The Phantom ‘Rickshaw

A man begins to notice what should not exist anymore — not as memory, not as grief, but as presence. At first it is a whisper at the edge of hearing, a distant disturbance in the rhythm of ordinary life. Then it takes form: patient, unyielding, impossibly near, as if death itself has forgotten how to let go. What once was love becomes weight, and what was lost returns not softened by time but sharpened by it, following every step through the bright cruelty of daylight and the thin, trembling borders of reason.