He sits before the piano a silhouette stitched together by regret and light. The flames do not burn him; they listen. Every note he plays is an apology to something he once loved too little, or too late. The keys tremble under his fingers, as if they, too, remember what it felt like to be touched by someone who was already leaving. Smoke curls upward a ghost with nowhere left to go. And the sound becomes softer, like the way people’s names fade when no one says them out loud anymore. He plays not to be heard, but to stop himself from disappearing completely. And when the final chord falls into silence, it’s not the sound that breaks you it’s realizing that sometimes the only way to keep something alive is to let it burn. Echoes: Tell me, when the things you love begin to fade, do you chase them into the fire… or do you turn away and pretend you can’t feel the heat?