Fan of Sorrow

By G S Sai Saran

The rain was loud that night, the kind of rain that made the world  outside vanish into static. The thunder came in slow, deliberate rolls  that shook the windows of the small apartment. The air smelled of paint and anger.

Arjun slammed his bedroom door. The sound shot through the house like a gunshot. “Shut up!” he yelled, his voice trembling. “You and Pa are nothing but rotten apples hanging on a tree!”

The words burned his throat as they left him, and yet he didn’t want to take them back. Anger had momentum, it moved through him like current, impossible to stop once released. He sat on the bed, heart racing, cheeks flushed with rage and shame. His phone’s screen glowed beside him, mocking him with the dull emptiness of scrolling.

On the chair near the window hung his new party suit, ironed and perfect, waiting for the night that now seemed ruined.

Above him, the ceiling fan hummed with lazy indifference, slicing the thick air. But after a while, it slowed. Then stopped. The silence that followed was suffocating. Arjun frowned and stared up at it. The fan trembled once, and then began to spin again—only backward. Counterclockwise.

The lights flickered.

“Pa?” Arjun called out. “Something’s wrong with the fan!”

No reply. The air grew heavy. The wallpaper seemed to fade in color, graying like old skin. Dust lifted off the corners of the room and drifted in strange spirals.

Then came a whisper.

“My sweetest son… we tried. Maybe it’s easier to vanish than to rot before your eyes. As you said—we’re nothing but rotten apples overstaying our welcome on your tree.”

It was Ma’s voice.

Arjun froze. The world seemed to hold its breath. His eyes darted to the corner of the room, where a shape began to form,  it was Arjun himself, wearing the same party suit that lay folded on his chair. His skin was pale. His eyes were hollow. And in his trembling hand was a crumpled letter.

Then Pa’s voice followed, quiet and low, as if spoken through water.

“Forgive us. The locker in my cupboard holds what you need. The money. The key rests inside your comic book. We loved you… we love you still.”

Arjun’s chest constricted. He stumbled toward the door and beat his fists against it. “No! Don’t do this! Please, don’t leave me!” His hands throbbed, his knuckles split and bled. The wooden door beneath him began to feel like cold metal, impenetrable and dead.

Then, softly, it creaked open.

He stepped into the hallway.

The air smelled of coffee and rain. The shadows flickered, and then he saw them, his parents, hanging from ropes, swaying gently. Their faces were drained of life, lips gray, eyes half-open. The ropes creaked with every movement, slow and rhythmic, almost like breathing.

Arjun screamed. He clawed at the knots, sobbing, begging, pulling at their legs, their hands. The world blurred around him, the edges of the room melted like wet ink. His screams faded into silence.

When he opened his eyes again, he was back in his room. The same rain. The same bed. The same fan above, spinning normally once more.

“Arjun?”

He looked up. Pa was kneeling beside him, alive, his eyes full of concern. Ma stood by the door, holding the steaming rice cooker, her hair damp and frizzy. “What happened?” Pa asked softly.

Arjun stared at them. His tears hadn’t stopped. His mind couldn’t decide if this was mercy or punishment.

He didn’t sleep that night. The fan above hummed its steady rhythm, but he watched it like one watches a snake, ready for it to move wrong again. The rain whispered against the window, patient and endless.

In the morning, pale light spilled into the room. On his desk lay his comic book, its cover bent and familiar. He reached for it, flipping through the pages, until something metallic glinted within.

Inside were a small bottle of pills, a thin coil of rope, and a brass key. His fingers trembled. Next to them lay a folded note. He opened it carefully.

My sweetest son….

His stomach turned. The same handwriting. The same words.

He crushed the paper in his hand, his heart pounding with fury and fear. He stormed out of the room.

In the living room, Ma and Pa sat side by side on the sofa, sipping coffee like it was any other morning. Arjun slammed the pills, rope, and note onto the table. The sound made them both jump.

“What are you doing?” he shouted. “Sipping your last coffee before you hang yourselves?”

Pa’s lips parted. “Arjun.”

“I found it,” Arjun hissed. “The rope, the pills, the key. What are you planning?”

Ma’s hand trembled as she reached for Pa. “We… we don’t know what to say,” she whispered.

Arjun snatched their cups and hurled them across the hall. They shattered against the wall, brown coffee streaking down like blood. He glared at them, breathing hard.

“Didn’t expect me to find it, did you, Ma?”

The ceiling fan stopped. The lights flickered, humming like a dying pulse. The blades began to spin backward again.

Arjun clutched his head. “No! Not again! This started it all!”

“What started what?” Ma cried.

“I don’t know! It happened before!” His voice cracked. “I think I’m losing my mind!”

The hallway blurred, colors washing away like wet paint.

When his vision cleared, he was back in his room again. The night had returned. The moonlight bled across the floor in silver streaks. The house was silent, emptier than before.

Arjun knelt on the floor, the crushed note in his hand.

“Why?” Ma’s voice whispered faintly.

He looked up, startled. “Why what?”

His voice sounded strange, hollow, like someone else’s first. No, it was his own voice.

In the corner, Arjun in the party suit stood again. He looked calmer now, though his expression carried something like pity. It was a figure.

“Why did you throw the cups at them?” the figure asked.

Arjun’s lips trembled. “You sound like me.”

“That’s because I am you,” said the figure quietly.

“A manifestation?”

“No,” he said. “We’re not the kind of people who manifest.”

Arjun stared at the figure. His own face, his own voice, but colder and wearing that same party suit. “What are you then?”

“I’m what you left behind,” the figure said. “The part of you that still wants to fix what you broke.”

Arjun felt his knees weaken. “I didn’t mean to hurt them. I was just angry. They didn’t let me go to the party, that’s all.”

“Do you know what day that was?”

“What are you talking about?”

The figure’s voice cracked. “It was Ma’s birthday. You forgot. All they wanted was a quiet dinner together, to feel loved. But instead, you called them rotten apples. You threw cups at them. You made them believe you didn’t care.”

Arjun’s breath hitched. He saw flashes, the look on Ma’s face when he shouted, Pa’s silence that followed. “I didn’t know,” he whispered.

“But you do now,” said the figure. “And you saw what happened after. You saw them hanging.”

Arjun’s eyes filled with tears. “What do I do? Everything’s over. I can’t change it.”

The figure stepped closer. “You believe in chances?”

“I do.”

“Then take one.”

“Do I get another?”

The figure smiled faintly. “Not a second. A third.”

Arjun looked down. “If I go to them, will they forget all this?”

“It’s all in your head,” said the figure. “Go seek forgiveness.”

“I’ll try,” Arjun whispered. “But will they forgive me?”

“Take a chance,” the figure said softly. “Do what you can with what you have.”

The figure began to fade, dissolving into the light.

“Wait,” Arjun said, reaching out. “What about you?”

There was only silence. The figure faded like ashes.

Arjun turned toward the door. It stood slightly open, light seeping through the crack. He took a deep breath and stepped out.

In the living room, Ma and Pa sat together on the sofa, their eyes swollen from crying. When they looked up, they froze. Arjun stood there, trembling.

“Why don’t we go out for dinner tonight?” he said softly. “I had a surprise planned for you, Ma. Don’t think I forgot your birthday.”

Ma’s lips parted, her eyes wide with disbelief. Pa reached for her hand. Arjun moved closer and hugged them both tightly. For the first time in months, he felt warmth, real and alive.

Behind him, the door to his room creaked shut on its own.

Arjun turned his head, saw it close fully, and smiled faintly. The fan above hummed again, its rhythm steady and calm.

Outside, the rain still fell, whispering against the windows. But inside the small apartment, there was peace, the kind that comes only when sorrow has said all it needed to say.

By G S Sai Saran