not empty. Not really.

You sit there every evening, in the corners of our glances, in the silence that falls just before the laughter starts. You are there when Mom carefully folds her napkin twice instead of once, or when Dad pretends not to notice his eyes getting glassy when we pray.

But who are you?

Are you the older brother I never had the chance to fight with? Were you going to be taller than me, more reckless, more brave? Or would you have been quieter, someone who watched the stars and sketched them in your journal? Would we have shared secrets through the vent between our rooms, inventing languages only we understood? Would you have walked ahead of me to school, turning back just once to make sure I was keeping up?

Or maybe you’d have been a sister—kind, clever, with a laugh that shook our small house. Would you have let me borrow your clothes? Would we have stayed up late under the blankets, whispering about boys or books or the way the world scared us both?

Would you have taught me how to be less afraid?

I still don’t know your name. I’ve imagined dozens. David. Eliana. Matthew. Nora. But none of them fit for long. They slip away, like dreams before coffee. I don’t know what to call you, so I call you everything.

We never met. You never breathed a day. Yet somehow, your shadow is woven into all my days.

They don’t talk about you anymore. Not because they’ve forgotten. But because silence became a shrine. Because grief can become bone. Because some wounds stop bleeding but never stop aching.

Mom keeps a locket hidden in the drawer of her nightstand. I once opened it when she wasn’t home. Inside is a photo of an ultrasound. No name. No date. Just a blur of light and darkness, like the edge of a soul not yet shaped.

Sometimes I wonder if you visit me in my dreams. Last night, I saw someone walking ahead of me through the trees. They turned once, smiled, and vanished into the fog. It felt like goodbye. Or maybe hello.

The truth is, I’ve written a thousand stories in my head, just to make sense of the silence you left behind.

In one, you grow up beside me, and we’re unstoppable—fire and ice, sky and storm.

In another, you come back as my child, the universe folding in kindness to give me a second chance.

And sometimes, I believe you’re not gone at all. That maybe you’re the whisper that pulls me back from the edge, the warmth in the wind, the thought that helps me choose the kinder word.

Maybe you were never meant to stay.

Maybe you were just meant to pass through for a moment—long enough to change everything.

And maybe that’s what love is: presence without possession. Memory without meeting. An echo that shapes the silence.

So here I am, still setting the table.

Still leaving the chair.

Still hoping that someday, somehow, I’ll know your name.

( © 2025 Muhammad Abdullah. All Rights Reserved. )

Author’s Note:

This story is written for anyone who has felt the loss of someone they never got to meet. For the unborn, the lost, the forgotten, the ones who live on in empty chairs, hidden drawers, and aching hearts. Fictional as this is, it echoes the real experiences of many souls—and perhaps yours, too. Loss doesn't need years to form; sometimes, a second is all it takes to live a lifetime in someone’s heart.

If this touched you, you are not alone.

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