Some Memories Never Leave Us
They live in the quiet spaces—between night and day, between a breath and a promise.
And this—
Is one of those memories.
The watch showed 3:30 in the morning.
Silence had settled under the city’s dim lights.
A sound echoed every now and then, and then faded into stillness again.
Raza took a cigarette from his pocket.
Lit it.
And held it out to me.
“Naseer,” he said, “Here, it’s getting cold. Have a little.”
I took the cigarette. However, the moment it touched my hand, it felt like someone clutched my heart.
A voice echoed in my mind—the same soft tone, the same plea.
She had once said in a quiet and gentle voice:
“Naseer, promise me one thing. You will never let yourself become addicted to anything.”
I stopped.
Looked at the cigarette, as if it was a question on some life-altering exam.
Then… I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and returned it with a faint smile.
“This is the last promise I made to her.”
I remembered the day she said that.
We were sitting under a neem tree.
It was spring. Her scarf danced with the breeze while she scribbled notes in the margin of a book she never finished.
She never looked up when she asked me to promise. It was as if she already knew how important those words would become one day.
The silence settled in.
Raza kept looking at the calmness that had settled on my face.
“But she’s gone,” he finally said.
“She’s still here.”
“Then… she is happy, right?” he asked after a pause.
“I don’t know… but I hope she is.”
Still, I didn’t say more. Perhaps some things are meant only for the night to hear.
Why is it that we remember some promises more than others?
Maybe because they weren’t just words—they were acts of faith.
A request made from love.
Even after someone’s gone, those words stay.
Not as chains, but as reminders.
Reminders of who we promised ourselves we’d be.
Therefore, we hold onto them.
Not because we have to.
But because we want to. Because some promises matter long after the person is gone.
We kept walking through the darkness.
The cigarette still sat in Raza’s hand—but it had gone out.
I looked at his face.
And then-
I looked up at the sky, sighed, and silently prayed:
“O Writer of the Destinies…
Please write a life of peace and happiness for her.”
-Naseer