The wedding guest who never came


The Wedding Guest Who Never Came

By Faraz Parvez
Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal
Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA

It was the grandest wedding Karachi had seen that year — fairy lights strung across the Clifton beach lawn, a stage covered in fresh roses, a buffet stretching endlessly under white canopies.

And yet, for Sana, the bride, the evening was incomplete.

She kept glancing toward the entrance, scanning each new arrival. Guests assumed she was nervous, or overwhelmed by the occasion. Only she knew the truth — she was looking for one person.

Zayan.

They had met four years earlier in a bookshop on Zamzama, reaching for the same copy of The Forty Rules of Love. He had smiled, let her take the book, and somehow stayed in her life ever since — not as a lover, not exactly, but as someone who always seemed to be there when she needed him most.

He was the one who walked her home when her car broke down at midnight. The one who sent her recordings of rain whenever she said she couldn’t sleep. The one who sat outside her exam hall for three hours just in case she needed a ride.

She never told him she loved him. Neither did he. Life was messy, their paths never quite aligned. Until her parents arranged her marriage to someone else — a kind, respectable man she barely knew.

She had invited Zayan to the wedding. He’d promised to come.

But the evening grew older. The guests began to dance. The mehndi on her hands darkened under the lights. And still — no sign of him.

Halfway through the ceremony, a waiter slipped her a small white envelope. There was no name, no note, only a train ticket inside. Karachi to Lahore. Dated yesterday.

Confused, she tucked it into her purse.

It wasn’t until after the rukhsati, when she was finally alone in the bridal suite, that she noticed something strange. The ticket had been punched — used. And on the back, in faint pencil, was a single line:

"Some departures happen before you notice them."

She didn’t sleep that night. Her new husband slept peacefully beside her while she lay awake, replaying every moment she’d shared with Zayan. The rain recordings. The long walks. The silence that had always felt like a conversation.

Three months later, she learned from a mutual friend that Zayan had left Pakistan entirely. No one knew where. Some said Canada, others Istanbul. Some said he’d joined a writers’ retreat in the mountains.

Years passed. Her life went on — children, jobs, family gatherings. But on rainy nights, when the house was quiet, her phone would light up with an anonymous email.

Just a sound file. The sound of rain.

Why We Tell These Stories
Some loves don’t end with closure. They end with rain, and with someone you’ll always half expect to walk through the door again.

Discover more stories of love, longing, and the unexpected: farazparvez1.blogspot.com


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