Fragments of Dust and Ash//A Short Story

It was while she was cleaning that she found them. Who is to say if they would have been discovered if she hadn't needed to clean the book shelves? They were on the top shelf. Only fragments remained, the rest had been burned away. She didn't give them a second glance: they were worthless, just like the rest of this place. If only she weren't the one charged with cleaning the old man's house. A cloud of dust and ash flew as they landed in the wastebin. If he would've known, it would've broken him. These letters, from long ago, shaped his life, were his life to the very end. The ones that were never received. He'd been young when they took his father away. Put him on a boat, gave him a gun and made him kill men. Everyday the little boy would write letters with his mum, and they'd walk it to the post. And every day he waited for a reply. But there never was one. A year later the letters came back, and a box came with them. Mother wouldn't let him look in the box, but he found out what it was anyway, for a month later Mother's box joined Father's, and he was left alone. The only thing that mattered to him ever since were those letters. The smell of his mother's rose pen still lingering on the parchment, the curve of his father's name, and his own childish cares recorded in ink were his only friends. Years past, and a fire took everything. It tried to take the letters, but he wouldn't let it, so it took him instead. Now his box is next to theirs, and no one will ever remember the little boy who's eyes never forgot his mother's face. The little boy who lost everything. 

via google images