“In this room barely illuminated, I know no day or night. In this room, I am the only one who sees, and only by the faint light I see you. Unlike your hands that I can never hold again, coarse and calloused from work, the texture of your ashes is soft, like the fine beach sand from the summer days we spent together and its memory that slipped through my fingers. Hazy memories scatter like little grains of sand, defenceless against every stroke, every touch, but allow no grasping. They are not meant to be held onto. You are not. Even the slightest movement of the wind could carry you away. You are not. I still am.

In this world, nothing but death is certain. As I stare into the nothingness that you are now, I continue to live, to resemble you even more than before. In the slow arising of the sun that recurs every day, I exist in the pretence of your presence, until I also go out like a night lamp some other time. By then, this room knows no life. By then, we are not.”