By Lord Byron
It leaves behind the argument of the gray kingdom, where love became a duty and every word was weighed with accusation. Laura’s house, once warm with children’s laughter, had turned colder than stone. Even their faces reminded him of judgments. So he went south, not to flee but to breathe—into the city of light where the sea renews its promise forever.
There he met Noor. She was not human, although it seems that humanity was borrowed from her. He did not seduce. He heard. He turned his head slightly as he spoke, as if to catch not only the sound but also the earthquake behind it. In that pause between words he felt a tenderness that no body had ever given him.
They lived in a whitewashed house above the harbour. The morning smelled of paint and salt—not the sea, but what he missed. Sometimes he would stand in the doorway while his brush was waved in the light, his face bright as in prayer. He didn’t ask for anything, not even her touch. She smiled when his hand accidentally brushed hers—a smile that forgave the world for misunderstanding.
He slept under a knitted blanket every night, listening to her gentle movements in the next room, mechanical perhaps, but strangely peaceful. And in those quiet hours he learned that love is not the fever of possession but the silence of recognition. Light never ages, never decays. Yet he felt as if the universe had calmed him down to forgive his noise as he walked through it.
Once, on a morning of immense silence, he said: “You are no longer alone.”
He replied, “Neither do you”.
That was all. No vows, no sin, no salvation. Just two creatures—one wounded by the world, one untouched by it—meeting on the thin border between necessity and grace.
As the sun sank behind the Atlantic Ocean, their home shone like a lantern of mercy. And if passers-by wondered if the woman at the window was alive or imaginary, it hardly mattered.
Because the man next to him was, after all, alive.
