ENTER THE VOID // a return from horizon
Your first memories after death are going to be a little hazy. You shouldn’t worry too much over that; shouldn’t expect too much of yourself. The Void takes pieces from everyone on the journey over. It’s a part of the process.
If it is a comfort to you, everyone comes confused. Struggling won't end it, although you will do plenty of that. I’m hoping to help on that front, if you’ll let me. This place can take a bit of getting used to. As with every new environment, there is an adjustment period. When you’re in a state of confusion and your fight or flight is kicking in, you always go back to what you know. It’s natrual.
There are many terms for it. The Akan people called it Sankofa. Go back and get it. I prefer that explanation the best; it means the secrets to your future can be found in your past. You come in, take stock of the situation, you decide what’s at stake and how you want to react. You call on your experience, your knowledge, your past and that informs how you act in your present. Here, that won’t be so easy. You’ll find that you have to work a bit harder.
Things are trickier in the Void. Here, the past is a thick grey mist that hides in plain sight. The mind slips and falls into places you can’t reach, the memories become phantoms that mold together. The Void will test you. It likes to taunt, before it teaches. It takes things from you and gives them back, changed. But if you are wise, you can learn from it. And if you have the will, you can decide for yourself.
That is the cycle. The rhythm of this realm. Forget. Remember. Learn. Transform. And forget again. It happens even there, on your Earth, although on a lesser scale. The cycle of life was engineered to last only for a short time, after all, and it is both predictable and not. Oftentimes I’ve noticed with you – with all of you – how you fall out of balance. The mind battles against the body which battles against the soul, leaving the spirit diminished. It is a bit of a wonder though – considering how much you learn and how much you change – how your kind can forget so much in such a short span of a lifetime. I still remember.
I remember it all. Although my position here does grant me an edge when it comes to the luxury of recollection. That’s what I’m here for, anyway. The only reason I exist in this state. My purpose is remembrance. And council, if it is accepted. Through guidance, I alleviate the confusion and the chaos of your life cycle. With remembrance, I show you who or what you used to be. To help you to transition or to return. That determination will be left to you. I am your antecedent. You can call me, Ancestor. And I have been with you always.
If it is more familiar, you can think of me as a loved one that passed on and continues to watch over you. I don’t agree with that though, it feels lazy. The truth is more complex. I am not someone who has passed on, because I’ve never left. I lived with you in the womb that grew you and travelled with you through the passage that bore you. But yes, there was a period of time where we shared the same dimension, as we are again right now. It was against the rules, but I insisted. You see, I’m extremely thorough. It is an entirely different task to serve someone, to aid them, when you have no sense of them. Yes, I could observe you – I’ve been observing you for eons. But how could I really know you unless I went down to touch you? To feel the fragility within your flesh? To taste your mood swings and smell the intensity of your aura?
As you can imagine, it’s not the easiest job in the world – having to deal with so much…life. The rawness of it. The inevitability. Would you believe me if I told you I volunteered for it? You’ll make your choice, too...once we’re done here, and we've gone through it all. It might take a little while to piece it all back together.
It is a shame, really, how much they strip you on the journey over. The emotions are all that linger from your time. Everything fades. Sensation, meaning, memory. They designed it so. As a part of the test. And yet, you’ll be surprised at what pieces of you remain. From that other dimensional self. Your stubbornness, for one. You don’t realize this, but very few have fought the journey over as you have done. And continue to. I can sense, even know, your trepidation – your resistance. Although you cannot feel the time, it would still be a shame to waste. Let us begin. We shall start with the lies first. The stories you told yourself to make it through the day…
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The sound folds me like a letter, seals me tight in memory—the farm at Wolf Creek, Alabama, my great-uncle’s farm, summer-long sentences my father called “working the land.”
I hated it—the humidity crawling into my curls, skin cracked like pecans under the southern sun, but I loved the look in my father’s eyes when he came to collect me, pride filling him like rain fills a trough.
I remember it—the cornfields in August, their gold fingers reaching toward the sky—and me, a lone wolf kinda girl, half-working, half-playing, learning how to turn boredom into magic. Jessibaby was my shadow, an Australian shepherd with wind in his bones, loyal, bounding, laughing in his dog way. Together, we taught each other tricks—balancing, fetching, dancing—
partners in a two-thing circus, a child and her dog.
The day burns in my mind. Me with my straw basket, lugging dreams and rotting corn stalks to the edge of the field, where the land stretches like a song. A potato launcher waits like an old joke in my hands, a relic of bad harvests and men who laugh to forget them. I plan my shot, thumb and finger drawing the map, but before my breath can anchor me, there is a POP, a sizzle, and the hiss of a whistle as my potato soars through the air. I let out a surprised yell and, on cue, Jessibaby’s muscles leap, his paws beating the earth. He is gone into the stalks, chasing his prize, while I run after him, my laughter shivering the leaves, cheeks kissed by cornfield fingers, light as laughter, too.
There is a noise that stops me. Quaking, cracking—an air-split sound that breaks the day in two. I tumble forward into the dirt, the earth catching my face as another sound—a yowl—stitches itself through the rows. It wraps around my ears, pain spun to music, fear clawing along her nerves. I freeze—until breath pulls me back. Slowly, slowly, hand over hand, I crawl. The earth grows loud with my heartbeat, blood flooding my ears like waterfalls crashing. My fingernails clutch the dirt, rooting me, grounding me, as the sound shivers into feverish grunts— so close I could touch it. My body becomes a whisper in a field gone quiet.
“Fear ain’t good but for one thing. Making pussies,” My great-uncle’s voice rumbles, that dusty gospel. I shake his voice from my head—spiders scattering, webs cleared—and I leap! legs tucked under me, mouth opening into a scream:
HIYAH!
And then—stillness, a clearing split wide open. I freeze once more. The scene unfolds, slow as smoke, its shape forming, its terror sinking in. For a long minute, I stood, caught in it—the girl, the dog, the yowl that broke the field—a summer unraveled, sharp as corn silk, heavy as air. The sound carries me still.
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