Chronicles of the Ashen Years

These days, the wind carries grit and frustration, leaving people on edge. Love has long since been taken apart and scattered, like meat trimmed clean at the market, weighed by the pound and priced according to your wallet and appearance. It's as slapdash as yesterday's spoiled leftovers.

Yet two people, amid a sinking economy and hearts set adrift, are like a pair of old stones, trying to plant the seeds of sincerity in the gaps between steel bars. He's dull and stubborn, while she's determined to believe that understanding is worth more than numbers. They calculate the cost of food and firewood as prices soar, and hold on tight through waves of layoffs, thinking their stubborn devotion can see them through these times.

But the wheels of the world don't care whether what's in your arms is a diamond or a lump of filth. The truth they cherish becomes a joke, a relic of a bygone age. In a world of fast love, swipe-based dating, and material checklists, their slowly simmering affection seems like a crime.

In the end, the wind is still the same, and life is still a pot of bitter gruel. They fail to protect the sprout, not because it starves, but because it's drowned in spit and crushed beneath their own determination. Nothing ends in a blaze of glory. All that's left is pain broken into pieces by everyday life, piercing the heart like a dull knife. We laugh at an age that loves so carelessly, mourn that it has no room for sincerity, and grieve for those who insist on being sincere. They become the darkest scars of this careless age.