When The Sky Remembers.

(A Life Too Brief)

This story is a continuation from The Story of Solace found here :

There was a boy named Silas.

He was the third child of five, born to a respected family in a town where everyone’s name carried weight. His mother ran the school’s administrative office. His father taught agriculture at the university. The boys in the family were raised with the usual sense of importance, like their lives were expected to mean something. Their little sister was everyone’s darling. They lived in a solid house with a fig tree out front and a well-worn gate that creaked when it shut.

Silas had plans. He wanted to lead, to build, to make things better. Not in the loud, ambitious way of politicians or preachers—but in the way people do when they’ve watched things break and believe they can be fixed. He read policy books and novels with equal appetite. He fixed things around the house. He helped the neighbor’s grandmother carry her bucket in from the well. He was just that kind of person. Kind without needing to be noticed.

He had friends—close ones. Boys who called each other names, who walked home from school in slow packs, whose lives felt big even when they were small. They played rough, dreamed wide, and when Silas laughed, his whole face changed. Life had weight, but also motion.

And then there were the others. The acquaintances. The almost-friends. Solace was one of those.

They’d been paired once at school—assigned to the same table for meals one term. It wasn’t much. But the conversations they shared at that lunch table were oddly memorable. She didn’t speak often, but when she did, it felt like peeling back the quiet on purpose. Once, she’d said she didn’t see herself the way others did. And Silas had told her she was beautiful. Just like that. No hesitation. She’d blinked. Smiled, kind of. And they’d gone back to eating.

That was it. That was all.

Then, at sixteen, Silas went on a short trip with his father to a neighboring village where a strange fever had been making the rounds. It wasn’t fatal. People got sick, they rested, they recovered. It was being studied. His father thought it was important.

Silas got sick. And didn’t recover.

He died quickly. Quietly. Almost inconveniently.

The doctors were stunned. The village mourned, but only briefly. Life moved forward. Even his family—devastated as they were—had no choice but to go on.

But Silas… woke up.

Not in his home. Not in the ground. Somewhere else.

---

It wasn’t dark. It wasn’t bright either. It was just—somewhere.

The room he found himself in resembled a small, functional flat. There was a bed. A kitchen. A wooden desk beside a narrow window. The air held a kind of hush, like a place waiting for someone to return.

He didn’t feel dead. He didn’t feel alive. It was as if everything real had been placed behind a pane of glass.

At first, he thought he was dreaming. Or hallucinating. Maybe the fever hadn’t broken. Maybe he was still fighting it in some hospital bed. But time passed—measured only by the subtle shifting of light beyond the curtains—and nothing changed.

There were other flats in the building. Doors. Hallways. But only one other person.

The neighbor.

An older man. Rough around the edges. Looked like he’d worked with his hands most of his life. They didn’t talk at first. Just nodded at each other like strangers in an elevator.

Then one day, the man knocked on his door. Asked if he had salt. Silas didn’t. They both laughed, surprised by how normal it felt.

After that, they spoke more often. Nothing deep. Just little things—weather that didn’t change, food that didn’t spoil, furniture that never gathered dust. They shared meals that neither could remember cooking. Time didn’t pass. Or maybe it passed too slowly to notice.

And then one day, the man mentioned his daughter.

Not in a heavy way. Just offhand.

"My girl… she was the quiet type. Strong, though. Worked with animals. Had this look like she was always thinking two things at once."

Silas paused. "What’s her name?"

"Solace."

It took a moment to land. But when it did, something cracked open in Silas’s chest.

Not grief. Not joy. Just… recognition.

He remembered the table. The quiet girl. The one he once told was beautiful because she didn’t seem to know.

It didn’t make sense—why she, of all people, would echo so strongly in this place. They hadn’t been close. They weren’t tethered by romance or fate. But now, every time her father spoke, something in Silas leaned closer.

---

Weeks passed. Or months. It was hard to know.

Then, one day, Silas heard his name.

Not from the neighbor. Not from within. From somewhere beyond.

He couldn’t explain how, but he knew it was her. Solace.

She had remembered him.

And in this strange place where nothing moved, something shifted. A current beneath still waters. A breath in a sealed room.

He stood up. Opened the door. Stepped into the hallway with a sense of direction he hadn’t felt since dying.

He didn’t know where he was going. But he knew why.

Author’s Note.

Thank you for reading “When the Sky Remembers.”

This story is still unfolding, and I’d love for you to be a part of shaping it. If there’s something you wished had more detail, a moment you wanted to last longer, or a direction you hope the story takes, please let me know.

Which character stirred something in you? What would you like to understand better? Whose story do you want more of?

Your thoughts matter. They help me see the story through your eyes.

With gratitude,

Cathy Ben-Ameh