Smoke rose in thin grey threads that disappeared into the afternoon heat.
The cremation ground overlooked the backwater canal; water lilies floated near the shore, their petals slick with ash.
Dev stood among the crowd of white-clad figures, barefoot on the damp earth. The pyre crackled softly, each pop of sap swallowed by the chanting of priests. He felt none of it quite reach him. The sound came from somewhere far away, as if through heavy glass.
Beside him, his mother's hands were joined, steady only because she forced them to be. She hadn't spoken since dawn.
Asha's neighbours murmured condolences, familiar lines worn thin by repetition. "He was a good man… so sudden… may his soul…" Their words floated around Dev, meaningless syllables.
He looked toward the river, past the people, past the smoke. The sunlight shimmered on the surface, and for a heartbeat he thought he saw something beneath — a slow, looping glow, like the thread he'd glimpsed on the road. When he blinked, it was gone.
Someone touched his shoulder.
"Dev?"
It was Meera. Her arm was in a sling, a strip of white cloth wrapped across her chest, but she was standing, breathing, alive.
He stared, unable to speak.
"They said I was lucky," she said quietly. "I don't remember much. Just the sound. Then… nothing."
Her words trembled, not from fear but from confusion. She followed his gaze toward the pyre, then back to him. "You were on the bus too. How are you—"
He shook his head. "I don't know."
For a long moment they said nothing. Only the wind moved, carrying the smell of burning sandalwood.
When the chanting ended, people began to leave. Dev's mother lingered, feeding small sticks into the flames until the last trace of the body was gone. The priest muttered the final mantra, dipped his hand in water, and sprinkled it into the fire.
Dev turned away. His eyes caught on the old temple clock mounted on the gate. The pendulum had stopped mid-swing.
He looked up. The smaller clock by the priest's table — stopped. The one near the donation box — stopped.
Every clock within sight had frozen, each one marking a different hour.
Meera noticed too. "Power cut?" she whispered.
"There's no electricity in those," Dev murmured. "They're wound by hand."
The silence stretched between them, uneasy, filled only by the low hiss of dying flames.
For the first time since the crash, he felt something stir behind his ribs — not grief, not fear, but the faint realization that the world itself had begun to listen to him.
A single breeze passed through the courtyard. The smoke bent sideways, curling around his wrist like a living thing.
Then it faded, leaving only the still air and the smell of ash.
The crowd thinned as dusk came. Lamps flickered along the ghat steps; the water below caught their glow in uneven patches. The air smelled of smoke and wet stone.
Dev sat on the lowest step, knees drawn close, watching ashes drift out toward the far shore. Asha was speaking softly with a priest above; her voice lost in the evening wind.
Footsteps approached. Meera sat beside him without a word, her sling resting in her lap. They both watched the river.
After a long silence she said, "Everything feels slower now. Like the day's afraid to end."
Dev nodded. "It is."
She looked at him then — not with curiosity, just understanding. Her fingers, cold from the air, found his where they rested on the stone. For a moment she simply held them, not tightly, not seeking anything. Just stillness.
When she spoke again her voice was softer. "Your father liked to fix clocks, didn't he?"
"He said they reminded him that nothing's ever really broken," Dev said.
The lamps flickered again, their light stretching across the water like thin threads.
Meera let his hand go, stood, and brushed the dust from her skirt. "You should go home soon. Your mother will need you."
Dev looked up at her, then back at the river. "Yeah," he said.
She turned away, walking slowly toward the lane, her figure dimming into the mist. Dev stayed until the last lamp went out and the water was only darkness.
Above him, the temple clock still showed the same time it had that afternoon.