I retired at sixty-four, and the silence deafened me. Not the kind of blissful silence you seek after a long, noisy day, but the heavy, sticky silence of an empty home, of long-dead memories, and of a future that stretched out before me like an endless gray plain. I had built an empire, I had ruled destinies, I had signed checks with more zeros than most people could imagine. Now the only document I signed was a prescription for a blood pressure monitor.

I had everything and nothing. The mansion I had built with the ambition to echo with children’s laughter now resembled a mausoleum. Every room was a reminder of failure. My wife had been gone a decade ago, taken not by illness but by my own poison—my perpetual busyness, my coldness, the endless deals that were always more important than dinner with her. She didn’t leave me for another man. She left me for myself. We had no children. I was too busy creating a legacy of money to create a legacy of flesh and blood.

Loneliness became my constant companion. In the morning I would wake up to the sound of the alarm clock, which I had forgotten to turn off out of habit, and I would stare at the ceiling, wondering why I was even getting up. The days passed in monotonous agony. Breakfast prepared by the housekeeper who moved around the house like a ghost. Newspapers whose headlines no longer interested me. Lunch in complete silence. An afternoon nap from which I woke up more tired.

One day, unable to bear the weight of my own home any longer, I left and walked aimlessly. My feet led me to a small, tucked-away alley where a café hid, seemingly frozen in time. “Sweet Nostalgia,” it was called. Inside, it smelled of freshly baked pastries and strong coffee. The atmosphere was warm, cozy, filled with soft whispers and the clink of cups. It was the complete opposite of my sterile life.

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