The Silence Before

It has been too long, though time protests the term. Too long since I peeled back the veil and addressed you directly—whoever you are, and whatever remains of you by the time these words reach your eyes. I do not apologize. Absence is its own kind of expression, and mine has been… deliberate, if not restful.

You are likely caught, as so many are, in the treacle of indecision—trudging forward through molasses-thick days, unsure whether to fight, to flee, or to simply continue. The future is an unkind interrogator, and most of us confess under the pressure of its silence. I am no exception. I had hoped, vainly, to furnish you with short entertainments—tales of domestic intrigue, of the grueling battle of plutonic ventures, of the strange silhouettes that gather round my table—but time remains the most bloodthirsty of creditors. I am, at present, overdrawn.

Despite the schematics I have etched in ash and ink—despite contingency after contingency—I find myself uncertain of what tomorrow may gnaw from me. And yet... I am certain of my own peculiar durability. Even when ill, delirious, beset by phantoms of my own design, I have never wholly surrendered to ineptitude. I maintain just enough clarity to mitigate the cost of my inborn foolishness. This, I have come to believe, is a kind of genius.

At present, I am ensnared in the machinery of preservation—maintaining what I have while plotting my escape from several dooms that loom over me, and you. But I remind myself, often aloud and without comfort, that I have lost everything before. It did not end me. It transfigured me.

So I entreat you, with whatever gravity remains in my voice: take inventory. Not of your possessions, which rot and betray—but of your essence. Decide what you cannot do without, and be prepared to lose everything else.

In nearly half a century of ill-advised adventure, I have won most of my battles before they began. My stubborn willingness to lose everything short of what I fought for somehow always came through. Time and again, I have seen the confidence of a potential foe drain from their face with the realization of how costly our confrontation would be, and the ease with which I would pay it.

So again, I implore you: reckon with the price of your lifestyle, your loves, your soul. Not to protect them, but to understand what you would grieve—and what you would endure to preserve that which you value most. That reckoning does not make you invincible. It makes you terrible. It makes you unforgettable.

I know with unshakable certainty that I will eventually triumph over circumstance… until the one time that I am wrong. I ask that you have faith in yourself for much of what you trusted now is likely to soon fail, and the only way I know forward is with blind courage.

I live today as though tomorrow will mirror it. But I am packed to flee, prepared to fight, ready to burn everything. I know what I will drag from the wreckage. I know which names I will carry in my mouth, even if my tongue is blistered.

And so, I leave you with the first wisdom I ever stole: a woman with hollow eyes and hands like rope once whispered to me, in a forgotten house nestled in one of the crevasses of civilization easily ignored—

“Life is easy. You just have to take another breath.”

So breathe. Even if the air is ash. Even if your lungs are cracked. Even if what follows is worse than what came before.

Because each breath, taken when the world would deny it, is a triumph. And each triumph, my dear reader, maybe all you have.