Anthesis of Sadness

I stared at her faceless visage, that absence of features memory didn’t dare define, as if clarity itself would betray something too ancient, too sacred. And yet, within that mist, in those barely sketched, blurred lines, I glimpsed... something.

Not a memory. Not a name. Nothing anchored, nothing clear. But a feeling. From elsewhere. From beyond memory. A form of love. Not the kind one speaks of. Not the kind one shows. A silent love, steady, ancient — like a star one never looks at, but whose light still reaches us, night after night.

And that light... had always brushed me without my knowing where it came from.

I walked past her without a word. Not out of indifference. But because silence, in that moment, said everything no language could contain. There was nothing to add. Nothing to explain. I simply let my body do what my heart had finally accepted.

And I began to climb.

Before me, a massive root rose, twisted in on itself like the spine of an ancient tree, tortured by time but upright in its ascent. It shimmered gently, like amber beneath a veiled light — not dazzling, not divine, but warm, thick, almost maternal.

A light that did not blind me. A light that guided me.

The key vibrated in my hand. Barely. Like an intimate, discreet reminder, more resonance than motion, but I felt it run through my wrist, into my chest. An ancient breath lodged in matter.

It didn’t burn. It didn’t guide. It simply lived, against my skin.

So I moved forward. One step. Then another. Slowly. As if each movement activated something invisible in the air, in the fibers of the root, in my own body. And all around, the world held its breath.

And with each step... I distanced myself a bit more from below. Not from the world. Not from others. I no longer fled faces, or voices, or even places.