The Place I Once Knew

There is a place I once knew.

A place where every word I have ever spoken returns as rain, falling softly from a sky that remembers. Where crimson gathers at the edge of the horizon, not as the end of day, but as the beginning of remembrance. The pathways are lined with trees clothed in gold, their leaves trembling with stories too ancient for language.

This is the courtyard of the Gods.

Here, the life of every soul is spoken only in whispers, as though truth is too sacred to survive the noise of certainty. Secrets are kept beneath the silence, hidden from the reach of darkness, waiting for those who have learned to listen.

At its centre stands a great pedestal upon which a blue marble turns without haste. It spins through eternity, carrying oceans, mountains, kingdoms, and the fragile weight of every heartbeat that has ever dared to exist.

The Gods walk in pairs around it, neither hurried nor still. They speak no language I can understand, yet their footsteps seem to write history upon the air.

Beyond them sits a sentinel upon an ancient throne.

It does not move.

It does not speak.

Its face is carved from the same silence that shaped the stars. Yet all who enter lower their eyes before it. Not because they are commanded to, but because something older than fear lives within reverence.

Who are we to stand before that which has watched the first dawn unfold?

Who are we to believe ourselves greater than the dust from which we borrowed our names?

I stand within this courtyard.

Among countless souls, I remain alone.

And perhaps they are alone too.

Perhaps solitude is not the absence of company, but the distance between one heart and another.

Who are we?

We are every name ever spoken.

We are none that endure.

We are the question searching for the voice that can answer it.

If we do not listen, how shall we ever speak?

If we cannot hear the whispers, how shall we ever know the story was ours all along?

Who are we?

We are all.

We are none.

And until we learn to hear,

we shall never know our own name.

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