Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 231: What Still Speaks When I Stop

Chapter 231: What Still Speaks When I Stop

I had stopped. Not because of an obstacle. Not because the path was closed, or because my legs had given way under the accumulated weight of fatigue or doubt. It was more diffuse, deeper, more opaque than that. I had stopped because something in me, without shape or voice, had slowly slowed down. An imperceptible crumbling of movement, a gentle saturation, almost kind, like a hand placed gently on the shoulder — not to hold back, just to make it clear that now was no longer the time to move forward.

And I had sat down. There. Without premeditation. Without a plan. Just there, where the ground, warm and docile, had welcomed the bend of my knees without resistance. A porous, living texture, neither hard nor soft, something between flesh and earth, like a world that no longer needs a stable surface to hold bodies — a world that absorbs without judgment, that lets itself be hollowed out for a moment to offer unconditional rest. And I had said nothing. Thought nothing. I had just let my weight sink. My breath slow down. My attention withdraw a little from the walls, a little from myself. I had let the silence rise. And that silence had no clear contours. It breathed in my place, curled under my ribs, settled in the hollow of my open palms.

And it was there — in that stretched, unbroken, uninterrupted breath — that I heard it. Not a sound. Not a distinct word. Not a foreign voice. No. Just... a sentence. But a sentence that did not come from me. Not from my ordinary consciousness. Not from the part of me that thinks, that organizes, that searches, that names. A sentence lodged elsewhere. Lower. More deeply in the mental architecture. A sentence from that gray zone, that invisible threshold between nerves and memories, between breath and memory. A sentence already formed, as if it had waited for me to be still in order to emerge. And it was there. Perhaps always had been. Just there, lurking, patient, ready to vibrate if the body finally stopped making noise.

And that sentence thought inside me. In my place. It did not impose itself by force. It did not burst forth. It settled. Slowly. With disturbing accuracy. Like a note held too long, which can no longer be ignored simply because it was not wanted. It was there. It had always been there, perhaps. And I, finally stopped, finally porous, let it pass through me.

— You see. You always knew. You always knew why it hurt. You just never wanted to stay in the silence long enough to hear it all.

And it was like a shiver in my temples. A slow slap, but internal. A tension rising from the ribs to the scalp, without violence, but with that mute certainty of sentences that cannot be forgotten. So I murmured, not even knowing if it was for her or to protect myself:

— No... No. I didn’t run. It wasn’t running away, not really, it was... it was too soon. Too vast. Too... I didn’t know where it would come in.

— You knew.

Her answer had burst out too quickly. Like a verdict already sealed. And everything in me took a step back, without moving. The body did not react, but something in the chest cavity contracted — a withheld beat, a dull wave.

— No.

— Yes.

— I did what I could.

— You did what you had to. And what you had to do was run. As usual.

A silence rose, saturated. Not a silence of ending, but a thick, loaded silence, like a sob swallowed the wrong way. I no longer knew if I was struggling against her or against what I was beginning to admit.

— That’s not true.

— Then why do you tremble? Why does your breath hesitate every time I approach? Why do your bones remember better than your mouth? Tell me. Say it.

— I didn’t forget you.

— You denied me. You covered me up. With gestures. With masks. With justifications. With your damn will.

I would have liked to scream. But even my breath pulled back. So I let the sentence out, almost too low to be heard:

— I didn’t want to lose you.

— You strangled me.

— I didn’t know it was you...

— But now you do. And you can no longer run. You no longer have the right to be neutral.

I closed my eyes. Not to flee. To breathe. But even the air cut me. It scraped against that voice, that presence that was neither me, nor other — but just close enough to make me doubt every word. She knew my silences better than I did.

— I was never neutral.

— You were a coward.

— Shut up...

— You watched me burn. And you said: "It doesn’t matter."

— Shut up...

— You heard my screams and you built walls. You called it survival. You called it: moving on.

My voice rose a notch, almost despite myself:

— I was alone. I was fucking alone, that was all I had!

— And now you have nothing. Except me.

I thought the ground was going to crack. But no. It was my chest. My breath. A hollow opening, a dry vertigo.

— You are not me.

— I am what you killed to exist.

— That’s not true. That’s not true that’s not true that’s not...

— Don’t lie anymore. Not here. Not now. Here, the words you refuse take form. Here, even your silences bleed.

She had said that without hate. And that was much worse.

— Then what? What am I supposed to do? Let you speak in my place? Open my belly so you can curl back up inside? What exactly do you want? For me to disappear?

— You’re not ready. You still want to choose. But there’s nothing left to choose.

I wavered.

— I just want to understand!

— You should have understood before. Now, you must listen.

— Listen to what?

— The sound you make as you fall.

I collapsed inside. Nothing moved on the surface. But everything cracked. Something broke without a sound, somewhere beneath the diaphragm. And I stayed there, without an anchor point, suspended in a kind of fall without speed. A lateral collapse of the soul, without scream, without struggle.

— I’m not falling.

— You are stretching. You are yielding. You open your arms and you don’t even know if it’s to welcome or to plead.

— I’m defending myself.

— You are no longer armed.

A second beat without me. I looked at her, without eyes, without shape, without direction. Just that suspended tension, in my throat.

— And you? What do you want? To punish me? Judge me? Drag me like an old fault to the depths of my guts? You want me to cry? To collapse? To beg you to come back?

— I am already here. I never left this body. You just arranged it so you wouldn’t feel me anymore.

I wanted to hate her. But I no longer felt the boundary. So I said:

— Because you hurt too much...

— Because I was too true.

— I’m afraid.

— You’re not afraid of me.

— Yes, I am.

— You’re afraid of yourself. Of who you were before the split. Before the silence. Before the learned sentences. Before the shell.

I swallowed with difficulty. The saliva stuck like molten glass.

— I can’t become that again.

— I’m not asking you to.

— Then?

— I just want you to hear me. To stop talking to me like I’m a disease. I’m not a symptom. I am your weave. Your source. Your first cry. The one you never had the right to scream.

I curled up inside. There was no more stable angle. I was sliding into my own axis. My own verticality was dislocating.

— I... I don’t know what to do with you.

— You have nothing to do. You just have to be crossed.

A long beat, like an endless wait, lived in my chest. It asked for nothing. Demanded nothing. But it was there. Whole. Bare. Irreversible.

— Are you going to stay long?

— As long as it takes for you to stop keeping me at a distance with words. As long as it takes for your breath to stop trying to expel me. As long as it takes for you to understand... that what you call madness is just me knocking at the door.

I placed my hand on my own chest. Right there. Where it vibrated. Where it was no longer me.

— And if I open it?

— Then maybe... maybe we can finally talk. Together. Instead of tearing each other apart.

So I didn’t move anymore. Not right away. I let myself be carried by the rhythm she imposed. A slow rhythm. A rhythm of after. A rhythm of sediment. A beat that sought neither to convince, nor to conquer. Just to last without breaking.

And in that slowness, I was finally... listenable. By what I had never wanted to hear. By what I had not known how to express. By what, even now, had no name.

And that was enough. Not to understand. But to go on.

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