Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 189: Mom, I’m Sorry

Chapter 189: Mom, I’m Sorry

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.

It wasn’t an ascent to escape. It was a more intimate detachment, slower, more essential.

I moved away from the broken child. The one who wanted to punish to avoid feeling. The one who refused to be touched. The one who hated not because he was cruel, but because he no longer knew how to do anything else.

That child, I didn’t erase. I didn’t deny. But I left him. Down there. Like one leaves behind a skin too tight, a weight carried too long without knowing why.

And somewhere in the air, without any clear direction, without identifiable origin, the voice murmured one last time. Not like a lesson. Not like a goodbye. But like a lucid breath, almost tender, placed in space with infinite delicacy.

— You haven’t repaired anything. But you’ve begun.

I didn’t answer. There was nothing to say. Nothing to contradict. Nothing to defend. But my hands... my hands were still trembling.

Not like before. Not from fear. Not from anger. They trembled because something within me was still moving. Because the world, slowly, was beginning to pass through me again.

The root rose before me, massive and dark, black and cracked, as if sculpted by centuries of silence. But lined with golden veins that pulsed slowly, as if ancient light still flowed within it, slow, deep, tenacious.

A column of life, twisted in the void, carrying within it both the fall and the ascent.

Each step became lighter. Not because gravity yielded. Not because the body rose by miracle. But because I was letting go. Internally. One thing at a time.

The heavy memories. The mute anger. The invisible chains I had tied myself around my heart, my muscles, my memory.

I wasn’t climbing to escape. I was climbing to release. And in that shedding, something in me finally began to breathe.

I climbed. Not like a hero. Not with the grandeur of a symbolic gesture. Not with the triumphant impulse of those who believe they deserve their ascension.

I climbed like a breath. Light. Elusive. Present without imposing. I climbed like one exhales after a long apnea. Like one rises without noise, not to be seen, but because there’s nothing left to prove. Nothing to carry. Nothing to flee. Only... to continue.

Then... I saw it. The key.

It no longer shone. The light was gone, absorbed, as if its purpose had been fulfilled, as if what it held no longer needed to shine.

It began to stretch. Slowly. Without pain. Its contours liquefied, melting into themselves with an almost organic softness, like a memory dissolving without vanishing.

It flowed down my hand, fluid and warm, seeping between my fingers, slipping into the hollow of my palm.

And still it descended... toward my wrist, my skin, my flesh. Without force. Without violence. As if it had always known it would end here. In me.

It became... a cord.

Slowly. Naturally. As if it had never been anything else.

Soft to the touch. Warm like a hand held too long against skin. Alive.

It wrapped around me without pain, without resistance, like a gesture rediscovered from long ago.

It wasn’t a shackle. It wasn’t a bond to bind me. It was a thread of return. A thread of connection.

It didn’t seek to hold me back, but to re-inscribe me. To call me back to something vaster, older, truer.

I didn’t resist. I didn’t even have to choose. I let that cord cover me, graze me, slide slowly down to my navel... and anchor itself.

There, at the center. At that exact point where everything begins. Like a heartbeat revived.

And then... I smelled it. The scent.

Not sulfur. Not the dust that clings to the skin after effort. Not the acid, trembling scent of fear either.

No. A warm smell. Round. Primitive.

A scent not from the world, but from before the world.

It was... warm milk.

A forgotten perfume, but never erased. Like soft vapor rising from a memory buried beneath too many layers, but still alive, intact, in the silent folds of bodily memory.

It was a memory that didn’t pass through thought. It lived in the bones. In the belly. In the before. Before language. Before the mask. Before the fall.

I lifted my eyes. Slowly. As one discovers without disturbing.

And before me, the root was splitting. In silence. Not with a crash. Not with a rupture.

Just... it was opening.

An opening had formed, natural, organic, as if it had always been there, waiting, buried beneath the bark of the world.

It wasn’t a door. There was no threshold, no frame, no clear separation.

It was a passage. White. Total. Dense with light, but without brilliance.

It wasn’t violent. It didn’t tear anything. It offered itself.

And in that whiteness... there was something nourishing. Like a silence that heals. Like a light that does not judge.

I took a step. Then another.

The passage opened before me without resistance, and the silence accompanied it, full, deep, almost sacred.

And in that silence... I whispered.

Not loud. Not to be heard. Not to receive forgiveness.

Just for me. So the word could exist, at last, outside of me.

— Mom... I’m sorry.

The word floated. Suspended. Fragile. Like a bubble the breath doesn’t dare break.

It lingered there, for a moment, between me and the world, between what I had been and what I was becoming.

Then it was absorbed. Gently. Soundlessly.

As if the passage itself had received it. And understood.

And I too.

Without resistance. Without regret.

I disappeared into the light.

Not like one fades. Not like one erases.

But like one is reborn.

Not as an ending.

As a beginning.

Silent. Inevitable. Gentle.

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