Dust & Amber Light

The rain always seemed to find me, didn’t it? A slow, persistent drum against the glass of this little cafe window.
It wasn't a storm, not really. Just a melancholy drizzle that clung to everything – the streetlights, the worn velvet of this chair, and most acutely, to the edges of my memory.
He left a ghost here, you see. Not a frightening one, but a lingering warmth like the last note of a cello played low in the dusk.
The steam from my amber beer curled around my face, mirroring the hazy light filtering through the hanging lanterns. It smelled faintly of woodsmoke and something…familiar. Something he’d worn.
I hadn't spoken his name aloud in months, not since the silence had begun to settle between us like a fine layer of dust. But watching him across the table, laughing with someone else – a fleeting glimpse caught in the reflection of the glass – brought it back, unbidden and sharp.
A small smile touched my lips. Not a hopeful one, perhaps. Just…acknowledgment. A quiet recognition that some echoes resonate long after the music has faded.
The rain continued its steady rhythm, washing over the city, carrying away fragments of yesterday and leaving behind only this: a fragile warmth in the amber light, and the ghost of his touch.

Editor: Vinyl Record