Riola
A life that kept going after everything else stopped
The evening settled slowly, as if it had nowhere urgent to be.
Light thinned into orange, soft at first, then deepening, until it touched everything. The clouds drifted, edged faintly in silver, holding what remained of the day.
A breeze moved through the trees. Leaves shifted in response, quiet, unhurried. Somewhere below, children laughed. Birds called and fell silent again. The world, for a moment, seemed to loosen its grip.
But on the eighth floor, something remained untouched.
She stood by the window.
A white dress, light enough to move with the air. A paper in one hand. A cup of coffee in the other, cooling, forgotten.
She read.
She smiled.
A tear came after.
She had been born on a December morning in a small village in Odisha.
No one celebrated.
There had been relief, yes, but not for her. The relief belonged to others, and it carried something else beneath it. Something she would not understand then, but would come to know later, in fragments.
She was named Riola
Her mother held her often. Spoke softly. Made quiet promises no one else heard.
There was a hope there—small, but steady—that her daughter might grow into something more than what the village expected.
For a time, that was enough.
Her childhood passed in ordinary ways.
She played with dolls. Followed her mother. Listened to stories she did not yet understand. The house held warmth then—voices, movement, the rhythm of days repeating themselves without question.
But even then, there were other voices.
Remarks left hanging in the air. Expectations spoken as fact. A future described before she had learned to imagine one for herself.
She did not resist it.
Not yet.
Her mother fell ill while carrying her second child.
There was no softness in how it was spoken of. Only instruction. Only expectation.
A son.
That was the word that moved through the house.
When he was born, the house filled—briefly—with something like joy.
And then it stopped.
Her mother did not return home.
No one said it plainly.
But the absence had weight.
It settled into the walls. Into the bed where she no longer slept. Into the unfinished things—a story half-told, a dress left folded, a name still being spoken in the present tense long after it no longer belonged there.
That was how Riola learned what loss was.
Not in a moment.
But in the quiet that followed.
Riola did not understand death.
She understood absence.
She understood that no one would call her to eat. That no one would follow her through the house. That the stories had stopped halfway through.
At night, she lay beside her father.
“Where is Ma?” she asked.
He did not answer—not at first.
When he did, it was not something she could hold onto.
She tried to explain it to herself instead.
Her mother had gone somewhere important. Somewhere far. Somewhere she would return from, once whatever work she had gone to do was finished.
It was the only version that made sense.
Life rearranged itself.
Her father worked. Her grandmother took over what remained. The house grew quieter—not empty, but changed.
Her younger brother, Aarav, grew quickly. Loud, restless, always moving. He filled space without meaning to.
Riola moved differently.
She watched.
She learned where to stand, when to speak, when not to.
One day, she stopped outside the school.
She did not go in.
She stood at the edge, watching.
Children speaking together.
Writing.
Laughing.
Being corrected.
Being seen.
It was not the learning that caught her.
It was the belonging.
And for a moment, just a moment, she leaned closer, as if something inside her might step forward before she did.
It didn’t.
She stayed where she was.
When she spoke about it at home, the answer came quickly.
No.
Not harsh. Not shouted.
Certain.
There were things she was meant to become. And things she was not.
School did not belong to her.
The men who came from the government spoke differently.
They used words her father had not heard used that way before. They spoke of possibility, of change, of something beyond the boundaries that had always existed.
Her father listened.
For the first time, he did not answer immediately.
When he agreed, it was not with confidence.
It was with hesitation.
But it was enough.
She went to school.
The uniform felt like something borrowed from another life. The shoes too bright, the fabric too clean. She carried it all carefully, as if it might be taken back at any moment.
She sat in class.
She listened.
She stayed.
Then the illness came.
It moved through the village quickly. Quietly at first. Then not at all quietly.
People spoke in lowered voices. Doors closed earlier. Names began to disappear from conversations.
Aarav fell ill.
Her father soon after.
The house, once again, shifted.
There was no order to it.
Water would not stay down. Bodies weakened faster than anyone could explain. The small things, movement, speech, even rest became difficult.
Her grandmother moved constantly. From one room to another. From one need to the next.
Riola stood in the spaces between.
Watching.
Waiting.
Listening.
At some point, she understood, without being told, that no one was getting better.
She did not say it.
She did not ask.
But it settled into her the same way everything else had.
Quietly.
Completely.
That night, the house did not sleep.
By morning, neither did they.
Her father’s hand rested across Aarav’s body, as if it had been placed there to reassure him of something that had already passed.
Riola stood at the doorway.
She waited for someone to move.
For a breath. A sound. Anything that might undo what she was seeing.
Nothing did.
She did not cry.
Not because she understood, but because there was nothing left in her that knew how.
The fire rose again.
She had seen it once before.
Then, it had taken her mother.
Now, it took what remained.
She watched it the same way, without stepping forward, without stepping back.
As if moving would change nothing.
As if standing still was the only way to stay with them a little longer.
Smoke lifted.
Ash settled.
And something inside her, something small and still unfinished, closed without making a sound.
After that, the house never recovered.
It continued, but without shape, without rhythm.
Her grandmother spoke less. Moved slower. Carried something heavier than before.
And still, she blamed.
Not loudly.
But enough.
Riola continued going to school.
Not because things had improved.
But because something had already changed, and could not be undone.
When her grandmother fell, there was no one there to hear it.
The house held its silence.
The same silence it had learned before.
Riola found her.
Knew before she reached her.
Knew in the way the room felt.
In the stillness that did not belong to sleep.
She did not call out.
She did not run.
She only stood there for a moment, as if the world had paused long enough for her to understand
that this, too, would not change.
After that, there was no one left to speak to.
Only rooms.
Only memory.
Only the shape of voices that no longer filled the air.
She moved through it.
Day after day.
Not waiting anymore.
Just continuing.
Because stopping, she had already learned, did not bring anyone back.
The phone rang.
She didn’t answer it immediately.
The room still held the last of the evening—the same softened light, now fading into something cooler. The paper rested loosely in her hand, its edges slightly bent from being held too long.
The phone rang again.
She placed the paper down. Not carefully. Just enough.
“Hello?”
A voice on the other end, familiar, casual.
“Hey… I just finished it.”
A pause.
“It’s good. Really good.”
She said nothing.
“I mean, who is she?” he asked. “This girl… does she exist?”
She turned slightly, her gaze drifting toward the window.
The glass reflected her back faintly now. The light behind her had thinned. What remained was softer. Less certain.
“She must, right?” he continued. “It feels too real not to be.”
Another pause.
This one longer.
She let it sit there.
Then, almost to herself—
“She lives somewhere.”
The voice on the other end shifted, waiting for more.
It didn’t come.
A small smile returned, not quite the same as before.
“I think,” she said quietly, “she never really left.”
Silence again.
But not empty this time.
She ended the call.
The room settled.
Outside, the last of the light disappeared completely.
She stood there for a moment longer, as if listening for something that had already passed.
Then she reached for the paper again.