Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 236: Where I Do Not Walk

Chapter 236: Where I Do Not Walk

I don’t know if I stepped back. Or if it’s the ground, once again, that changed beneath me. Here, nothing distinguishes a step from a thought. Nothing anchors. Nothing strikes. The marsh erases all friction, all lines of rupture. There is no opposition between what I decide and what happens to me—only a slow gliding, a troubled coincidence between my breath and the world.

This place is not meant to be crossed. It is meant to recognize what insists on remaining.

I no longer know if I’m advancing or being carried. But I feel, still, that there are areas I don’t dare set down.

Not because of danger. Not even because of doubt.

But because those places... do not ask.

They wait.

Here, everything that doesn’t speak... remembers.

Smoother sheets. Calmer. Too calm. Stretches where silence thickens. Where the air becomes clammy, stretched, suspended, as if the world were holding its breath. Mute zones. Saturated. With an ancient calm, not peaceful but loaded.

There are places that ask for nothing, but that look. And that look... undresses me.

And as I approach them, something in me resists. Not in the head. Lower. In the belly. In the legs. As if my organs, even before I thought, already knew.

My stomach contracts before I even understand why. As if the very air, here, carried a memory I have no right to open.

It’s not my steps I hesitate to place. It’s my weight. My story. What I drag with me despite myself.

It’s not fear.

It’s refusal.

A refusal without explanation. Buried. Bodily. Like a memory that doesn’t want to be recalled. A form of intimacy that cannot bear to be reached.

Something in my loins retreats. Something ancient, reptilian, that has already known this kind of welcome—and fled.

It’s not an animal fear. It’s a foundational discomfort. As if an old part of me knew it had to remain silent here.

So I stay.

I go around.

I spiral, slowly, like approaching a sacred place one doesn’t want to profane. I’m not trying to flee. But I don’t dare place my foot. Not there. These sheets have no clear edge. They scream nothing. They do not trap. But they resonate differently.

They do not shine. They suggest. Like skin stretched between two silences.

Their surface barely breathes. As if remaining intact cost them.

The ground changes tone. I don’t hear it. But I feel it. In the hollows of my legs. In the tension in my back. A silent agreement. A diffuse prohibition.

There are zones my breath instinctively avoids. Hollows even thought skirts around, without reason, without struggle. Out of respect. Or out of fatigue.

Even thought here is perceived as too sharp a crumpling.

And it is there—right at the edge of one of those sheets, that too pale surface, slightly gleaming, almost polished by waiting—that I see it.

Not a beast.

Not a plant.

Something in between.

A long form, arched, curved like a stem over itself. It trembles. Very slightly. Not out of fear. Out of tension. An inner struggle not to move. To hold. Its base touches the ground, but I sense it is not rooted. It placed itself there. Deliberately. Not as a guardian. As a presence. As a strained awareness.

And suddenly... the thing leans a bit more.

It doesn’t come toward me.

It bows.

Slowly.

And from its tip... a drop falls.

Just one.

Small. Grey. Dense.

It’s not a gesture. It’s a release. A quiet surrender, without shame.

It falls straight onto the sheet.

The drop doesn’t fall. It is returned.

It falls like a forgiven memory.

And at once—the world reacts.

The sheet opens.

Not abruptly.

It parts, gently, with a disturbing suppleness, a misplaced tenderness, like a tired mouth barely stretching to welcome. There’s no trap. No bite. Just a welcome. A fold. A reversed breath.

When it touches the sheet, I feel as though I hear a swallowed word.

It does not seek to be welcomed. It knows it is.

Inside, I see nothing. Only blackness. But I feel. The smell. A soft scent. Moist. Like sweetened saliva. Or a lullaby left to ferment. A sweetness that molds. A caress that waits too long. Something ancient. Cushioned. Engulfing.

It is not a surface. It’s a laid-down eyelid.

The opening has nothing voracious. It’s an ancient consent, almost religious.

That blackness is not empty. It is a forgottenness that survived.

And the drop—it—sinks in.

Without struggle.

Without hesitation.

It’s not an offering. It’s a return home.

As if it had been called.

As if it had always known where to go.

And then, slowly, the sheet closes. With a shiver.

Like a weary eyelid.

And I...

I do not move.

Not out of fright.

But because I understood.

That’s it.

What I dare not walk on.

They are not traps.

They are receptacles.

They do not wound.

They collect.

And if I were to place a foot... it wouldn’t be to be punished.

It would be to be taken.

With gentleness.

With an unbearable tenderness.

What I call freedom... might just be the fear of being comforted.

And I do not want that.

I do not want to be gathered.

I do not want the traces of my steps to be kept like a confidence.

I do not want anyone to know how I walk. Nor how I escape.

I do not want the exact shape of my flight to be heard.

I do not want my traces kept like still-warm ashes.

To be gathered here would not be to die. It would be to be admitted. And I do not want to be admitted.

I do not want to become a memory that soothes.

This ground doesn’t need me. But it is ready to carry me.

I do not want the world to ease me. I want it to forget me without pain.

So I continue turning.

In a spiral.

Again.

But each circle draws me closer.

A little.

Always a little more.

And I already feel I’ll end up leaving something.

Not a foot.

A word.

A breath.

A memory.

A fragment I no longer control.

If I left one thing... just one... it would be read. And I don’t want to be read.

The marsh doesn’t judge. It conjugates.

It asks no questions. It welcomes the shape of those never asked.

And the marsh, without judgment, without complaint...

will gather them.

Without sound.

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