Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 211: The Inhabited Void

Chapter 211: The Inhabited Void

The bridge, behind me, was already unraveling.

I didn’t need to turn around to know it. I felt it. In the air. In the way space retracted behind my steps, like living skin gently closing after the passing of a wound. The fibers, one by one, detached from the void, unwrapped slowly, without violence, as if they had only ever existed for that precise moment.

It wasn’t collapsing. It was folding back in.

Like a memory one agrees to no longer carry at the front of the heart. Like a hand one lets go, not out of abandonment, but because it led us this far.

In that silent retreat, there was no sadness. Only the trace of a passage. And the certainty that I would not return.

Its fibers receded into the fog, slowly, almost tenderly.

As if the world were closing a wound. A wound I had opened by crossing it. Not by violence. But by necessity.

Each strand, each nerve, each pulse folded in on itself, dissolved into the mist, without a sound, without regret. It was an organic movement, instinctive, almost alive. As if the path I had taken had never been a road, but an incision.

And now that I was on the other side... it was stitching itself back together.

Not to erase me. But to heal.

Because this world too needed to heal. And by leaving the trial, I left behind... something more than a memory. I left a trace. A wound made fertile.

And in front of me... there was nothing.

Not yet. No scenery, no shape, no vanishing point for the mind to grasp. Only a white expanse, almost unreal, suspended between the unknown and the possible, as if the world itself was holding its breath, waiting for a choice, a step, a shiver.

The ground had no texture. The air had no density. There was no wind, no distinct light, not the slightest shadow to suggest direction. Nothing moved. Nothing imposed itself. Even my own perceptions seemed to slow down, to dissolve, as if swallowed by this void that wasn’t one.

And yet, I felt neither anxiety nor threat. This silence was not a refusal. It wasn’t meant to judge or repel. It was... available. Present without demand, vast without violence. A welcoming emptiness. A soft threshold, almost womb-like, like an ancient belly waiting, without condition, for something to be born.

It wasn’t an end. It wasn’t even a beginning. It was an in-between. A suspended territory, prepared not to challenge me, but to welcome me as I had become, after all that had been crossed.

And in this total absence of landmarks, in this strange and mute purity, I understood that I no longer had to prove anything. No longer had to justify. This place wanted nothing. It simply opened its invisible arms to me.

And I... stood there.

One more moment. Before daring to move forward.

My heart... was still beating.

I felt it, discreet, buried, nestled somewhere between my ribs and my throat, but without sound, without impact, without that feverish insistence it had known until now. It was beating, yes, but differently.

It no longer made itself heard. No longer like a cry, no longer like a call for help. It no longer pounded against my chest as if trying to escape. It had calmed. As if it too had understood that there was no more war to fight.

It was a confidential heartbeat.

Almost secret.

An inner rhythm, soft, tightened, like a voice one reserves for those one loves, or for oneself, when finally listening without fear.

Intimate.

Not weak. Not erased. But offered at low volume. Just loud enough to remind me that I was alive. And that this aliveness, for perhaps the first time... didn’t hurt.

I knelt.

Not from pain. My body no longer screamed. There was no tension, no wound, no alert in my limbs.

But a dizziness.

Not that of the void. Not that of fear. An inner dizziness, deep, as if everything I had held back until then was releasing at once, without violence, but with such intensity that my legs could no longer stand.

It wasn’t a fall.

It was a passage.

An instinctive movement, humble, silent. Like an unconscious reverence at the threshold of something else. I hadn’t been cast to the ground. I had surrendered to it.

Because this white ground, without texture or name, was calling me differently.

Not to possess me. But to invite me. And to respond... I had to kneel. Not to submit. But to receive.

And then...

I saw her.

At first barely a vibration in the white, an irregularity so subtle I could’ve mistaken it for an illusion. Then a shape, clearer the more I looked. A silhouette.

In the distance.

Motionless. Inaccessible.

She wasn’t walking. She wasn’t waiting for me. She was simply there. Present. Unalterable. As if the world had built itself around her, or rather... had waited for her to appear to exist.

She didn’t shine, and yet... she illuminated. Not with light. With presence. She radiated a calm so deep it became almost painful to look at.

And in her arms...

Something. No — someone.

A tiny body, nestled against her.

A baby.

Too far for me to see its face, but not far enough to ignore. It didn’t move. It didn’t cry. It was there, curled against her, held with a tenderness that didn’t belong to this world.

And without knowing why...

I felt my breath suspend. My heart slow again. And something, very old, very buried... awaken.

Because I knew.

Without doubt. Without clear image. Without proof. But with a certainty so calm, so organic, that it left no room for question.

It was her.

My mother.

I knew it. Not with my mind. Not with memories — they were too far, too eroded, too blurry. I knew it elsewhere. In my belly. In my throat. In that silent spark that suddenly settled just under my ribs, like a forgotten truth finding its place again.

It wasn’t the screaming woman. Not the one from nightmares and muffled cries, from shadows and closed doors. Not the blurry silhouette screaming in my broken memories.

It wasn’t the voice of shadow. Not the one that judged, not the one that demanded, not the one that made the child behind the door tremble.

It was the real one.

Or maybe...

The last trace of what she had been, before I forgot. Before fear distorted her. Before my memory, to survive, covered her with a veil.

She was there.

Not to be recognized. But to exist. To testify, without a word, that she had been real. And that despite everything...

I did come from somewhere.

She was calm.

Not just tranquil. Not peaceful like a statue or idealized memory. She carried within her an ancient calm, almost mineral, made of total acceptance, inner silence, of a world that no longer resists.

Her eyes... remained open.

Clear. Translucent. Not luminous, but stripped. Devoid of trouble, of anger, of joy, of tears. Devoid even of past. They sought nothing. They fled nothing. They simply looked, as one looks at what is.

She wasn’t crying.

There was no trace of pain on her cheeks. No trembling at the corners of her lips. None of those signs that recall the wounded, broken, living human.

She wasn’t smiling either.

There was no warmth in her mouth. No echo of love or pride. She offered me nothing. She took nothing back. She didn’t try to soothe me, nor to condemn.

She looked.

And in her gaze...

there was neither judgment. Nor love. Nor forgiveness.

It wasn’t empty. It was beyond.

It was a gaze that contained everything, without attaching emotion to it. A gaze that had seen the world, had carried it, had lost it, and no longer needed to speak.

And in that everything...

there was me.

I didn’t know what I was to her. A son. A memory. A mistake. A wound. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. But I was there. And she saw me.

Not as a guilty one. Not as a child. As someone who exists.

And that simple fact... burned my chest.

And in that silence.

That muffled, dense, almost sacred silence — a silence that wasn’t the absence of sound, but the suspension of all judgment, of all unnecessary words — she fixed me for a moment.

Not long. Not intensely. But with absolute clarity.

A gaze without detour, without filter, without defense. A gaze that didn’t try to understand, nor to explain. A gaze that welcomed, but didn’t kneel.

Then, slowly, she lowered her eyes to the child she held.

With that same silent, detached, but attentive tenderness. She looked at him as one looks at something fragile and inevitable.

And with a slow gesture — almost ritual — she rocked him.

Not to soothe. Not to lull. Not to love.

But to keep him alive, a few seconds more, in this suspended world.

As if that gesture, that discreet rocking, was all that remained of her humanity. And that it was enough.

Finally...

she turned away.

Without shiver. Without drama. Without even another glance.

She turned her back as one closes a book never needing to be read aloud. With that slow, meaningful simplicity, that strange ease that demanded no explanation, no forgiveness.

She walked into the light.

Not a dazzling or divine light. A soft, steady light, almost maternal, like a morning without time. She didn’t cross it. She merged with it.

Each step erased a bit more of her silhouette, not like a disappearance, but like a return.

A return into what had preceded her.

And I, standing, still witness... remained there. Watching. Without shouting. Without running. Because I knew that this departure... was not abandonment.

I...

remained there.

Not frozen. Not broken. Simply present.

Voiceless. Because there was nothing left to say that wouldn’t have been a lie, or something from before. The words, in my throat, no longer rushed. They had fallen silent on their own, as if they understood that this silence said everything.

Wordless. Because none could contain what I felt. Neither shadow, nor light. Neither mourning, nor peace. There remained only this hesitant breath, this muffled heartbeat in my chest, this bare presence.

Without hatred.

That was perhaps the strangest thing. The most overwhelming. There was nothing left to burn. No more anger, no more sting, no more inner war. She was gone. And I didn’t want anything back.

I was just there.

Standing, apart from the world, in this still-warm void left by her disappearance. A void that didn’t wound. A void that didn’t call.

A void... inhabited.

And for the first time in a long while, I was no longer afraid to stay in it.

Then I began to walk.

Not out of duty. Not from instinct. Not because something pushed me. But because something in me had started walking again. Slowly, deeply, without fanfare.

Because I could no longer stay.

This place, however soft it had become, was no longer a refuge. It had been a threshold, an echo chamber, a cradle for my pain. But it was not an end. It was not made to be inhabited. Only to be crossed.

Because I no longer wanted to flee.

There were no more walls to crash into. No more shadows to avoid. No more memories to mask behind tight silences. I had seen everything. Felt everything. Carried everything. There was nothing left to push away.

And because, perhaps...

I was no longer entirely alone.

I didn’t know if she was still there, somewhere. If the child still watched over me. If this calm heart would keep beating this way. But a presence lingered. A trace. A thread. Something true enough to follow me.

And that was enough.

So I walked on. Not toward an end. Toward what would come.

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