Reverence
"Holy is the hollow worn by feet"
The Wound
You climb stairs you've climbed a thousand times, mind already at the top. Your foot lands differently. The step dips – a hollow worn smooth into the stone. You stop. Hush falls – holiness worn by feet that never knew they were carving. You look down and see stone polished by the slow erosion of those who walked these stairs exactly as you did moments ago: hurried, elsewhere, already at the top.
The Path
The hollow asks nothing of you. You could walk on. Your foot could lift and fall and carry you past this ordinary holiness. Your instinct is to see these stairs as yours – stone that exists to hold your singular ascent. Your knees press the stone. You press your palm into the hollow. The stone answers. Blood–warm from use. It holds the shape of hands that stopped touching it centuries ago – the pilgrim who climbed before the wars, the old woman who stopped on this step to catch her breath and never rose. You press your weight into the stone. Between the dead who wore it and the unborn who will, you add a new hollow.
The Shadow
The hollow can be loved wrongly – preserved into relic, or erased into nothingness. The Vigilant was there when the step gave way – watched his father's foot go through stone worn too thin by too many pilgrims. He remembers the sound: a crack, then a cry, then the silence of a man learning his ankle would never be the same. That night, he knelt on the stair and pressed his palm into the hollow. The stone was warm – blood–warm – thinned to membrane by all that devotion. He felt the next footstep waiting to break through. His hands began to shake. Now he ropes off the hollow and polishes the stone until it gleams cold. He guards the holiness so well that no foot will ever wear it again. The steps his father broke himself on, now preserved beyond the reach of any pilgrim. Holy. Whole. Alone. ❖ The Unbowed pressed her hand into the hollow once and felt them – hundreds of palms, pressing back. The shape of hands not hers, worn into stone, reaching through centuries to hold her fingers in their groove. She saw her grandmother's hand in the hollow. Her mother's. Her own, already matching the shape. Every step sent an echo. The hollow remembered no single one. She returns at night with pumice. Grinds the hollow flat, grain by grain, arms burning as the dust of a thousand pilgrimages coats her hands. Liberation. A surface no one has marked. She dies on featureless stone, having erased the only proof that anyone had ever climbed.
The Cut
Whose prayer did you pave over?
REVERENCE
Holy is the hollow worn by feet
Reverence
"Holy is the hollow worn by feet"
The Wound
You climb stairs you've climbed a thousand times, mind already at the top. Your foot lands differently. The step dips – a hollow worn smooth into the stone. You stop. Hush falls – holiness worn by feet that never knew they were carving. You look down and see stone polished by the slow erosion of those who walked these stairs exactly as you did moments ago: hurried, elsewhere, already at the top.
The Path
The hollow asks nothing of you. You could walk on. Your foot could lift and fall and carry you past this ordinary holiness. Your instinct is to see these stairs as yours – stone that exists to hold your singular ascent. Your knees press the stone. You press your palm into the hollow. The stone answers. Blood–warm from use. It holds the shape of hands that stopped touching it centuries ago – the pilgrim who climbed before the wars, the old woman who stopped on this step to catch her breath and never rose. You press your weight into the stone. Between the dead who wore it and the unborn who will, you add a new hollow.
The Shadow
The hollow can be loved wrongly – preserved into relic, or erased into nothingness. The Vigilant was there when the step gave way – watched his father's foot go through stone worn too thin by too many pilgrims. He remembers the sound: a crack, then a cry, then the silence of a man learning his ankle would never be the same. That night, he knelt on the stair and pressed his palm into the hollow. The stone was warm – blood–warm – thinned to membrane by all that devotion. He felt the next footstep waiting to break through. His hands began to shake. Now he ropes off the hollow and polishes the stone until it gleams cold. He guards the holiness so well that no foot will ever wear it again. The steps his father broke himself on, now preserved beyond the reach of any pilgrim. Holy. Whole. Alone. ❖ The Unbowed pressed her hand into the hollow once and felt them – hundreds of palms, pressing back. The shape of hands not hers, worn into stone, reaching through centuries to hold her fingers in their groove. She saw her grandmother's hand in the hollow. Her mother's. Her own, already matching the shape. Every step sent an echo. The hollow remembered no single one. She returns at night with pumice. Grinds the hollow flat, grain by grain, arms burning as the dust of a thousand pilgrimages coats her hands. Liberation. A surface no one has marked. She dies on featureless stone, having erased the only proof that anyone had ever climbed.
The Cut
Whose prayer did you pave over?