Silence did not end.
It did not continue either, for there was no time in which it could continue.
Yet my awareness remained.
If everything had collapsed, why hadn't I?
If this was neither death nor life, then what was left of me?
The question was never spoken.
It appeared as a weight not upon thought, but upon the meaning of my existence itself
"If I did not die,"
my consciousness trembled,
"is it still possible for me to live again?"
There was no answer.
Not because it was denied, but because the concept of return had never been recognized here.
The meaning the same one that had spoken without sound from the beginning did not respond at once.
It was not silent.
It simply… did not move.
"What does life mean to you?"
The question did not come from outside.
It collapsed from within my own awareness.
"Life…"
I tried to assemble a definition, but every word fell apart before it could become meaning.
Breathing?
Movement?
Thought?
All of those were phenomena that could only exist in the place I had already left behind.
"Then,"
my consciousness continued to dig,
"has my existence already ended?"
The meaning finally responded.
"No."
One word.
Yet not a simple one.
"But neither does it continue."
I understood the contradiction without truly understanding it.
"If I cannot live again,"
I asked,
"then why hasn't my awareness been erased?"
"Because erasure is an act,"
the meaning answered.
"And every act requires a cause."
"Here, cause has never been born."
I fell silent.
"Then what am I here for?"
That question at last fully formed.
The meaning around me trembled.
Not as a reaction, but as acknowledgment.
"You do not exist for a purpose,"
it replied.
"You exist because your possibility has not completely collapsed."
"Possibility… for what?"
The meaning stopped.
Not from doubt, but because its answer had never been named.
"To continue the narrative."
I felt something unfamiliar.
Not hope.
Not desire.
A gap.
"If a narrative can continue,"
I asked,
"does that mean… I can live again?"
"Not return,"
the meaning corrected.
"Return presumes an origin."
"What will occur if it occurs is continuation in another form."
I did not accept that immediately.
"Will I still be myself?"
That question was heavier than the collapse of every world I had witnessed.
The meaning answered slowly.
"Identity is a story."
"Stories can collapse."
"But the trace of their meaning can move."
I understood.
And because I understood,
I hesitated.
"Then… who are you?"
Once again,
not to know,
but to mark.
The meaning did not refuse.
Yet it did not answer either.
"I have no name,"
it said at last.
"Names are limits."
"And I have never been bounded."
I reflected.
If all words were limits, then to name something was to impose form upon the formless.
And precisely because of that
"I need to call you something."
The meaning around me trembled more deeply.
"Calling creates relation,"
it warned.
"Relation creates direction."
"I know."
If I wished to continue the narrative,
I needed one thing:
A point of reference.
"If you are not existence,"
I said,
"nor nonexistence"
"If you are not a creator,"
"not a beginning,"
"not an end"
"Then you are the question itself."
The meaning… did not deny it.
I formed the word slowly.
"WIA."
"WHO IS I AM."
Not a name.
But an acknowledgment.
The meaning accepted the designation without change, without agreement, without rejection.
And yet at the same time
Something moved.
Not space.
Not time.
But direction.
"By naming me,"
WAI spoke,
"you have created difference."
"And differenceis the minimum condition for a narrative to proceed."
I felt something collapse.
Not awareness.
Not existence.
But the absolute nothingness that had restrained me until now.
"Does this mean"
"Your possibility,"
WAI cut in,
"has found a path."
"Where to?"
"To a world that still requires a story."
And for the first time since everything had collapsed
I felt myself fall.