Ash & Echo

Comfortably Numb

Inspiration: Comfortably Numb, Pink Floyd

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It began with rain.

Not the revenant kind who kisses your cheeks as a lover returned.

No, this rain had teeth.

It snarled through the narrow streets of Istanbul's old quarter, lashing at glass, copper and skin.

It hunted every exposed inch of the city like it was owed blood.

But she didn't bother with an umbrella. She let the bitter rain soak into her coat, her hair, her throat.

The rain knew her. Or rather, it remembered her.

Lonely as she was, together, they cried.

The streets hummed with ghosts of empires, its minarets and neon signs warring under the storm.

She passed through them like a spectre. Lost in the music strumming in her bones. The khol bleeding down her cheeks, eyes far away.

She had a name once, but it tasted old now, like dust and unspoken prayers.

Then there were some nights like these, when the rain hit just right, and she heard a man's voice, soft as a vow, calling her.

It stirred memories of a time when the rain had tasted of salt and ash.

But the voice was muffled, like a radio underwater. Like remembering a dream you weren't meant to wake from.

People didn't use her name anymore.

They called her Laleh, like the Persian flower, delicate, exotic.

Or bluntly, 'The Woman Who Sings at Velvet House', as a stage cue,

She wore the name like a borrowed silk veil.

Beautiful. Harmless.

But not hers.

Laleh let it become her, and even the ghosts called her that now.

Besides, it was easier than saying:

I don't remember exactly who I was, before the voice took root in my chest.

The slick cobblestones beneath her heels seemed to lean closer when she passed, and the shadows stretched a little further in her wake.

She'd walked this path too many nights to count, and each time, it felt like coming back to a place she hadn't forgiven yet.

The Velvet House wasn't a house.

It was a bleeding dream.

An old haveli, half swallowed by modern scaffolding, its doors guarded by time and rose thorns.

The front façade had once been carved ivory and stone.

Now it looked like it had cried too many monsoons and hadn't stopped since.

Neon signs from the adjacent butcher shop blinked a dull red glow across its upper windows.

As she approached the gate, it didn't welcome, it whispered, just as it did every time she passed:

If you're not broken, don't come in.

To find The Velvet you had to already be lost.

Inside there was warmth, but not comfort.