Anthesis of Sadness

The climb was becoming impossible. Not because of the slope, nor the altitude. But because of the density.

Something was thickening with every step. In the air. In my legs. In my thoughts. As if the world, suddenly, weighed heavier. As if every particle around me had grown denser, saturated with an invisible but real weight — a weight of memory, of truth, of exhaustion.

It was no longer a climb. It was a crossing. A wall of silence, of resistance, that I could neither bypass... nor refuse.

Each step pressed deeper into my belly, like a dull, visceral pressure compressing something older than pain.

A deep backwash pounded in my legs, wave after wave, as if the ground itself was trying to push me back.

My breath scattered. It no longer flowed, it fragmented. Beat after beat, it became erratic, dissolved, fleeing — as if my own body could no longer contain what it was going through.

My arms, they... still held the child. Out of habit. Out of duty. Out of reflex.

But they no longer believed. Faith had retreated from my muscles, leaving only the gesture, emptied of conviction. They held on, yes, but without certainty.

As if my arms continued to carry what they no longer understood. As if, already, a part of me had begun to let go... silently.

The world seemed to have slowed down. Or maybe... it was me. Impossible to tell.

Everything had become slower, thicker, as if suspended in a breath that couldn’t finish. Sounds dragged. Contours vibrated.