MAHOOR HAYA SHAH
hayashah546@gmail.com
Writer from Srinagar Kashmir
It was in a small, dimly lit café, wedged between the narrow streets of Paris, where Grace worked. She didn’t see much of the world beyond the chipped wooden counter and the rows of mismatched tables, where the patrons sat with their espressos and their thoughts. She had her routine, customers — strangers actually and then one evening a letter slipped in from nowhere.
The letter itself was crisp — almost delicate, like a single autumn leaf trapped between the pages of an old book. She unfolded it with care. The writing was neat, the ink slithering smoothly like a gentle breeze on her cheek.
“What is love, Grace? I’ve wondered this for years. But I believe that it’s higher than can be preached and claimed by poets and dreamers. And, I wonder if you do too.”
It was signed simply, ‘Brook.’
Grace did not know any Brook. She thought of the regulars, the men and women who slipped in and out of the café, faceless in their familiarity. She put the letter in her apron pocket, uncertain.
The day after, there was another letter. This time it was tucked under a saucer on the counter. She saw it when she reached for the cup.
“Love, they say, is a feeling, but feelings change like the weather. Love, I believe, is when the soul knows another without needing to be told. Do you believe this, Grace?”
Again, it was signed ‘Brook.’
Grace felt a strange warmth settle in her chest, like a fire just beginning to catch. She had never thought much about love beyond what she’d seen or read, the grand gestures, the poetic proclamations. But, here was a voice that spoke to her not desiring for love from her but understanding.
Those letters turned into a daily practice over the following weeks. Grace would find them hidden behind her cash register, inside the menu booklets, or stuck under the door after they had locked up at night.
Each one was a small fragment of a conversation, a question posed, an idea left to linger.
“Is it the flutter in your chest when you lay eyes on another, Or a clandestine knowing you’ll find them in the spaces where words do not reach? What do you think, Grace?”
And she answered him, not in words but through her thoughts, like a waltz underneath the distant midnight lights. Sometimes, she would close her eyes and picture his voice—a measured cadence with a steady timbre overtaken by curiosity.
Then late one rainy evening as she was wiping down the counter, she came across a letter that seemed to jump out at her. The paper was identical but the writing appeared desperate — as if someone had taken pen to page and rushed through the words.
“Grace, love is not the absence of solitude but the acceptance of it. It is not in the needing but in the understanding. I feel I know you, even if we never meet. Is that love? And if so, would you want to meet?”
Her breath caught. She thought of her small apartment with its cold, empty bed. She thought of the soft hum of the city outside, always moving, always searching. She thought of Brook, whom she had never seen but felt as if she knew.
The next day, she left a note on the counter, her hands trembling as she wrote, “Meet me at the Pont Neuf at dusk.”
Dusk fell slow and heavy, the Seine reflecting the last amber hues of the day. Grace stood on the bridge, feeling the cold seep through her shoes. She waited, and the minutes stretched into an hour. She searched each face that passed, looking for a hint of recognition, a sign that might say, I am Brook.
But he never came.
She returned to the café the next morning, her heart heavier than it had been in years. She opened the door, and there, on the counter, was another letter.
“I am sorry, Grace. I cannot meet you. Not yet. But I hope you understand now—love is not always about meeting. It is about the spaces we create within ourselves for another. And I have created a space for you. Yours, Brook.”
Grace folded the letter carefully, her eyes misting. She felt a strange peace settle over her, a soft, lingering warmth that filled the emptiness. She realized she wasn’t waiting anymore, wasn’t searching.
Love had found her, in a way she had never imagined. It wasn’t the meeting, the touch, or the kiss. It was the quiet understanding that somewhere, out there, someone was writing to her with a soul she could feel, with words that spoke to the deepest corners of her heart.
And that, she thought, was love.
