Postmaster Sima stamped each envelope with blue ink and trusted the river to read what addresses could not explain.
A letter returned
A boy named Om wrote to the father who had left, asking one question: Was I difficult to love? The river delivered it back to Om’s own doorstep.
Angry, he accused Sima of cheating. She showed him decades of records proving the current never promised reunion.
The unnamed reader
Om opened the returned letter and found a second page written in unfamiliar handwriting by another abandoned child now grown.
It said that an adult’s absence could have causes, but a child should not carry the verdict alone.
A new address
Om kept his question and sent a shorter letter through ordinary post, where delivery could be tracked and silence named honestly.
The river office remained for messages seeking solidarity, not magical answers. Its blue stamp came to mean: someone else has survived this question.
The right reply may not explain another person, but it can remove blame that never belonged to you.Choose another night story →