22/07/2025
THE LIGHT THAT STAYED
Room 47 always smelled faintly of dust and lemon polish. The bed creaked no matter how gently you sat on it, and the faded blue wallpaper peeled ever so slightly near the corners. But for Zain, the most important thing about Room 47 wasn’t the bed, or the desk with the chipped corner, or even the little bookshelf his family had filled with classical Urdu novels over the years. It was the window. Tall and narrow, the window faced the east side of the house, where the old neem tree stood with gnarled roots like ancient fingers clawing into the earth. Every morning, golden light would pour through the window, splashing warmth across Zain’s blankets, sometimes waking him before his mother’s soft knocks. And in the evenings, the window reflected the burning orange of sunsets, painting his walls with fire.
He was five when they moved into the house. His father, a man of few words and many silences, had chosen the neighborhood for its peace and quiet. Zain didn’t mind the quiet. He was quiet, too. He didn’t like crowds or the shrill chaos of birthday parties. He preferred watching people from afar, the neighbor's girl who always ran barefoot on gravel, the ice-cream vendor who scratched his beard while counting change, and the old woman who never made eye contact with anyone. At school, Zain didn’t speak much. He sat in the middle row, drew pictures of stars in his notebook, and answered questions only when directly asked. His teacher once wrote on his report card: “He’s like the moon…distant, yet always there.”
Zain liked that. He read it twice before folding the paper and tucking it behind the dresser next to the window. He began thinking of himself as a moon. Not the glowing kind people loved to photograph, but the one you rarely noticed during dawn, the quiet presence.
Years passed. Zain turned ten. His legs had grown long enough to rest on the windowsill while sitting on the chair beside it. The neem tree had grown, too. It stretched past the second floor now, and squirrels often danced across its branches. Sometimes, when school felt too heavy or the world too loud, he’d rest his forehead against the glass and watch the squirrels, wondering what it was like to live so free and light. At school, he noticed how children’s voices changed. They used to ask him to play. Now they nudged each other and said, “That’s Zain. He’s… weird.” One even said he might be cursed because he stared out of windows so much. He smiled when he heard that. A soft, strange smile. He wasn’t cursed. He just liked the world better when he wasn’t in its center. He stopped trying to be included. Instead, he found comfort in shadows, in listening to others speak and imagining different versions of their words. His notebook wasn’t filled with stars anymore. Now it held stories: small, delicate tales about squirrels who built spaceships, about clocks that paused time to help children breathe, about boys who spoke to the moon and it answered back.
Thirteen came with a storm. Puberty hit hard. Not just the voice cracks and acne, but something deeper. A weight. A fog. Some mornings, Zain would wake up and feel nothing. No fear. No sadness. Just a blankness. He’d sit by the window and stare until the sky turned dark, and he hadn’t realized hours had passed. The neem tree had been trimmed recently. A part of its large branch had been cut off after it cracked during a thunderstorm. Zain watched the sap leak down like blood, and it made his chest hurt. The school counselor asked to see him once. A teacher had noticed he wasn’t turning in homework. The counselor had kind eyes and a rainbow mug with the words
“It’s okay not to be okay.”
Zain stared at it for a long time. He told her he was tired. That he didn’t know why. That his chest felt tight some days and empty the next. She didn’t ask too many questions. Instead, she gave him a piece of paper with some breathing exercises and told him about “grounding.” He didn’t use them right away. But he folded the paper and placed it near his window, under the curtain. At night, the moonlight often filtered through the window and landed directly on the folded paper. He took it as a sign that it was there if he ever needed it.
Seventeen was harder. His best friend left. Just… left. One morning, he was there. The next, gone. His mother sat beside him one night, on the bed in Room 47, holding a cup of tea and said,
“People leave, Zain. Even if they don’t slam the door on their way out.”
He nodded. She touched his cheek and whispered, “But not everyone leaves you. I won’t.”
It was the first time in years he let someone hug him. That year, the window became more than just glass and wood. It became his anchor. He’d journal next to it. Cry beneath it. Hold hot mugs of coffee while watching the sun rise and think maybe, just maybe, the world wasn’t always cruel. One evening, while looking out the window, he saw a boy about his age sitting alone on a bench across the street. Something about his slouched posture and the way he stared at the gravel path mirrored Zain’s own reflection. On impulse, Zain wrote a note: “If the world feels too much, sit by a window. Let it remind you that everything changes, but light always returns.” He folded the note and, days later, left it under the bench. He didn’t know if the boy would find it. But writing it felt like giving away a piece of his own healing.
At twenty-one, Zain returned home after two years of college. Room 47 was smaller now. Or maybe he was larger not just in body, but in understanding. The neem tree had withered. Its bark was gray and hollow, and one side had been overtaken by fungus. But the window still framed it like a memory. It reminded Zain of all that had changed. The sting of social rejection. The quiet counselor. The notes. The grounding paper.
He sat on the chair, opened the window for the first time in years, and let the wind touch his face. College hadn’t been easy. Anxiety clung to him like a second skin. Social groups overwhelmed him. Parties drained him. But he found people who loved differently, people who didn’t question his silences but embraced them. He started writing stories for the campus mental health group. Shared parts of his journals. Gave talks about quiet boys and windows. He wasn’t fixed. He wasn’t glowing. But he was growing. One night, he sat by the window with his old notebook. The one filled with squirrel spaceships and moon dialogues. He laughed reading one line: “The moon told me I was not made to shine in crowds, but in corners where people forget to look.”
And then he saw her, a little girl across the street, sitting alone near the neem tree. Knees pulled to her chest, head down. He grabbed a sticky note and wrote: “Windows aren’t just for watching. They’re for breathing. You’ll be okay.”
He waited until nightfall. Then slipped the note into a plastic sleeve, crossed the street, and tucked it into the crack of the tree. He didn’t look back. Years from now, Room 47
may belong to someone else. The bed might be replaced. The wallpaper might be scraped clean. The neem tree may fall one stormy night. But Zain hopes deeply and quietly that the window remains.
Because sometimes, all it takes is a single frame of light to remind someone: you’re still here. You’re still growing. And that’s enough.
🖊MUHAMMAD HANZALA UMER
MBBS'26
GENERAL SECRETARY FLC
