The memorial

It rained the morning of Liam Stone memorial.

Not a downpour—just a slow, steady drizzle, like the sky itself was grieving. A single white tent had been erected near the old airstrip where Stones Aviation had once launched hundreds of flights. Now it sat forgotten, its logo faded, the planes stripped, the windows broken.

Only six people came.

Esther stood at the front, holding a folded paper with shaking hands. She wore a simple black dress, a Stones Aviation pin on her chest. Beside her was a small table with the remains that could be salvaged—a melted headset, part of a control yoke, and Leo’s photo.

There was no body. No casket. Only ash, a handful of twisted metal, and memories.

Wambui arrived late.

She stood in the back, under an umbrella, alone. She hadn’t seen Liam in years—hadn’t spoken to him since Leo’s death. Yet something pulled her here. Something deeper than guilt.

When Esther began to speak, her voice was quiet but resolute.

“I met Liam when he had nothing. After the scandal, after the pills, after he’d lost everyone. I was just a nurse. But he... he still carried something in him. Flight. Even when he couldn’t breathe, he dreamed of flying.”

She paused, eyes glancing at the photo.

“I watched him build his company from dust. And then watched him lose it again. Not because he failed—but because grief changes a man into something unrecognizable. Liam was many things. A father. A soldier. A pilot. A man in pain. But he never stopped loving Leo. That was the one thing that never broke.”

A few sniffles broke the silence.

Esther stepped aside. No one else moved forward. Until Lily did.

Her heels sank into the mud as she approached the podium. She didn’t read from paper. She didn’t speak loudly. She simply looked out at the broken runway, then down at the melted headset.

“I blamed him for too long,” she whispered. “For the court case. For the shame. For Leo. But I never realized... he blamed himself more than I ever could.”

She looked up, eyes red but dry.

“I don’t know where he is now. I don’t know if the sky is kind to pilots who fall. But if there is a place where souls fly free—I hope he and Leo are flying there now.”

She walked away before anyone could respond.

And that was the funeral of Liam Stone. No headlines. No flags. No twenty-one-gun salute. Just a silent runway, a grieving nurse, a long-lost wife, and the ghost of a boy who once wanted to be a pilot

Weeks passed. Then months.

The land that once held Stones Aviation was sold to a Chise logistics company. They flattened the hangar and paved the runway anew. No memorials. No signs. No traces of the man who once breathed life into the sky.

But in a box buried beneath the foundation, a contractor found something odd—a scorched but legible flight journal, hidden in the walls of the hangar office.

It had no name. Only entries written in thick, looping script. Each one a memory. Each one a wound. And on the final page, the words:

"If anyone finds this, know that I loved my son more than I loved the air I flew through. He was my reason. My redemption. My ruin."

The contractor gave it to his supervisor. The supervisor tossed it.

It ended up in a landfill outside of Athi River.

That’s where a young aviation enthusiast named Kioni found it—searching through old scrap for collectibles. She read the journal cover to cover, tears streaking her cheeks.

She never knew who Liam Karanja was.

But she never forgot his words.

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