That evening, he left campus late, a thin stack of papers tucked into his bag, his mind full of speeches he would never give. He had practiced saying thank you to people who had never expected anything from him. He had practiced smiling.
fakher
The rain began halfway home.
Not a gentle drizzle, but a sudden, drenching storm that swallowed the streetlights and turned the road into a ribbon of reflections. He pedaled harder, hunched over the handlebars of his old bike, cursing under his breath. The chain clicked in protest, the tires splashed through puddles that grew deeper with every second.
He almost didn’t notice the weight.
“That’s the second thing,” he would say, always pausing here. “I almost rode right past my life.”
The basket at the front of his bike wasn’t unusual. He used it to carry groceries, tools, sometimes books. That night, it held something else.
At first, he thought it was a bag—someone’s forgotten belongings, soaked and sagging. He slowed, squinting through the rain. The street was empty. No footsteps, no voices. Just the relentless sound of water hitting pavement.
Then it moved.
A small, trembling shift. A sound so soft it might have been swallowed entirely if not for the way it cut through everything else—a thin, fragile cry.
He stopped.
The bike wobbled as he planted his feet on the ground, his breath catching in his throat. He stared at the basket, afraid to touch it, as if it might vanish or accuse him of something he didn’t understand.
Carefully, he leaned forward and peeled back the soaked cloth covering the bundle.
And there I was.
