'Good Night, Pratap'

The café wasn’t anything special. That’s why I chose it. A mid-tier chain, neither too loud nor too quiet, with just the right mix of background noise to put the boAt Nirvana Ion ANC Pro to the test. The company claimed an industry-leading 32dB active noise cancellation, and I had to see if it actually held up in a real-world environment.

I placed my laptop on the wooden table, the surface slightly sticky from a previous customer’s spilled sugar packet. The overhead lights were warm, casting a soft glow over the space. People talked in small clusters, the clatter of cups and cutlery forming a dull rhythm under their voices. Near the counter, the espresso machine let out a sharp hiss as a barista pulled a shot.

Perfect.

I pulled out the boAt Nirvana Ion ANC Pro case, flipping it open with a satisfying click. The earbuds nestled inside, matte black with a subtle blue ring around the edges. Lightweight. Sleek. I popped them into my ears, twisting slightly until they fit snugly.

A long press activated ANC mode.

The café softened instantly. Conversations blurred, the hum of the espresso machine dulled. Not complete silence, but close. A cocoon of focus.

I made a mental note—effective noise reduction, but not total isolation. Feels natural.

The manual lay open beside me. I skimmed through the controls. Three taps: Beast Mode. I tried it, feeling the bass intensify slightly, making the ambient music in the café sound richer, deeper.

Two taps: Next track. The playlist shifted.

I wasn’t really listening, just running through the features, checking for lag, clarity, responsiveness.

One tap: Play/Pause.

I tapped once.

"Good night, Pratap."

The voice slipped in so naturally that for a second, I thought it was part of the music. But it wasn’t. It was her.

My chest tightened. The noise cancellation didn’t block this out. Nothing could.

The café faded—not in sound, but in significance. The world outside the voice ceased to matter.

"Good night, Pratap."

I had forgotten it was still there. Buried somewhere in my library, tucked between old recordings, untouched for months. But now, it played. Unbidden. Unavoidable.

The cursor blinked on my laptop screen, waiting for me to type something about the earbuds. But my hands didn’t move.

Memories began to unspool, slow and deliberate, unearthing themselves from the quiet corners where I had left them.

And just like that, I was no longer in a café. I was somewhere else, in some other time, with someone who was no longer mine.

"One last thing."

She had said it softly, sitting across from me, her hands curled around a paper cup that had long since gone cold.

I looked up, the weight of unspoken words pressing into the space between us. There was nothing left to say. We had said it all—again and again—until the reasons blurred, until exhaustion settled in, until we both knew that whatever this was, it was ending.

Still, I managed to ask, "What?"

"A parting gift," she said, tilting her head slightly, as if testing the words before she spoke them aloud.

I watched as she reached for her phone, fingers moving with quiet certainty. A few taps, a slight pause. Then, she looked at me, waiting.

"Say it," I murmured.

She smiled—not the bright, effortless one that used to light up rooms, but a softer, tired version of it. A smile that knew things had run their course.

And then, she spoke.

"Good night, Pratap."

Simple. Familiar. The way she had said it every night before we slept, as if it was the last thread holding our days together.

I nodded, swallowing against the sudden ache in my throat.

She pressed a button. The recording saved.

That was it.

There were no grand declarations, no desperate attempts to hold on. Just this—two people sitting across from each other, accepting the inevitable, choosing to leave with something small but meaningful.

A voice note. A habit, preserved in sound.

"Good night, Pratap."

The words faded, but their weight didn’t.

My fingers hovered over the earbuds. A single tap would stop it.

But I didn’t move.

I just sat there, coffee growing cold, the café around me reduced to nothing but distant shapes and muffled noise.

I had listened to that voice note every night for months after we parted. It was never about missing her—at least, that’s what I had told myself. It was about continuity, about easing the transition from what was to what is. A way to keep the loneliness at bay.

And then, one night, I simply didn’t play it.

I had moved on. I had learned to sleep without it. I had even forgotten it was still there.

Until now.

I took a slow breath, the scent of coffee grounding me, the weight of memory settling in my chest.

The earbuds worked. The noise cancellation was flawless.

But some things couldn’t be silenced.

Not by technology. Not by time.

And certainly not by a single tap.

I had forgotten how soft her voice was.

Not the way it sounded, but the way it felt—like the final flicker of a candle before the wick gives out, warm and fleeting, leaving behind the faintest trace of its glow.

"Good night, Pratap."

I exhaled slowly, pressing my thumb against the edge of the laptop, grounding myself in the present. I had moved on. I had buried the past in the quiet spaces of my life where it couldn’t reach me. But now, without warning, it had unfolded before me again—soft, familiar, unchanged.

The café was still here, the low hum of voices seeping through the imperfect seal of the earbuds. My coffee was still untouched, the steam curling into nothing. My assignment was still open, cursor blinking, waiting for words that suddenly felt impossible to write.

I should’ve stopped the recording. Deleted it, maybe.

But I didn’t.

Because for all the months I had trained myself to live without that voice, in this moment, I wanted to hear it. I wanted to feel what I had forced myself to forget.

It wasn’t pain that settled in my chest—it was something quieter, something heavier. The kind of weight that doesn’t break you, just lingers.

I had loved her. And maybe, in some corner of my heart untouched by time, I still did. Not in the way that aches for return, not in the way that wishes for different endings. Just in the way that remembers.

There’s something cruel about nostalgia. It arrives uninvited, slipping in through the smallest cracks, whispering, Look how beautiful it was. And for a moment, you forget why you ever let go.

"Good night, Pratap."

I closed my eyes. Let it wash over me. Let it settle.

Then, finally, I reached up and tapped once.

The silence that followed was different from before. Not the kind manufactured by technology, not the kind that the boAt ANC Pro promised with their 32dB Active Noise Cancellation.

This silence was real. This silence was mine.

I opened my laptop. Fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Then, I started to type.

Because life moves forward. And some memories, no matter how deeply etched, are meant to be left in the past.

Even the beautiful ones.