I Died Last Night

In the quiet darkness of the night, Aisha felt like she'd died. Not in body, but in the emotional landscape of her heart. She lay in her room, surrounded by shadows, thinking of him - the one whose arms were now "bereft of bloom". The walls of her room seemed to close in on her, amplifying the silence that had grown between them like a living thing.

Aisha and he had been everything to each other. Lovers, friends, confidants. They'd shared dreams under starlit skies in Pakistan's summer nights, laughed together at street food stalls in Lahore, and whispered secrets in the quiet of Karim's garden in Islamabad. But a storm had swept through, leaving distance between them. Now his arms, once filled with love for her, felt empty. Hers did too.

In this "death", Aisha saw the pain of what could've been. She thought of the song "If I Died Last Night" by Jessie Murph - how it spoke of wondering how loved ones would react to one's untimely death. Aisha wondered too. Would he grieve? Would he think of what they'd lost? Would memories of their walks along the Ravi River flood him like they did her?

Aisha's night was filled with these thoughts. In "arms bereft of bloom", she felt a numbness, a loss of the warmth they once shared. Like petals falling from a flower, their love had lost its bloom. She recalled the afternoons they'd spent in Faisalabad, talking about future plans - he'd wanted to be an engineer for Pakistan's growing tech scene, she'd wanted to teach literature to children in rural schools. Now those dreams seemed to hang in limbo.

She got up and walked to the window. Outside, moonlight cast shadows of trees in the streets of her neighborhood in Pakistan. It was July 18, 2025 - a date that would've been ordinary but for the ache in her heart. The moon seemed colder, the shadows deeper. Aisha felt like a part of her had been cut away like a branch from a tree, leaving a raw wound.

In the darkness, Aisha heard whispers of what they'd said to each other - promises of forever, of love that would weather storms. Now those words seemed hollow in the face of this distance. Yet in the pain was a strange clarity. She saw how much he'd meant to her, how much she'd held in her heart the image of them together.

As night wore on, Aisha didn't sleep. Thoughts swirled like monsoon winds in Pakistan - sometimes calm, sometimes fierce. In the "arms bereft of bloom", she felt loss but also a dawning sense of what comes after loss. Like seasons changing in Punjab's fields - winter to spring despite the cold - maybe she'd find a way through this winter of the heart.

In the hours before dawn, Aisha wrote in her diary. She wrote of him, of them, of arms that no longer held bloom. She wrote of pain and of the moon outside casting shadows like ghosts of what they'd been. And in writing, she found a thread of words to hold onto when darkness seemed too vast.

Dawn broke over Pakistan's landscape - sun on mountains in the north, light on fields in the plains. Aisha watched the light creep into her room like a slow healing. Maybe in this new day, she'd find how to live in a world where arms were "bereft of bloom". Maybe in time's passage like Pakistan's rivers flowing to the sea, she'd find peace.

*Write down in the comment below what you learn from this story . Only legends know this .*