He didn’t choose it. The sun did.
Every afternoon at exactly 4:13 PM, the light would cut through the glass and land on a single sheet. Sometimes it was buried under 3 piles. Sometimes it was on top. But the light always found it. Like the building itself was breathing, and exhaling one memory at a time.
He would sit, carefully pull the paper out, and read it.
Some days it was boring. A grocery list from 2004.
Some days it broke him. A goodbye note that was never sent.
Some days it saved him. Like today.
Today the light landed on a paper so thin it was almost transparent. The ink was faded blue.
“To whom it may concern,
I know what you did. And I know why you did it.
I forgive you.
— Laila, 12.03.2011”
Noor read it three times. Then he folded it, gently, and placed it in the small wooden drawer on his desk.
Inside that drawer were only 3 other papers.
The first: “Dad, I got into university.”
The second: “We named her after you.”
The third: “Thank you for not giving up on me.”
He called it “The Drawer of Things Worth Saving.”
