The Watchman of the Old Fort

Ramji had watched the fort for eleven years. He knew which jackals barked and which stones settled after heat. He did not know the footsteps that climbed a staircase burned away a century ago.

At dawn he found only dust—and his own bootprints ending where the wall fell open to the sky.

He never told the tourists. He only asked for a transfer to the day shift, and for a lamp that never went out.