A street where gravel sings its echo.
The reflection of an aged thought and a thread still young.
Silver hair, a sky serene.
Eyes of a black so deep, tinged red—hell itself possessed me.
The umbrella drifted gently, shielding me from the rain.
Churches and houses with towering roofs—slowly, toward home, the labyrinth began.
Was it a vision, or merely a dream?
For one fleeting moment, I was there. The next, another world—where the sky, black as smoke rising from a chimney, loomed above. Trees wreathed in lava defied Reason's law, their branches flowing upward, their leaves crystalline.
And then, I was gone. The moment faded, snuffed out, frozen in time.
A palace stretched across a vast expanse, hewn from blue obsidian as if from another realm. The ground beneath me was not earth but water, and above, no sky—only the raw infinity of the Cosmos.
All within a second. Now, only a blackened page remains.
I was back, where the sky was thick with clouds, where dawn was mere earth and night reigned unchallenged.
Each step I took sent ripples, not through water, but through reality itself.
Seven pedestals, each bearing a tarot card, each sculpted from gold, and beneath them, the names of the zodiac.
I awoke at last, unsure of what had been or what had happened.
But one thing was certain—I had to get home.
And home I arrived, sinking into the bed that had awaited me.
I closed my eyes—not for the first time. A déjà vu that had abandoned me.
A dream?
A metaphor?
A phrase?
A life? Everything begins with a story...
In that place, as if twenty years had passed since time had first blossomed, stood a mountain—not just one that touched the clouds but one that cut through them like a pair of scissors slicing wool.
Soft, simple, two waltzing shades of gray and white, where birds didn't just sing but recited the thousands of stories once told. A place where spirits weren't just departed from their bodies but also left a final message to the living—one of appreciation.
Rivers didn't just connect the heights of heaven but also the opposites—lands, realms, binding fairy tales to reality, cultures to people, religions to society, and humanity to humanity itself.
Life was not just a single point in the universe.
And the simple awareness of existence was the essence of man, the essence of the soul and the landscape.
The breeze carried the melody of scents, and the touch of hands connected the mind to morality.
Where life met lives, there stood my small cabin.
A house made of charred wood, still holding the light of the sun. A golden straw roof, not growing flowers that cried out to the beings in the sky, but mirroring their silent gaze. Mirrors framed with wooden branches, a door that didn't just lock out the night but also welcomed the fragrance of morning.
I saw my poor mother, drying the wet clothes washed by her hands, carefully placing them one by one on the strings of thread tied to the trees that bore fruit for us.
"Mother, mother, let me help you! You'll finish faster!" I said, eager to be of assistance. She was alone—my father had gone to war, and there was no one else to help her.
"There's no need, my dear. I'm almost done. If you behave until sunset, I'll tell you the story of the Writer," she said, filling me with life.
Wanting to do something, I walked around the house with my dog, taking in nature. Rabbits danced as they searched for food to bring to their young. Birds protected the grain fields. Deer wandered toward the house's spring to give water to their fawns. In the distance, beyond the rivers, bears searched for honey among the flowers tended by hard-working bees.
I stopped running and sat on a small hill near my cabin, resting my head against my dog. His orange fur became my pillow, his muzzle pressed against my body, and his eyes saw only me and Mother.
She had finished her work and came to sit beside me. Her white dress and reddish-brown hair created an eclipse—not one that blinds but one that whispers, Look at me. Her blue eyes weren't just joy but also sadness, their green corners stirring my heart in three directions—Shakespeare's own masterpiece.
"What shapes do the clouds have, Kael?" she asked, her voice carrying only the scenery.
"Look, look! That one is a rabbit, that one looks like a house, that one like a rock, and that one like a flower!" I answered, excited by the sky's landscape—one that no mere phrase could describe.
She gazed at her son, his deep reddish-black eyes hidden by the sun's shadow, his hair a blend of the sky's clouds and the mountain's snow. Letting her hair drift over his face, she kissed his forehead.
"Mother, can you tell me the story of the Writer now? You promised you would if I behaved!" My curiosity was greater than the beauty of the scenery.
She sighed and said, "Of course, how could I not? But first, let's go inside. It will be night soon."
Hand in hand, we rose. Mother led me into the house, calling for our dog.
Stepping onto the threshold, I saw how the door opened into another world—as if a new story awaited inside, different from the one outside, where sadness and joy intertwined to create personalities. The furniture, carved from redwood, built by my father. The mattress that hid the soft straw beneath its sheets.
Mother lifted me up to the window so I could see not just the world's sunset but the lighting of the heavens—new places, new lights appearing, new galaxies, and perhaps new souls.
"Listen carefully. I will only tell you this story once, and it is now, okay? Promise me you'll listen closely?" she asked, her voice carrying weight, as if this story would shape my future.
"I promise, Mom!" I said, unaware that this would be tied to my future self.
"Good, then," she said, as the wind swept through, lifting strands of her hair. It was as if her words took visible form, emerging from her lips.
"A long time ago, in a world where landscapes didn't just show heaven and hell but the battle between man and man, there was a Writer.
He had no name, yet you could hear him—reading, crying after every sentence, every chapter, every ending. He didn't weep for himself but for his own characters.
He wasn't a Writer like Shakespeare or Da Vinci. He was a simple writer who only wanted his story to be read.
And so, in the bitterness of life, he thought—what if the characters could write their own stories?
A pure madness. No one believed in such a thing.
But he did it anyway.
Yet the most important thing he forgot—every action, every phrase, has a Karma.
After finishing his work, exhausted, the Writer lay down, thinking about how to perfect his masterpiece.
And in that moment, as he closed his eyes, he didn't just sleep—he knew he was no longer in his world.
He was in a strange place, where the factory of reality, or existence itself, no longer was.
He was locked in—but not quite. Trapped between four frames... or, rather, two covers.
Bars before him. As he turned around, he saw his own characters.
And they did not congratulate him. They did not rejoice.
They did not see him as a god.
They saw him as one of their own.
When he awoke, unable to comprehend what had happened, the Writer vowed to work until he succeeded."
I was fascinated by the story—a writer who could speak to his own characters? I had never heard anything like it before.
"But Mother, what happened to the Writer?" I asked, eager to know more.
In her eyes, I could see the reflection of the moonlit sky, of the stars piercing the heavens. A tear fell on her cheek—not one of pity, but of fear.
"No one knows," she whispered. "But from what I've heard, he disappeared—along with his characters, his stories, and all he believed in, never finishing his Masterpiece."
Where reality intertwined, like strands of hair, like a river carving its path through water...
That was when I saw it.
Mother was changing into something else.
I saw words—words from other worlds—emerging from her lips.
Something so distorted, so black.
At the same time, she was Sorrow. A solace soothing longing in silence.
She was a character.
A man or a beast, only her eyes understood me.
Fear.
Half of her face was a Clown's mask, the rest of her face stolen by Time itself.
And the cloak that trembled in the wind…
Only her eyes and…
A branch?
And before they could reach me...
I woke up.
I had been dreaming for a long time.
Time had passed, yet only a single tear remained on my cheek.
"Why did you leave? Why did you go...?"
The words escaped my lips without my knowing—words of longing, or merely words that hurt?
"I will find you."
A vow.
In the end. In a happy ending.