“Dear soul, if you were not friends with the vast nothing inside, why would you always be casting your net into it, and waiting so patiently?”- Rumi
In the middle of nowhere, I wake up to find myself climbing a heated glass ladder. A quick glaze at my feet disrupted my balance after seeing nothing right below the step where my left feet is resting. Even the steps above my hands’ grips are covered by thick fog. Vision is completely blocked above my head and beneath my feet. Everything is out of sight except my body and the ladder. Seconds after the realization of me being nowhere I start feeling the heating steps. Neither foot can stand the touch of the accelerating heat, so I raise my hand in an attempt to touch the unseen above making sure I can keep climbing, only to find the hidden steps freezing above. With great joy I hurry up and start climbing to cool off my feet. After moving couple of steps upwards, I notice how each step starts heating up right after it touches any part of my body, then vanishes into the void beneath the moment I take my foot off it.
Where am I?.. What’s happening?.. What am I supposed to do?.. Where am I heading to?..
The rising heat breaks my chain of worries and sets aside my growing ball of fear, only to push me to climb more to cool off my feet.
I try climbing faster to reach the unknown I’m supposed to reach. Yet no matter how many steps I climb, I still feel like I didn’t leave my position in the void I woke up in. Everything is moving but somehow nothing has changed. The first view my eyes woke up to is still the view I’m seeing now. The ladder is still the ladder since the first step. The fog is still as thick as it has always been above. Even my questions found no echoing answers from the vast nothingness around. Am I supposed to reach somewhere? Or yet to find answers? Will I remain in the known surrounded forever by the utter void?
What if I jumped off the ladder? What’s waiting for me up there is no more known than what’s down there after all. So I decide to let go my grip and rest my weight to the back, just for me to wake up again in the same place holding the same ladder I firstly woke up to.
Detained from escaping this endless cycle of enforced climbing, I give in to the climb of the unavoidable void.
Framed Glimpses 
Wow, great passage. I felt I was the who was climbing 😟, feeling the cool on my hands, and the heat on my feet
Reading your tweets would expect you to have this novelty
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Thank you very much! Truly appreciated!
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To close your eyes and wish it all goes away. To hold your arms against your body thinking wishfully this world would show more answers to you’ve been seeking for. To be enveloped in a sense of constant wonder of whys and what nexts.
In so many ways, this constant questioning and truth seeking defines us humans. But those same traits defy us humans.
We realize later in life that we are oughta claim the ladder and not look for a destination. That life by definition is a constant struggle, and that is what gives it its meaning. We learn that, with responsibility comes a burden, and from carrying that burden life gets fulfilled and we find that fog suddenly disappearing.
I loved your piece and its matching music.
S
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I love your beautiful words, thank you S !
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