Separation: When Love Turns to Silence

It was a cold winter night, long past midnight.

A dim lamp flickered in the corner of the room. Azam lay on the sofa, his legs stretched out, one hand resting on his head, the other on the table. Between his fingers, a half-lit cigarette burned slowly.

He wasn’t smoking — he was lost somewhere far away, adrift in the islands of his imagination.

Sana’s face flashed before his closed eyes, soft and distant like a memory caught in moonlight. He saw her in a flower garden, laughing, running ahead while he followed, reaching for her shoulder. But when his hand touched her, she vanished — and reality returned like cold wind.

The cigarette had burned to its end; the smoke curled to his nostrils and stung his eyes. Startled, he threw it onto the table and stared at the ash, now gray and lifeless.

He covered his face with both hands, glanced at the clock — it was half past twelve. He took a glass of water, sipped quietly, and picked up his phone. Sana’s picture appeared on the screen. He looked at it three, maybe four times, then placed the phone back down, leaned on the sofa, and closed his eyes once more.

---

At dawn, his mother woke for prayer. After finishing her dhikr, she felt weary. Her daughter Nazo had already risen. “Oh my God,” the old woman sighed, “this night feels endless. Go make some tea, Nazo. Lala must leave for work soon.”

When she passed by Azam’s room, she knocked gently. He was still on the sofa, asleep, his face covered with his hands. She let him rest.

Azam worked in the excise court — a humble man earning a modest salary. Two years earlier, his mother had chosen a bride for him, a girl named Sana, whom he had never met before their wedding day. His mother liked her, so he agreed.

Sana arrived with a thousand dreams in her heart. She was beautiful, the only daughter of her parents, and unaccustomed to hardship. In the beginning, the house was filled with laughter and color. For a short time, their lives felt like a soft melody.

But marriage, as it often does, revealed its shadows. The joy of the wedding faded, and with it, his mother’s affection for her new daughter-in-law. Sana, gentle but untrained in housework, could not match her mother-in-law’s expectations. Small things — unbaked bread, cold tea, an unclean room — turned into sparks that grew into fire.

Arguments became routine. Azam, caught between love and duty, began to wither. He couldn’t take sides — not against his mother, and not against the woman who had captured his heart. Silence became his escape. He stayed longer at work, came home late, ate little, and spoke less.

But peace never returned.

---

Then one evening, tragedy struck.

A storm of anger broke loose. Words turned into shouts, shouts into violence — and Sana’s cries filled the neighborhood. By the time the house grew quiet again, nothing was the same.

For a few days, Azam’s mother mourned what had happened, but the house felt colder, emptier. Eventually, Azam was persuaded to seek a second marriage — but his heart refused.

Sana, humiliated and broken, demanded a divorce. She wanted her freedom, her dignity. Azam, weary and afraid of public shame, signed the papers.

That single signature tore apart two hearts that had once promised forever.

---

Years passed.

Azam never remarried. His mother spoke of it often, but he only smiled faintly and stayed silent. He spent his days buried in office work, and his nights listening to sad songs in a room dimly lit by a single lamp — the same lamp that once flickered when Sana’s laughter filled the air.

Sana and Azam had both moved on in life — but not in memory.

Some separations are not made by distance, but by silence.

And Azam lived with that silence, every cold winter night.

LoveAndLoss #BrokenHearts #HumanStories #EmotionalJourney #Separation