Lai, in the sleepy town of Nampura, Southeast Asia, navigates the hidden griefs of life that people rarely talk about—outgrowing friendships, letting go of dreams, and learning to live with a changing body. A journey of wit, warmth, and whispered nostalgia, this story reveals that not all losses are loud, nor all heartbreaks obvious.
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I never thought I'd have to let go of the one thing I’d held close for so long—an idea of who I thought I had become.
Summary
Lai, a deeply introspective character, faces the quiet heartbreaks of outgrowing relationships, letting go of places, and confronting a life that didn’t turn out as planned. Set in the Southeast Asian village of Nampura, her journey takes her through loss and nostalgia, as she encounters characters who, like her, bear unspoken griefs. This bittersweet tale explores what it means to move on from people, dreams, and even our past selves.
Is it possible to mourn something you can’t even name?
I am, it must be said, usually a sensible person. The sort who knows her mind and owns her thoughts. But as I sat on the stone steps of my small house in Nampura, I realised I had, inexplicably, become the sort of person who grieves. Not a visible, wailing grief, no, but a quiet ache that haunted my evenings with its unspoken presence.
The town of Nampura—how could I describe it to you? Imagine a place with morning fog that clings like forgotten dreams, where old Banyan trees cast shade over moss-covered stones, and where rain smells faintly of turmeric and ginger. Nampura wasn’t a place you came to live; it was a place you found yourself while passing through. Much like many things in life, it was both temporary and eternal, a space where one paused but rarely stayed.
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Today, I watched the rain as if it held secrets, my cup of ginger tea growing cold. I remember asking myself, “What exactly am I mourning? Friendships? Dreams? Places I have left behind?” It is funny how you can spend a lifetime alongside people, certain they will last forever, only to watch them drift away like raindrops trailing down a window. For instance, there was Shari.
How do you let go of someone who was once everything?
Shari and I met in our university years, which in my mind’s eye were shrouded in the amber haze of laughter, cheap whiskey, and shared secrets. We were going to be friends for life, we had vowed. And for a while, we were—through heartbreaks, marriages, moves. But then, somewhere between career aspirations and different cities, life snuck in and dulled the edges of our friendship. We drifted.
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There is no dignified way to explain this drifting. It was an erosion, a silent retraction of shared time and space, as if someone had ever so slowly pulled us apart until we could hardly hear one another. I had been the last to reach out, and when months passed without a response, I realised it was time to let go. There is a particular kind of grief that accompanies such partings, the kind that lodges in your chest, barely noticeable but insistent.
Why do we mourn the things we leave behind when we no longer fit in them?
Take my old home, for instance. A flat in the crowded, rowdy part of the city, where noise was not just a constant but a lifeblood. I had spent my twenties there, nurturing dreams of a perfect life—a career, a family, maybe even a little house in a quieter neighbourhood. And while those dreams hadn’t quite manifested, I had cherished them like old postcards in a shoebox. But the day came when I had to leave. I’d tell myself it was just four walls, but I knew better. Some places have a pulse of their own, and mine beat within those walls.
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When I moved to Nampura, I thought it would be temporary. I was here to reconnect with nature, take a small sabbatical from my busy city life, and find a version of myself I had perhaps forgotten. Instead, I found a strange comfort in the lazy afternoons, in the marketplace chatter, in the lingering scent of frangipani flowers. Life here moved slowly, and people… well, people were content.
Can you find solace in a new self, even as you mourn the one you left behind?
Each morning, I’d walk to the marketplace, passing by ancient trees twisted and gnarled, as if bending under the weight of their own histories. It was on one of these walks that I met Lok. He ran a small bookstore and had the world-weary air of someone who’d seen his fair share of disappointments. Over time, our small exchanges became the quiet highlight of my days.
One rainy afternoon, as I browsed through dusty novels in Lok’s shop, he asked me something that caught me off guard.
“Lai, what brought you to Nampura?”
The answer felt too complicated to explain. So I simply said, “I needed a change.”
Lok, with a wry smile, asked, “Did you leave something behind, or did something leave you?”
There are questions that go unanswered not because we don’t have answers, but because we can’t bear to give voice to them. So I merely shrugged and laughed, “A bit of both, I suppose.”
How do you learn to mourn an idea of a person you never became?
One afternoon, I found myself alone by the river, wondering about the life I had envisioned and the one I now led. Perhaps I had been so attached to the version of myself I had dreamed up that I hadn’t noticed her slipping away. I was no longer the person I thought I’d become, but someone else—someone, I realised, who wasn’t all that terrible.
I often wondered if I could resurrect those old dreams or if they belonged to a part of me that no longer existed. And what of the people who’d loved me for that imagined self? Was their love real if it wasn’t for the person I had actually become?
Can we let go of love that wasn’t real, even if it felt real?
It was not long after that Shari finally wrote to me. A simple message, almost casual, “Hey, it is been a while, hasn’t it?” And as I read those words, I felt a strange sense of finality. Shari and I would never be what we once were. The love we had shared was for a time, a version of ourselves that no longer existed. We could talk again, catch up, even laugh, but the intensity, the closeness—that was gone.
I wrote back, keeping my words light, acknowledging the space that lay between us now. There was no anger or bitterness. Only a quiet understanding that we had been part of each other’s lives in a way no one else ever would be, and that would have to be enough.
What does it mean to live with a body that’s learning to betray you?
There is a grief, too, in watching yourself age. I had come to Nampura in part because of my health, a quiet battle I had kept to myself. No dramatic symptoms, only the kind of exhaustion that settles into your bones. The doctors were sympathetic but vague—something autoimmune, they said, though exactly what remained uncertain. There is a betrayal in feeling your body resist the simple joys, in watching your hands grow more fragile, your energy wane.
Reflections
As the seasons turned, I came to accept that grief wasn’t always loud or even visible. It was, sometimes, a silent companion that arrived with the rain, lingered in conversations, and nestled into quiet evenings. It was a reminder of people, places, and versions of myself that I had to let go. And in a way, perhaps that was okay.
I had thought I came to Nampura to escape, but I realised I had come to mourn. And in mourning, I found myself again—not the person I was or had planned to be, but someone who was, perhaps, enough.
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