Every ending carries its beginning
Like seeds hidden in winter soil—
Dark, dormant, waiting
For the light that breaks everything open.
Stroke. Breathe. Stroke. Breathe.
Daniel carved through the murky lake, pushing ahead through the crush of neoprene-clad bodies. Three-quarters into the swim leg of Victoria IRONMAN, his rhythm remained unbroken – each stroke a testament to the machine he’d built. The world narrowed to the thrum of his heartbeat, the lactic burn in his shoulders, the faint brine of Vaseline mingling with the lake’s decaying silt.
Stroke. Breathe. Stroke—
Pain. White-hot and electric.
It erupted in the center of his chest, a supernova radiating down his left arm, numbing his fingers.
He gasped, swallowing a mouthful of algae and diesel-tainted water. His right arm seized mid-stroke, muscles locking like rusted hinges.
Not now. Not here. Just keep moving.
His body had already begun to sink. The sky above collapsed into pitch darkness. All surface sounds faded. The bubbles carried away his last breath. The cold embraced him.
Then silence. A perfect, crystalline silence that wrapped around him like a blanket.
Time shattered – and in that crystalline stillness, he saw his brother laughing. Sunlight caught in his curly hair as they ran circles around their grandmother’s garden. The smell of fresh-cut soil. Something so simple it hurt.
The memory fractured, splintering into rapid-fire images:
His mother in her faded pink robe, humming tunelessly while sorting bills at the kitchen table, her fingers trembling as she decided which could wait another week.
Financial charts cascaded like toxic waterfalls across his laptop screen – green spikes and red candles – numbers that had once represented salvation now meaningless hieroglyphics.
«You wanted to be a gardener,» Sam whispered from somewhere far away.
The bedroom – dust motes floating in light slanting through a cracked window. A torn poetry journal, pages curling like autumn leaves. Fragile green seedlings stretched timidly toward light on the windowsill.
The sound of a shutter.
The images accelerated, then slowed abruptly, coalescing into a single, vivid memory:
Daniel was twelve, Sam was ten. They knelt beside their grandmother in dark, rich soil. Her arthritis-twisted hands demonstrated honest, decent work.
«Gently,» their grandmother instructed. «Life is fragile at the beginning.»
«Like this?» Sam asked, carefully, his fingernails already black with dirt.
«Perfect,» Grandma said. «They need room to stretch.»
Daniel’s fingers mimicked their movements. The soil was cool and damp, earthy-sweet, alive with promise. He pressed a seed into each hollow, covering it gently.
«Roots grow down before anything grows up,» Sam said, repeating Grandma’s wisdom.
«That’s right, Samuel. Good work!»
Daniel smiled – at peace. He was free.
The garden began to darken. The grass beneath his knees hardened into synthetic turf. Flowers withered, replaced by digital approximations – too perfect, too static. Soil under his fingernails dissolved.
He inhaled the scent of fresh-cut grass, tried to hold its moment, but it slipped away. One final memory of being small. Safe. Whole.
Light bloomed from the center of everything, washing out the colors, the shapes, even the memory itself.
And then darkness.
And then light.
And then, the beginning.
The Noise We Choose Not to Hear
The house breathes with borrowed time,
Each room a chamber of the heart
That forgot how to beat in rhythm
With anything but survival.
The digital clock blinked, «5:17 a.m.» as Daniel slipped out of bed, the familiar weight of fatigue dragging at his limbs. The cold floorboards nipped at his soles like teeth. His bedroom held little more than a single bed, a desk, and a narrow window framing Astoria’s predawn darkness. Outside, the bridge dissolved into the morning mist, an escape route he could see – but never take. Inside, the constant highway hum throbbed through the floorboards – a persistent, maddening drone that nobody else seemed to notice anymore.
Daniel loved mornings like this – when the house hadn’t yet woken into chaos. When he could breathe. The porch light blinked slowly two streets over. The soft pulse of the river brushed against dock pilings. Somewhere in that hush, he sensed the edge of something just out of reach – a peace he could see but never quite hold.
He moved through the dim kitchen with the efficiency of long habit. Oatmeal with apples – cheap but filling. The scent of overcooked oats blurred into the buttery haze of microwave popcorn. A flash – Sam’s laughter, the crunch of cheese puffs, controllers clicking faster than the game could keep up. The hum of the console, the world outside completely forgotten.
The present snapped back when the spoon’s clatter rang too loud. He paused, listening. A faucet dripped. Sam’s snores rumbled. A neighbor’s dog barked. He glanced at the mail hidden behind the flour canister – three red «FINAL NOTICE» envelopes his mother couldn’t see. Not yet. Not today. One envelope had nearly slipped into the trash last week – a university letter. His mother claimed she’d thought it was a scam. «They trick people with fake scholarships now,» she’d said, eyes too wide. Daniel didn’t press. He never did.