The afternoon sun slanted through the grime-coated window of Nawaf's one-room apartment in Yamamah's fringe, painting his skin in flickers of jaundiced orange. He sat hunched at the threadbare armchair, ribs straining the fabric, chest tightening with every shallow breath. His morbid obesity had long ago stolen his vitality—and now, the first whisperings of heart failure lurked beneath each inhale.
His family was a catalogue of broken promises. His father, long divorced from his mother, refused all contact; his mother rotted in a debtors' prison, her mind unmoored by grief and psychosis after their youngest daughter, twelve-year-old Lina, succumbed to pneumonia in a clinic too underfunded to help. Of his eight siblings, five remained: three brothers, Yasser, the eldest, now dead of drug overdose; Hamad, in high school; and little Sami, in elementary, whose laugh once brightened every corner. Two sisters survived: Amal, nineteen and mercurial, and five-year-old Nur, who pressed her tiny hand against the glass whenever they visited their mother behind bars.
By dusk, Nawaf punched out at the fast-food joint where he was cashier, body aching from twelve-hour shifts he couldn't refuse. Mr. Hassan threatened termination for every delayed minute, and an eviction notice fluttered under the apartment door like a death sentence.
As Nawaf climbed the narrow stairs, a roar split the air: glass shattering, timber groaning. The corridor flooded with orange light. He burst through his door—flames hungrily consuming the cheap drywall.
Instinct overrode panic. He staggered inside, heat lancing his face. Smoke clawed at his lungs, but he forced himself forward. In the hall, shadows swirled. He saw Sami's schoolbag, its fabric molten at the zipper. Then, beyond that, a small shape slumped in the corner. Nawaf's heart lurched into a stuttering convulsion.
"Sami!" he rasped.
He stumbled over debris, hot embers blistering his forearms. There, half-naked and burned beyond recognition, lay his little brother's corpse—eyes fixed in a silent scream, flesh blackened and crumbling. Nawaf dropped to his knees, retching smoke and tears. His vision swam; pain stabbed across his chest.
A thunderous crack, behind him, the door frame split and fell, trapping him inside. He scrabbled at the splintered wood, smoke choking every word.
"Amal! Hamad! Nur!" he wailed, but only the blaze answered.
His skin blistered where embers rained down. He dragged himself toward the bedroom door, his breath a rasping whisper. Outside, he thought he heard Amal's voice calling—something ragged and distant. He reached the doorway and thrust it open.
The room was empty. The charred outlines of little Nur's bed lay against the far wall; the collapsed ceiling dripped molten plaster onto the floor. He sank to the threshold, clutching his chest as a crushing weight pressed down—a familiar tightness that had haunted him for weeks. His eyelids fluttered, and the world narrowed to a single point of white-hot pain.
He slumped backward, gaze fixed on the blackening ceiling beam. His vision fractured into shards of memory: Lina's final cough, Yasser's vacant stare at dusk, their mother's silent tears. His heart thundered, then stuttered—and his body, once his burden, now betrayed him utterly.
Nawaf closed his eyes as flames licked his feet.
"I'm sorry…" he whispered, voice fading with each heartbeat.
A final convulsion seized him, and he exhaled the last breath he'd ever know.
Regret
Nawaf al-Salem lived thirty-four years on this earth, and in that time accumulated—by choice or by chance—nothing but sorrow. A wasted paycheck here, a shattered promise there; a debt so crushing it imprisoned his mother, a clinic so broken it stole his sister's life; a city so indifferent it watched him burn alone. His body, too large for comfort and too frail for endurance, finally surrendered. In the end, a half-lit room and one final conflagration wrote the coda to a life both unremarkable and unforgettable in its quiet devastation. All of it, gone in a breath and a scream, leaving only smoke and regret in the chill aftermath.