The pawn I left standing

I played a game yesterday where I forgot to capture a pawn. Not because I was distracted—no, I saw it, knew it was there, and let it stay. It sat on c6 like an accusation. When the clock ran out and I lost, I didn’t care. What stuck with me was how still it looked in the end: one white piece, unclaimed, in the middle of a board that had long since stopped breathing. I took a photo of it before cleaning up. Sometimes the silence between moves is louder than the win.