I sweep ash from the same floor every morning

Dear Delyara, I work at a cremation ground beside the river. My job is to clear ash, stack wood, carry water, and help families who arrive unable to understand how an entire person becomes something light enough for the wind. People think working here must make death ordinary. It does not. It makes grief recognisable from far away. I know which son has travelled overnight, which widow has not eaten, which family is arguing about money beside the body, which child still expects the person beneath the cloth to sit up. This morning, a little girl placed a red marble near her grandfather before the fire was lit. After the family left, I found the marble blackened but unbroken in the ash. I should have swept it into the river. Instead, I washed it and placed it in my pocket. My own grandfather died when I was six, and I remember almost nothing except the red sweets he kept in a tin. All day, the marble knocked softly against my keys as I worked. Tonight, it is on my windowsill catching the last light. Perhaps I kept it because my job teaches me that most things burn. A few small things refuse.