---

Every day, I drive past a quaint little house.

In the front yard, a clothesline strung like a quiet canvas.

The laundry was always hung in a beautiful, deliberate rhythm,

the heavy shirts of a grown man,

the soft fabrics of a woman,

and the tiny, bright clothes of a child.

It was a masterpiece of a perfectly ordinary life.

My eyes searched for it every single day.

But lately, the rhythm is broken.

Now, there are only the woman's clothes,

and the tiny outfits of the child.

Swaying silently in the wind,

beside a sudden, devastating empty space.

---

Dr. Darshana Ashoka Kumara is a Senior Lecturer at General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University (KDU) Sri Lanka with a great love for literature and intellectual research. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Peradeniya. He used to serve as a journalist before joining academia.