Email, Sent
From: Ayan
Subject: Re: Archive Timeline
Sent: Wed 18/2/26 6:38 AM GMT
Hello Nabila,
Thank you for the detailed update regarding the backup schedule and the release of the domain. I appreciate your keeping me informed of the specific timeline for the final stages of the process.
I have taken note of your comments regarding the administrative transition. It is helpful to know that the closure is proceeding in a way that minimizes any potential for complication. Regarding the ownership, as I mentioned previously, I am comfortable with whatever path you find most efficient. I trust that the final archiving of the metadata will be handled with the same attention to detail you have provided over the last several years. It is a relief to know that the technical side of the project is being concluded with such thoroughness.
Regarding the “commitment” you spoke of, I certainly understand your perspective. I have always admired your ability to see tasks through to their practical end. It is a quality that has clearly served you well in your professional life in Dhaka. If maintaining the archive felt more like a necessity than a burden for you, then I am glad the process is finally reaching its natural resolution. There is a certain satisfaction in seeing a long-standing project reach its final phase, and I am grateful that you took on the responsibility of managing that transition.
On my end, things are moving forward steadily. Work is demanding, as is the nature of the creative industry here, but it provides a consistent focus. I have recently moved to a slightly more central part of the city, which has made the commute more manageable, though the pace remains quite different from what we were used to. It is a bit colder than usual for this time of year, but the routine of the office helps keep things balanced.
Please do let me know when the compression is finished. I do not anticipate needing any specific files separated, so the bulk download you suggested will be perfectly adequate for my needs.
I hope the rest of your week goes smoothly and that the workload in Dhaka remains manageable.
Best regards,
Ayan
Draft, Never Sent
From: Ayan
Subject: We never chose this.
Last Updated: Thurs 19/2/26 1:16 AM
Dear Nabila,
As I read your last email, a sense of calm took me over. It felt as if the ending of our mutual correspondence was really just an observation in hindsight. It all ended a long time ago; now we’re just tracing our way through the trail that the ending has left behind. Our doom wasn’t abrupt; it wasn’t like the dinosaurs going extinct from an asteroid on a collision course. Our doom, Nabila, is quite reminiscent of humanity’s crawl toward the end. It’s slow, cold, and preventable, but happening nonetheless.
I’m starting to draw parallels between our drifting apart and civilization’s ignorance of climate change. We had plenty of chances: half-typed texts, drafted emails like this one that never reached your inbox, unsent voice notes. We had occasions when we could have said things—birthdays, Eid, deaths in the family. All it would have taken was one text.
I was going through the old posts on the blog. One last look at our version of Rumi’s field, out beyond the ideas of right or wrong. There is a post there—your post on my birthday. A picture of me, wearing my favorite blue shirt, smiling wide. Below the picture were a few lines:
You do to me what rain does to concrete.
You appear, and all of a sudden, everything is prettier.
The world makes more sense when you’re near.
To the world, we were friends—maybe a bit more than that. I never told you I loved you, and you didn’t either. But we held hands on the beach on that trip back in freshman year, and many times after. When your cat died, you hid your face in my chest and cried. I was supposed to ask you out. I had it all planned out. The blog post I wrote, the picture I chose—they’re still lying in my drafts. I won’t ever post them. I can’t anymore.
Come to think of it, it wasn’t after I left that we stopped talking. We had learned to do that long before. We avoided conflicts and shifted topics every time one of us showed signs of being vulnerable. Our inner voices told us that we were just saving each other from discomfort. But we weren’t saving each other; it was always ourselves we were saving. I am a selfish human being. I believed that not letting you carry the weight of my flaws was an act of kindness. But I failed to realize that when you don’t touch shoulders, you allow space for air and silence to creep in. And silence did creep in.
I’ve realized that, beyond the few things I let you see through the blog, I hadn’t told you much about myself. I didn’t tell you about my family, my school, or my home. I didn’t tell you that I used to get into trouble in preschool because I kept stealing the toy car in the principal’s office. Or that I got into constant fights with my brother. I didn’t explain to you why I had a scar on my left hand. I was always petrified of opening up. I didn’t even let you share headphones with me, even though I have a playlist, still saved on my phone, that I made for you. You kept dropping hints, asking me to open up. You created the space I needed. But I never did. I always ran. I ran away every time.
It’s not that we stopped talking entirely. It’s just that our communication became efficient and concise. That’s how coworkers communicate—not friends, and certainly not two people in love. All the words we left unsaid and all the tears we left unshed culminated in a slow poison. And we died slowly from it, in the halls of the emotional maze we created for ourselves.
Broken glass cannot be mended; the dead cannot be resurrected. We’re dead, and there is no coming back. This is the last draft I’m going to write about you. This is the point where I let go. I’m not letting go of you. I still love you the same. I’m letting go of the hope that we’ll find our way back in the end. I stopped with the blog, but I never stopped writing. And every poem I’ve written since then has been about you. I’m exhausted, tired, defeated. I hope you’re at peace, Nabila. And I hope that I never find mine, for I have robbed you of time and happiness. But to me, you’ll always be the girl I saw standing in the sun on a random winter day.
Her hair flies in the breeze.
Shades of gold and hints of red,
the light dances.
She looks up at me and smiles,
her smile like the moon cut in half.
I stand, I stare, I contemplate.
What’s prettier?
The sun?
The moon?
Or
you?
Sincerely, no more,
Ayan
