They were Home

He was buried right beside her.

Ash Bhardwaj
2007-2024
"Life is pretty, even death is when you get to die with your hands in his."

Harman Singh
2006-2025
"Where she rests, I follow with devotion. I won't call it death as I am going to meet my lover. I feel alive than ever."

The family blanketed the grave with color in a world gone grey: marigolds, roses, and tulips. Ash loved roses, they made her feel alive. "Red, the color of blood, the color of being alive. The color that flows in our tubes. These roses, red than ever, make me feel... alive!" She used to say.

Harman's mother, as she laid a bright marigold on the grave, smiled and looked up at the sky. It was raining softly, it seemed as if his lover, Ash, was indeed happy and was welcoming her lover, Harman, to the Home. Home, as he called it!
"My babies, finally will get their 'happy ever after'!" She whispered, wiping the tear that escaped the border of her eye, into the air as it kissed her temple and made the trees sway in the effect.

Ash, his lover, waited. As he slowly entered the whiteness, there she was, looking at him with a readable expression of love in her eyes. She had always loved him no matter what. In high school, they had been inseparable, but you know how it is? People hate Love! Love has its enemies who are out there waiting to destroy it all. But now, none of it mattered.

He walked up to her, slowly touched her cheek, as if to confirm it was her, his lover, his Ash, his Hippo. His fingers reached for her eyes, the eyes that reminded him of honey or sunsets, the kind that never drowned him, but made him feel a little more alive. His fingers then lingered on her button nose, the one he kissed every day. Her cheeks seemed to be red, just like the roses. Her lips, as sweet as sugar and sunshine. His fingers went on caressing her face while she stood there, her eyes fixed on his. There he was, her lover, back to the Home, where no one could ever take them apart. No one could ever take the lovers away.

"Harman," she whispered, slowly, as if a little raise in voice would shoo him away, "You are here! With me!" She completed more like a question, a reassurance. She wanted him to tell her that he would never go away from her. He was now with her, always and forever, as they were now at Home!
"You are Home, Harman." She said as he leaned in and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. His lips felt warm on her cold skin, comfort was the only thing that was present at the moment, and she craved for it. She craved for his company, his smell, his presence, she craved for him.

"Here I am, Ash, back with you at Home!" he whispered. "Never going anywhere, I promise."
"I told you I would wait," She said. "Even if that meant forever."

She wrapped her arms around him, feeling something unfelt for ages. She was tangled in his soul like the puzzled pieces that finally aligned. He held her close, slightly lifting her off the ground like he'd done when he first said 'I love you'. Like nothing else in the world mattered—not death, not the years they lost, not even the pain they left behind. Nothing. Just them.

"I held it all for you, Jaan!" He murmured. No tears this time. Just happiness and relief, as they said, because he was not dead, he was with his Life.
"You did good, you lived for both of us. Now, it is time to rest."

They travelled the fields, hand in hand, like they belonged here. Kids were playing there. Maybe they, too, were killed early. Now, there was nothing to fear. Someone shouted 'I love you' for the first time. An old grandpa waited for his wife. Every time the giant door would open, he would climb off the hill and look for his lover. There was a mother who looked down at the earth, probably looking for her children, watching them as their father made them meals and made sure they had food. She seemed proud of her husband. There was happiness and peace, as they call it.

"Oi Hippo, come, come, come here," Harman shouted as he climbed a hill.
"Hey, you silly, wait for me!" Ash shouted, trying to reach him.

They settled themselves on the hill and gazed down. They laughed as he made jokes like he used to. They had lost years, but now, finally, they were together. They sat there in peace. "You. Me. Hill. Peace," Harman stared into her eyes.

"Haha, Nope. No peace when we are together. It is chaos!" Ash said as she laughed her heart out after pushing him off the hill, and he landed on the white field of the soft clouds.
"You little traitor, come here, I will show you." He ran after her as she ran on the white fields. Laughing and giggling, they ran all over the place. He finally held her at the waist and swayed her around. Their laughter echoed in the place. They were finally happy!

They built a little cottage in the clouds. He let her paint the walls a rainbow. She let him place an oddly shaped vase in their house. The little cottage was decorated with red roses, the ones that made her feel alive. Everything was cloudy, even the bed and sofas. Their cloudy motorbike was parked in the porch. Walls had paintings, the ones she had painted by magic. A little girl would come over to their house, and Ash would spoil her with heavenly cookies and cake. Sometimes, the old grandpa would come over with cookies. They were finally living their happy lives. They would go on walks and live the life no one let them live on the face of the earth.

'Cottage No. 7 - Ash and Harman'
The little place of chaos, love, and eternal laughter.

One peaceful day, angels were doing their work when they felt the clouds glittering. Just like the Earth had earthquakes, the clouds had glitter. It started with a sock. A flying one. Ash had flung it at Harman because he’d left his towel on her side of the cloud-drying line again.
“Do you think just because we’re dead, you’re exempt from basic laundry etiquette?” she snapped. Harman, who was peacefully trying to write a love poem that rhymed “love" with "dove," blinked. “It’s my towel. On our line.”

She hurled the other sock. “You’ve changed, Harman. You used to care about wet towels. And romance. And putting the cap back on the toothpaste.”
“Oh no,” he said, calmly standing up. “Don’t bring toothpaste into this. Not in heaven.”

Without warning, he snatched the nearest pillow from their memory-soft couch and chucked it at her. It hit her shoulder with a heavenly poof, sending a puff of glittery cloud-stuff into the air.

Ash gasped. “You did not just—” She grabbed two pillows. “Sardar ji, it’s on.”

The cottage exploded into feathers.
Chairs overturned.
The portrait of them on the wall was tilted.
One unfortunate angel flying by the window caught a stray pillow to the face and spiraled midair.

Fifteen Minutes Later, they lay side by side on the floor, breathless, surrounded by feathers, glitter, and tea mugs rolling dangerously close to the rug of eternity.

Ash was giggling. “We’re literally dead and still behaving like kids.” Harman reached over and brushed a feather from her nose. “Because being with you means nothing ever really grows old.”

She rolled into him, resting her head on his chest. “You know what this means, right?”
He groaned. “Please don’t say we need another treaty.”
“We need new pillow covers,” she said. “I vote floral.”
“I vote we haunt the angel until he sends us better ones.”
“Deal.”
"I love you."
"I love you, forever and always."

In their quiet little cottage between stars and memory, Ash and Harman didn’t chase eternity. They didn’t need to. They lived it—in burning chai pots, in crooked picture frames, in midnight dances on the rooftop under skies they helped paint themselves. Their love no longer feared the ticking of clocks or the breaking of bodies. They were beyond endings now.

And maybe that was the secret:
Heaven wasn’t clouds or halos.
It was this.
A sock thrown across a room.
A kiss mid-laughter.
A hand reached out in silence and was always found.

The world below would remember them as a tragedy.
But here, in their corner of the afterlife, surrounded by feathers and stardust and the softest echoes of their old chaos, Ash and Harman were not gone.
They were simply Home.
With socks, roses, and Love.