The Man Sitting in the Shadows

The late afternoon sun cast long shadows over the patch of grass where he sat, barefoot and contemplative. The sky had just begun to shift from bright blue to the faintest hue of lavender, brushing the horizon with the softness of approaching dusk. A light breeze stirred the leaves of the bushes behind him, whispering secrets only silence could understand.

He was known to most as Fareed, but there was more to him than the name whispered among neighbors. They called him quiet, reserved, someone who didn’t interfere much in others' affairs. Children would sometimes greet him as he sat in his usual spot near the garden hedge, nodding politely as he returned their smiles without saying much. Adults respected his space, though curious minds occasionally wondered what it was he thought about so deeply every evening.

What they didn’t know—what Fareed never shared—was that the silence he sat in was not empty. It was full, brimming with conversations that never happened, regrets that clung like shadows, and a past that echoed in every breeze that kissed his face.

Years ago, Fareed was not this still. He had been full of life, laughter, and a love that had once promised to fill the spaces of a long future. He had studied literature, a man in love with words, finding poetry in the folds of everyday life. He could turn a walk through the bazaar into a sonnet or describe the rain as if it were a lover’s embrace. In university, he had fallen in love with a girl named Zoya—her name alone felt like a stanza. She was vibrant, outspoken, and the complete opposite of him. But like poetry and silence, they somehow fit together.

They would meet in libraries and tea shops, scribble notes to each other in the margins of borrowed books. Their love was quiet but deep. When he asked for her hand, it was with trembling hands and eyes full of stars. But life, like verse, doesn’t always rhyme.

Her family had other plans. Zoya was married off to a distant cousin settled abroad. She had wept the night before her departure, her voice breaking over the phone as she said goodbye. Fareed had listened, unable to speak, and when the line went dead, so did something within him.

He didn’t rebel. He didn’t chase after her. He returned to his studies, finished his degree, and then simply… faded from the world that had once held such promise. He returned to his hometown, took up a modest government job, and every evening, he would sit in the garden just as he was now—on the same patch of earth, in the same silence that had once comforted him, now becoming his cloak.

The phone in his hand, the one he held gently in the photo, wasn’t new. It was old, not particularly fast or modern, but it held messages he read and reread. They were years old—texts from Zoya, back when they were still allowed to speak. Little jokes, poems, reflections. He never deleted them. It was his way of preserving time.

A neighbor, a boy of about ten, approached him one day while he sat under the fading sky.

"Chacha, why do you sit here every day?"

Fareed smiled softly. "To listen."

"To listen to what? There’s no one talking."

"Ah," Fareed said, tapping the boy lightly on the head, "You have to be quiet enough to hear what silence says."

The boy squinted, unsure if it was a joke or something grown-ups said when they didn’t want to answer properly. He ran off, yelling at his friends to come play cricket. Fareed watched them, his smile lingering longer than usual.

Inside his heart, something stirred. A feeling he hadn’t welcomed in a while: hope. Not the kind that promised reunion or rekindling of lost love, but the gentler kind—the one that whispered that life, even with all its scars, still had space for peace.

That evening, something changed. Fareed stood up after his usual hour of sitting and walked barefoot into the house. He looked at the bookshelf that had gathered dust, reached for a pen and notebook, and began to write again. Not for anyone else, not to impress or to woo—but for himself. The words came slowly at first, hesitant like strangers at a gathering, but soon they found rhythm.

His first poem was about a boy asking why a man sat in the garden. It was a metaphor, of course, but he knew no one would read it but him. That was enough.

Days turned into weeks, and the routine stayed the same, but something had shifted within Fareed. He still sat in the grass, still looked at the sky, still held the phone. But now, he also wrote. His heart, once a closed room, had opened a window.

Years passed. Zoya never returned, nor did he expect her to. He learned, finally, how to love her memory without letting it imprison him. And in that act of letting go, he rediscovered himself.

One spring morning, a younger poet came to his door. She had heard of an old man who wrote verses that could move mountains, though he never published a single one. She asked to read them. Fareed hesitated, then handed her a notebook.

Weeks later, his words were printed in a local magazine under the title "سائے میں بیٹھا شخص". The response was overwhelming. Letters came in, asking about the man, the inspiration, the quiet soul behind the words.

Fareed never sought fame. He continued his garden ritual until his last breath. The day he passed, the sun set gently, as if paying tribute. Children still played nearby, the wind still danced in the trees, and his chair remained empty—but his words had taken root in the world.

Sometimes, healing isn’t loud. Sometimes it’s just a man sitting in a garden, listening to silence, until it finally speaks back.