For days on end, the glass vessel poured out light. The interval between twilight and twilight grew shorter, and the night became sharper, more defined. But today was different. Perhaps because there was no longer any sign of movement from this side. As if there was nothing left to confirm, nothing left to send as a message, the glass vessel stopped releasing light altogether. With my eyes no longer blinded by it, in the relatively bright midday I could almost make something out. Considering its scale, it looked less like a bottle and more like a dome.
No matter how constantly it moves, the sea is, in a strict sense, a vast lake filled with water. The rock I had lain upon for so long, and the land stretching out behind it, were islands within that lake. The two merely touched each other along the shoreline. They could make contact, but sadly could never become one—the gentle lapping of a beach where union is impossible. Even now, when no civilization remains, this is one of the few beautiful landscapes that has endured intact.
But is that really all there is to it? What if the touch were one-sided? Nonverbal, without even the confirmation of inner consent. If it were a careless, dry, unilateral molestation—an assault so lazy it couldn’t even be bothered to pretend to be romance. Two that never fail to touch, yet—thankfully—can never become one. What if, under the constant threat of swallowing it whole, the sea endlessly fiddled with and taunted the land, and then, as a test, swept over a village? The sea sends waves, casting irresponsible aftertouches, while the land, in an attempt to soothe it, slowly—yet incessantly—gives up a very small part of itself. Between them swells a tension that can neither be translated nor brought to an end.
Among the elements that make up existence: the parts belonging to the world before (ruin), or the portions occupied by ancestors (forever). A body that is only temporarily owned, a mind that is merely being occupied—are there any parts untouched by what came before, or by those who preceded us? Before existence itself, has such a thing ever truly been born? In response to ravenous desire, something irreversible that leaps over everything at once. Or, little by little, yielding one’s side—more precisely, cutting away parts of oneself, throwing away fragments that can be regarded as no longer oneself—while in some corner of body and mind, grooves carved along the dermis ooze thick, bloody tears. An unnameable han melts there, unfermented, unassimilated. Swallowing it by force—never willingly, yet gradually entrusting the aftermath to time. No matter the direction, no matter the speed, it ultimately binds itself into contradiction: hot blood pouring out. And tears. Lumps of crying bursting out in between, or in between those very gaps. The mothers above me—some of them, or perhaps all of them—who went through such things. Perhaps even Gaia herself, that goddess. Even if not directly connected—indeed, in a way more direct than anything else—it will remain connected to them endlessly. As long as one lives. From the inside and the outside. Even if trapped in an inescapable mire, even if slightly cut away, in a world that has existed since primordial times with a destiny that ensures it will regenerate. In a previous world that has passed down the illusion of clarity and burdened later generations with the consciousness that upheld it. More reclusive than anything else, yet more densely than anything else, mothers—though not blood and muscle—always exist somewhere in this world, and are therefore undeniably connected. Even if, tragically, nothing can be felt.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
But love—though it has never yet existed—its existence is certain. Someone who does not yet exist, who may never exist, yet whose presence is inscribed so deeply it might truly come into being. Someone who could have been called “mother”—you. And I, as if we truly existed on the same day, at the same time. No longer recognizing something that appears or is reproduced, but even though it is clear that it no longer exists, even though it is evident that it has fallen deeply and sunk low, still, just as it is, vividly, as if right before me—so vivid it feels like a lie. Yet truth always lies beyond the crossroads that define lies, beyond the limits of imagination. I cannot believe it, but truly, I—without you. Unlike the mother who carried an unsolvable problem forever, you—regardless of your actuality or presence—exist beyond memory. To describe what lies beyond that, to leave behind the deaths of the countless words I have attempted until now, to return so far back it feels as though I have completed a full circle, an indescribable gesture—your existence is certain. Though you have never existed, love is. But then… thud.
