AFTER THE DUST

She wrote to remember, while they cleaned to forget

She was twelve, living the life of someone twice her age. Death, love, and loss arrived early and refused to leave.

She wrote to stay upright. While the adults faded, she filled page after page—not to forget, but to carve the memories into herself. The words became her scaffolding, her proof that it all had happened.

Then, one morning, it was gone. Thousands of pages swept away with a broom and a dustpan. They meant no harm; they were only trying to clear the house of the dead. They didn’t know they were erasing the memory of the living.

It took decades for her to forgive the loss—and longer still to find her way back to the page.