The 19th century was drunk on certainty.
Steam power, steel, calculus, colonialism – humanity, it was said, could conquer anything. Science would solve all mysteries. Mathematics would explain the universe. There was nothing, it seemed, we couldn’t measure, map, and master.
But the 20th century put an end to that illusion.
There was once a tailor who lived on the edge of a city that was always on fire.
Not literal — but as if people were running from flames day and night: in the racing footsteps, the wild, panicked eyes over market stalls, the fevered cacophony of deals struck in haste.
The people lived fast, spent fast, aged fast.
And whoever slowed down was swept away like ashes. (more…)
No map marks its location, and yet many find it.
Some say the Library appears only to those who have lost something they cannot name.
It has no sign above its door, no carvings on its lintel. The stones are old and slightly warm to the touch, as though remembering sun from another world. Its wooden door opens inward, with a sigh like silk over skin.
(more…)
No one saw the Stranger arrive.
One autumn morning, as mist unspooled itself from the hills, he was simply there—seated at the dry edge of the old fountain, scribbling in a thick, weather-stained book. His boots were worn, his coat dark and plain. He neither begged nor bargained. He only watched, listened, and wrote. (more…)
I wrote and recorded this piece back in 1999 for glass armonica and synthesizers. Electronic music technology was still relatively primitive, and I was new at it. (more…)
No one saw the fire begin. One moment, the evening was quiet—the last rays of sun slipping like soft fingers across the square. The next, flames were climbing the roof of the Weaver’s hut, as though the sky itself had breathed down a spark.
The villagers ran at once, buckets in hand, but their efforts were small and slow against the hunger of the blaze. When at last the fire burned itself out and the embers lay cooling, the hut was gone. The great Loom—the one no one but the Weaver had ever dared to touch—was gone too. And the Weaver herself: vanished, her body never found. (more…)
Something I’ve been mulling over:
Much of our world today speaks the language of Reason—facts, logic, proofs.
It is a powerful and necessary tongue.
It has built bridges, cured diseases, carried us into the stars.
But it is not the only language we need.
(more…)
There was once a stonemason who lived at the edge of a wind-swept land where nothing stayed the same for long. The river shifted its course each season. The dunes crawled across the plain like great, lumbering beasts. Even the stars overhead seemed to shimmer with uncertainty.
The people of the land built with haste and little hope — they expected things to fall apart. And of course they did.
But Elyas, the stonemason, carved each stone with the care of one who believed it mattered. He never hurried. His walls held longer than most, but still, in time, even his finest arches cracked, even his best-laid foundations shifted.
(more…)
Long ago—or perhaps only yesterday—a sorrowful soul had sealed himself inside a cave. At least that was the story. Some claimed he had been wronged, exiled unjustly. Others whispered that he had chosen his own exile, unable to bear what he had done, or failed to do. Over time, the tale became a warning: enter not the hollow where despair keeps watch. (more…)
A young woman tried to write a letter to her dying father.
She meant to say everything. (more…)