The rain had stopped, leaving a slick sheen on the cobblestones of the old city. He sat hunched in the doorway of a shuttered bookstore, the scent of damp paper and forgotten stories clinging to the air. A single, flickering gas lamp cast long, distorted shadows, illuminating the worn leather of his hands as he traced patterns on the ground. Across the narrow street, the faint glow of a distant restaurant window showed a couple laughing, oblivious to the quiet solitude enveloping him. He hadn’t moved in hours, just stared at that window, a half-empty cup of lukewarm chai growing cold beside him, the silence punctuated only by the drip, drip, drip of water from a nearby awning. His shoulders slumped, his gaze fixed on a point beyond the laughter, lost in a memory he couldn’t quite grasp, a feeling of profound absence that settled deep within his bones.