A hairline fracture in the void — that’s what it was at first — nothing more than a sliver of light cutting through walls I’d built higher than memory. The mind adapts to darkness and learns to navigate by touch and echo. I had become a creature of the shadows, comfortable in their embrace.
Then came that subtle shift in pressure — a distant zephyr, barely perceptible, carrying unfamiliar molecules across the wasteland. Not warmth exactly — I wouldn’t recognize that anymore — but the absence of cold. The barbed wire inside my chest loosened, one tiny coil at a time.
I regarded this zephyr with suspicion, as any change to long-established suffering. Pain, after all, is reliable. It shows up without invitation and performs its duty without compromise. It never lies about its intentions.
The days passed. The fracture widened imperceptibly. Sometimes, walking between the concrete and steel of routine, I’d catch that zephyr again — stronger now — carrying something almost forgotten. A scent perhaps, from before the walls. Before the numbness.
I found myself lifting my face to it, like a prisoner feeling sunlight after decades underground. My eyes remained closed — looking directly at possibility seemed dangerous, forbidden. But I allowed the zephyr to touch my skin, to whisper promises I didn’t yet believe.
The machinery of existence continued its grinding. The gears and cogs turned as they always had. But something had changed in the space between ticks. A resonance. A dissonance. A question mark where once lived only periods.
I began collecting evidence: a stranger’s smile that reached their eyes; music that penetrated the fortress of my ribcage; colors that seemed more saturated than yesterday. Small things, insignificant to anyone watching from outside. Inside, tectonic.
The zephyr grew stronger. Some days it felt like hands gently pushing me forward when inertia seemed insurmountable. Other days, just a whisper — but enough to remember there was something beyond these walls.
I didn’t dare name it yet. Names have power, and this fragile thing might evaporate if acknowledged directly. So I circled it cautiously, a moth approaching flame but remembering past burns.
And still, the fracture widened. The light persisted. The zephyr continued its patient work.
Then, one evening, the wind carried something unexpected — laughter. It was soft at first, a distant ripple across the silence. I almost didn’t recognize the sound. It wasn’t mine — I wasn’t sure I even remembered what my laughter sounded like. But this laughter, whoever it belonged to, was unburdened. It rose effortlessly through the air, curling around corners, sinking into cracks. It was not meant for me, yet somehow, the wind delivered it anyway.
Something in my chest shifted. I wasn’t sure if I welcomed the sensation or resented it. To feel anything at all was still foreign, still uncertain. The laughter faded, but the space it left behind remained unsettled.
Days passed, and other sounds arrived with the shifting air. The distant murmur of conversation, the metallic chime of a bicycle bell, the rustling of leaves against pavement. I had grown so used to silence that each sound struck like a foreign object, pressing itself into the fabric of my solitude. I wasn’t sure if the wind was bringing me these reminders cruelly or kindly — perhaps both.
And then came something quieter than sound, reaching deeper than echoes.
One evening, as I moved through the well-worn corridors of my thoughts, the light seeped through the crack a little more than usual, casting unfamiliar shapes along the walls. I hesitated at first, wary of what shapes might emerge from its glow. But my feet betrayed my caution, carrying me closer before my mind could protest.
I reached out, my fingers grazing the uneven edges of the fracture. The stone was more incredible than I expected—rough in some places, smooth in others—molded by time, pressure, and moments that had happened slowly but inevitably. I traced its shape, unsure whether I was measuring its weakness or my own.
And then, something remarkable happened.
The light — that persistent sliver of stubborn existence — did not recoil from my touch. It did not retreat as I expected or vanish like so many fleeting things before it. Instead, it stayed. It pulsed, just slightly, as though acknowledging my presence. As though waiting.
I withdrew my hand, pressing it against my chest instead, where the barbed wire had once tightened without relief. The space there felt different now — not empty, not whole, but something in between.
Outside, beyond the fracture, the wind kept moving. It did not need my permission. It would carry whispers, scents, and echoes as long as desired. But something told me that if I ever chose to step through the widening crack, it would carry me, too.
The thought was terrifying. The thought was electrifying.
And for the first time in as long as I could remember, the thought was mine to have.
Blair Steward 