Bathos
Mneme
"Most abysses are knee-deep"
The Threshold
You thrash in the water. Your fingers catch wreckage: planks, snapped spars, anything that floats. You haul yourself up. The air bites, the raft drifts, and the shore refuses to show itself. Beneath the raft, the dark has no floor.
The Way
You cling until your fingers burn, but the wood rolls in your hands and drops you under. Water forces its way in – mouth, eyes, lungs. You kick against a blackness that opens beneath you, opens and keeps opening, pulls you down and down, and there is no bottom, there was never a bottom— Your knee strikes stone. The insult of it. All those years lashed to the wreckage, and the abyss comes up to your knees. Your legs shake, unpractised at the weight they were born to carry. Shame floods you. Let it. You are standing, and the ground does not care how long it took.
The Shadow
The wood slides under his weight. His fingers whiten on the planks, locked there so long the knuckles have forgotten any other shape. The Steadfast touched bottom once, years ago, in calmer water. His foot found stone, and for one breath nothing held him up but the earth. His knees buckled. His bones took back their own weight. Before the next breath, he kicked off the stone and swore never to touch bottom again. He builds his life on the raft now – lashing every plank tighter, patching what rots, grateful for every breath it still buys him. He dies clamped to the wood, lungs full of the breath he hoarded, feet a handspan above solid ground. ■The Tireless found the bottom. The abyss ended; she did not. In the stillness her pulse filled the water. Beneath the pulse waited what no stroke had outrun: herself, whole and unbearable. For one breath she listened. Before the next, she struck the water and swore never to pause again. She has never stopped thrashing. Not to reach a shore – she stopped believing in shores long ago. She thrashes to keep the sound of her arms louder than the life beneath them. Her arms lock into a rhythm that goes nowhere – stroke, foam, stroke, foam. She drowns only in the pauses.
The Cut
What shallow water did you choose to drown in?
Previous
Agon
Next
Ordeal
Bathos
"Most abysses are knee-deep"
Mneme
BATHOS
Most abysses are knee-deep
The Threshold
You thrash in the water. Your fingers catch wreckage: planks, snapped spars, anything that floats. You haul yourself up. The air bites, the raft drifts, and the shore refuses to show itself. Beneath the raft, the dark has no floor.
The Way
You cling until your fingers burn, but the wood rolls in your hands and drops you under. Water forces its way in – mouth, eyes, lungs. You kick against a blackness that opens beneath you, opens and keeps opening, pulls you down and down, and there is no bottom, there was never a bottom— Your knee strikes stone. The insult of it. All those years lashed to the wreckage, and the abyss comes up to your knees. Your legs shake, unpractised at the weight they were born to carry. Shame floods you. Let it. You are standing, and the ground does not care how long it took.
The Shadow
The wood slides under his weight. His fingers whiten on the planks, locked there so long the knuckles have forgotten any other shape. The Steadfast touched bottom once, years ago, in calmer water. His foot found stone, and for one breath nothing held him up but the earth. His knees buckled. His bones took back their own weight. Before the next breath, he kicked off the stone and swore never to touch bottom again. He builds his life on the raft now – lashing every plank tighter, patching what rots, grateful for every breath it still buys him. He dies clamped to the wood, lungs full of the breath he hoarded, feet a handspan above solid ground. ■The Tireless found the bottom. The abyss ended; she did not. In the stillness her pulse filled the water. Beneath the pulse waited what no stroke had outrun: herself, whole and unbearable. For one breath she listened. Before the next, she struck the water and swore never to pause again. She has never stopped thrashing. Not to reach a shore – she stopped believing in shores long ago. She thrashes to keep the sound of her arms louder than the life beneath them. Her arms lock into a rhythm that goes nowhere – stroke, foam, stroke, foam. She drowns only in the pauses.
The Cut
What shallow water did you choose to drown in?
Previous
Agon
Next
Ordeal