The Scroll That Vanished at Dawn

Setting: 

I was dozing off in the university library when a pile of books were propped open around me, and tabs were constantly showcasing the articles I’ve yet to read. One moment I was browsing through the sections of philosophy and history for “the forgotten voices” and next I was lost into nothingness. The walls had changed. The silence was different. 

One could describe it as nowhere, all at once. I was somewhere between time and thought, between ancient scrolls and the soft blue light of a laptop screen. 

And standing in front of my reality was a vision towards a woman whose existence I had only encountered in the noteworthy sections of history books alongside ancient scrolls. Aspasia. 

Aanya Rao: (looking around, confused) 

What… is this place? Where in the world is this… this does not seem like my university. 

Aspasia: (smiling gently) 

You’re in a place where minds from different times can meet. Allow me to greet you, Aanya, I’m known by the name of Aspasia. 

Aanya: 

Wait–Aspasia of Miletus? The woman close to Pericles? That philosopher? So it’s true, she existed but everyone talked around without ever really discussing her? But she was so real? 

Aspasia: 

Yes, that’s me. But I was more than someone’s companion. I taught men who became famous, but people remembered me as a problem, not a thinker. 

Aanya: (shockingly quiet) 

They tried to erase you out. When they failed, it was more an obsession of dissection and minimalizing your brilliance into a mere private life. 

Aspasia: 

Exactly. People argued about whether I was “respectable,” not about my ideas. I welcomed great thinkers into my home, hosted deep conversations and still, I was treated like an insignificant character in the book of their lives.

Aanya: 

Still, we don’t forget you. Your trace survives in the writings of Socrates, in Pericles’ oratory, in the roots of public speaking and public discourse. 

Aspasia: 

Just traces. Soft whispers in old texts. Tell me, Aanya—how is it now? Do your voices speak louder than mine ever could. 

Aanya: 

They do, but we still face many challenges. We still have to fight to be taken seriously. We can speak now, yes but being truly heard? That’s something we still struggle with. 

Aspasia: 

But you had managed to do it. Here you are. A scholar. A woman with a voice—and more importantly, a platform to voice her opinions. 

Aanya: 

Thanks to women like you. You may not have left a written legacy, Aspasia, but the will of every woman who educates with vigor, writes with defiance, and poses difficult inquiries, your spirit lives on among us. 

Aspasia: (with a soft smile) 

Maybe my scrolls were never meant to last. Maybe they were just meant to light a spark. Not written in ink, but carried through courage. 

Aanya: 

We carry you, Aspasia. In every classroom, every article, every time we choose not to stay silent. You weren’t a side note. You were the start of a story the world is still writing. 

Aspasia: 

Then keep writing it, Aanya. Write it well. Write it loudly. The scrolls they burned, lost, or buried those weren’t the end. 

The real scroll, the one that mattered 

vanished at dawn, and found a home in voices like yours. 

I blinked everything around me faded. The glow of my laptop returned, the soft hum of the university library around me.

Aspasia was gone, but not really. Her voice still echoed in my mind, stronger than any written scroll. 

I looked down at the lecture I was preparing—on rhetoric, on women in philosophy, on forgotten voices. And I smiled. 

She wasn’t a footnote. She was the start of the sentence. 

And now, it was my turn to write.

-Mari Priyadarshini