The Echo Between Messages

Before the message arrived, Adrian’s days moved like gray water—slow, functional, without glimmer.

He worked from a small apartment that smelled faintly of coffee and printer ink. Each morning began the same way: open laptop, scroll through headlines he barely absorbed.

Journalist Detained for Inflammatory Speech.

New Surveillance Protocols for Messaging Apps.

His thumb moved past each one, dismissing what he couldn’t fix before the weight settled in his chest. He called it protecting his mental health. Mostly, it was self-preservation.

Then one Tuesday afternoon, his phone buzzed.

“My mom dreamed the secret police were coming, so I deleted Instagram to stay safe 😂.”

Adrian laughed—quick, reflexive, surprised by the sound. The emoji made it a joke, didn’t it? That crying-laughing face—the internet’s way of keeping dread at arm’s length. He’d seen the tone a thousand times: dark humor about surveillance capitalism, disguised as meme.

He typed back, still smiling: “Hi, sorry—who’s this again?”

“It’s Lila. Mara’s daughter.”

Right—he remembered now: her mother had been kind to him once, during the winter he nearly quit writing. They’d talked about stories over coffee; she’d insisted he keep at it. Maybe that was why her daughter’s message hit him harder than it should have—same mix of humor and quiet defiance.

“Tell your mom I still owe her a chapter,” he typed, then paused. The truth was, he had been working on something—a novel he hadn’t shown anyone. Almost without thinking, he added, “Actually, I’ve just finished a draft. Would love a fresh pair of eyes if you ever have time.”

Before he could talk himself out of it, he attached the file and hit send. It felt intimate but oddly right, like returning a favor to a family that had once believed in him.

“Thank you!” she replied almost instantly. “Mom always said you were brilliant. I’ll read it tonight.”

And just like that, they were talking.

One message became twenty. They leapt between subjects—censorship (she’d lived under it, he’d only read about it), the exhausting performance of optimism, the rising cost of flour, the strange solace of poetry in a world allergic to beauty.

“I’ve spent my whole life in a fawn response,” she wrote. “Like my worth was measured by how useful I could be to people who scared me.”

“Same,” he said. “I survived by pretending everyone was just God in disguise. If I could love the mask, maybe I wouldn’t see the threat underneath.”

“That’s tragic.”

“It worked,” he wrote. “Until it didn’t.”

She sent a smaller laughing emoji—rueful this time.

“We should write a book: How to Survive by Pretending Everything’s Fine.”

“Chapter One: Smile While Your Soul Screams.”

“Chapter Two: VPNs and Prayer.”

He grinned. VPNs—he took it as another joke about digital paranoia, that low hum of anxiety everyone carried. He made a note to ask where she lived, what her days looked like, how bad her connection really was.

That night, he fell asleep with the phone glowing beside him, feeling less alone than he had in months.

***

By the end of the week, their chat had become a garden he returned to daily.

She sent photos each morning—her hands in soil, seedlings pushing through dark earth. “Growing what I can,” she captioned one image of radish. “Just in case.”

He assumed she meant grocery prices. He replied with a childhood photo—lemon trees heavy with fruit, light caught in the leaves.

“When the empire falls,” she joked, “we’ll build a village.”

His heart stuttered. “I’ll bake the bread.”

“Good. I’ll grow the herbs.”

“And who’ll write the poetry?”

“We’ll both try—and fail beautifully.”

They traded confessions like recipes. He told her how his autism seeped into his writing—how emotion became texture, how anxiety lived in his characters’ tight chests and curling fingers.

She said that’s what made it human.

“The body tells the truth faster than the tongue.”

“That’s a line I’m stealing.”

“Take it. I charge royalties in laughter.”

Between voice notes—hers warm and deliberate, his slow and measured—they built a world of jokes and revelations.

“Do you think souls recognize each other?” she asked one night.

“Probably,” he said, lying in bed. “But recognition doesn’t always mean we’re ready.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“Maybe to make the loneliness specific.”

“I’m glad I found you,” she wrote after a pause. “Even if it’s only through a screen.”

“Same,” he typed, meaning it more than he expected.

***

One evening she sent a story about a moth.

“It flew into my kitchen. My hands were wet, so I asked if it wanted out. It landed on my shirt till I opened the door. Then it flew away. We understood each other for a moment.”

He smiled. “I’m glad you’re finding harmony with nature.”

“It’s easier than finding it with people,” she replied. “Animals don’t lie about what they need.”

The conversation meandered through loneliness and the ache of being awake in a world determined to sleep. She mentioned how her street had gone quiet, how neighbors stopped gathering, how even the children’s voices had dimmed.

“Sounds peaceful,” he said, though the phrasing tugged at him.

“Peaceful,” she echoed. “Sure. That’s one word for it.”

He stared at the message, sensing something he couldn’t name. Then his cat jumped onto his lap, and the thought dissolved.

When he finally set the phone down, the apartment felt less empty, as if her words still lingered in the air—warm, human, reaching across impossible distance.

He fell asleep thinking of moths and doorways and how some connections feel like recognition.

In his dreams, he didn’t hear the sirens that might have been wailing on her side of the world, or see the way light drained from streets he’d never walked. He only dreamed of their garden, growing message by message.

***

The headlines became harder to ignore.

Adrian found himself pausing mid-scroll, his thumb hovering over stories he would have dismissed a week ago:

Opposition Leader Missing After Rally.

Internet Blackouts in Three Provinces.

Online Sedition Act Passes—“Inflammatory Content” Now Punishable Under Emergency Powers.

That last one made his stomach drop. Inflammatory. Prosecutable. Emergency.

He thought of texting Lila—something light: Hey, saw the news. You okay?

But what if it sounded patronizing? A Westerner warning a woman who lived this reality daily.

She was careful. Smart. She’d deleted Instagram already.

He set the phone down. She knows what she’s doing, he told himself.

***

Their messages deepened.

She began sending voice notes—her accent soft around the edges of English, her pauses deliberate.

“Your writing has this warmth,” she said once, low and steady. “Like sitting beside a fire that knows your name.”

He replayed it three times before replying.

“You have that quality too. Every message feels like light in a dark room.”

“That makes me happy,” she wrote. “To be a light-bearer to a light-bearer.”

He smiled at the phrase, chest tightening with something dangerously close to love.

Not the cinematic kind—more the quiet accumulation of gestures: her moth story, the garden photos, dream of lemon trees.

He didn’t name the feeling. He just held it, fragile as glass.

***

Then the world outside fractured.

She went silent for two days—no photos, no voice notes, not even a busy today.

He checked constantly; the checkmarks stayed gray.

On the third day:

“I wrote something. It’s not good, but I had to let it out.”

Relief flooded him. She was fine—just writing.

Then the poem arrived, line by line, like fire leaking through cracks.

Images of monks, ashes, chain-link fences; a heart that burns and burns and never consumes itself.

Light refusing to die inside a darkness with teeth.

He read it twice, pulse hammering.

My God, she wrote it down.

This wasn’t art—it was testimony. Evidence. The kind that got people—

He stopped the thought.

Two instincts fought: the artist who wanted to praise her courage, and the human who wanted to scream Delete this.

His fingers hovered.

He could type Please tell me you didn’t post this.

Or Be careful—these words have weight.

Or simply I’m worried.

Instead he wrote,

“You wrote what everyone else is too numb to say. Fire doesn’t just destroy—it purifies.”

Send.

“Maybe,” she answered. “I feel like I’m burning alive just to keep caring.”

“Then let’s keep burning,” he replied, “until the darkness runs out of fuel.”

The instant he sent it, his stomach turned to ice. Let’s keep burning.

He’d told her to keep burning.

That night neither slept.

Her messages came at 2 a.m., 3, 4 — fragments about hope and futility, exhaustion that felt cellular.

He answered everyone, trying to be the light she believed him to be.

But as dawn seeped gray through his blinds, he stared at the ceiling, phone warm in his hand, and knew he’d made a terrible mistake.

He should have warned her. He should have said Be careful. These words have weight. This could get you killed.

Instead, he’d said: “Keep burning.”

***

The silences began like water pulling back before a wave.

Her messages grew rare; when they came, they dropped heavy and brief.

“So many moments I find a scream catching in my throat.”

“I can’t trust the world anymore.”

Sometimes:

“Sometimes I think about just—”

and then nothing.

Adrian replied with long, gentle essays about forgiveness and fear, wanting to help, to offer calm.

She answered with single words: Yes. True. Maybe.

The checkmarks stayed gray longer.

He told himself she was busy—new mother, sleepless nights, ordinary life. Not danger. Not him.

Then one morning he saw she’d been online at 4:47 a.m. but hadn’t opened his last message.

An unease he couldn’t name spread through him.

He sent her a PDF of his stories—an offering, a way of saying I’m still here without asking her to respond.

A week passed.

“Your words feel alive,” she finally wrote. “Reading them is like hearing from family.”

Relief hit so hard his hands shook.

“That means more than you know,” he said.

They drifted to lighter things—fonts, audiobooks, the comfort of human voices.

He recorded himself reading a poem and sent it.

“Your voice is soothing but commanding,” she said.

“You always bring light to my day.”

“That makes me happy.”

For a moment the rhythm returned—the easy brightness of before.

Then she mentioned her son’s fever, her exhaustion, how time felt slow and fast, drowning and flying.

“Are you having a dark day?” he asked.

“Only when the light leaves.”

He paused. Not when I’m tired—when the light leaves, as if it were something stolen.

He stared at the words, sensing a door he couldn’t quite open.

Then his work email chimed. The thought slipped away.

He sent a heart emoji and set the phone down, promising himself he’d check in tomorrow.

That was the last message she sent.

***

Days became a ritual of waiting.

Every morning Adrian opened WhatsApp before his eyes were fully awake, thumb moving to her name. The chat sat there like a held breath—his last message alone, checkmarks gray, then blue, but never answered.

He typed drafts he never sent.

Hey, just checking in. Delete.

Hope you’re okay. Delete.

I miss talking to you. Delete.

Each unsent line felt like intrusion. Maybe she needed space. Maybe her phone was broken. Maybe she’d gone on one of those digital detoxes people swore by. The rationalizations grew smooth with use, like stones turned in water.

At night he’d google her region—Communications Disrupted in Capital District. Mass Arrests Following Protests. Government Cracks Down on “Seditious” Online Activity.

He always closed the browser before the second paragraph.

She’s fine, he told himself. She has to be.

***

Three weeks after her last message, he finally scrolled backward.

At first it was accidental—thumb slipping, screen jumping upward—but once he began, he couldn’t stop.

He moved slowly, rewinding through a life he hadn’t realized he was living.

Their jokes about empire and villages. Her laughter in a voice note, bright and unguarded. The moth story—“We understood each other for a moment.”

His throat tightened.

Further back: the garden photos—radish pushing through soil. Growing what I can, just in case.

He’d thought she meant groceries. Now it read like prophecy.

He tapped her old recording: You’re a light-bearer to a light-bearer.

He’d once played it on loop, smiling in the dark, feeling chosen.

Now it sounded like goodbye.

He kept scrolling.

“Chapter Two: Use VPNs and Prayer.”

Not quirk. Protocol. Instructions disguised as humor.

Then the poem: I will burn alive to help bring light to the darkness.

And his reply beneath it: Let’s keep burning until the darkness runs out of fuel.

The words struck like ice. He’d urged her to keep burning—while knowing exactly what fire meant in her world.

***

His thumb kept moving, drawn by a grim gravity, until he reached the first message.

“My mom dreamed the secret police were coming, so I deleted Instagram to stay safe 😂.”

He stared until his eyes blurred. The emoji—tears of laughter, mouth wide in glee—

😂

He’d laughed at it once, actually laughed out loud.

It wasn’t a joke.

The realization hit like cold water. It was a warning wrapped in humor because humor was the only safe language left. The emoji wasn’t irony—it was gallows humor, the last laugh of someone out of ways to scream.

Her mother had dreamed the secret police were coming.

So she deleted Instagram.

To stay safe.

And he’d replied, Hi, sorry—who’s this again?

He felt the phone shake—or maybe it was his hands.

She had told him everything, first line, first contact.

And he’d missed it.

He’d sent her his novel.

He’d talked about lemon trees.

He’d joked about building villages.

He’d told her to keep burning.

The emoji stared back, grotesque, mocking—not her laughter, but the universe’s: a man mistaking a scream for wit, comfort for care.

***

A dry laugh scraped from his throat.

He checked her profile one last time.

Gray silhouette.

Last seen: four weeks ago.

Four weeks since Only when the light leaves.

Four weeks he’d spent choosing disbelief because truth was unbearable.

He opened the text box, cursor blinking like a pulse.

Maybe she’d just deleted the app. Maybe she was safe, offline, teaching her son about moths and doorways.

Maybe.

The cursor blinked. Waiting. Hoping.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe she was fine.

Maybe.

He whispered into the room, “When the empire falls, we’ll build a village.”

For an instant he thought he heard her answer, faint and familiar: “I’ll grow the herbs.”

Then only silence—the hum of the refrigerator, traffic far away, the phone glowing like a dying star.

He set it down gently, as if noise might shatter what remained

The quiet that followed wasn’t peace but absence—an emptiness that asked questions it would never answer.

He sat there until the screen dimmed and finally went dark, eight thousand miles and a lifetime of privilege from whatever had swallowed her voice.

And the laugh emoji—that bright, merciless yellow face—stayed burned behind his eyelids like an afterimage, the last light of everything he’d failed to see until it was far, far too late.

[ END ]