The Girl Who Wrote in Ashes

She carried a small bowl of ashes everywhere she went—leftovers of homes she once knew. While others wrote with ink, she traced letters in gray dust on walls, on stone, on the ground. When the wind blew her words away, she smiled, for she knew meaning was not meant to stay. One morning, a child followed her, asking why she wrote knowing it would fade. She answered, “Because everything that burns teaches us how to begin again.” And the child understood, for her ashes left trails of hope behind her.