Bathos
Mneme
"Most abysses are knee-deep"
The Threshold
You thrash in the water. Your fingers catch wreckage – planks, snapped spars, anything that floats – and you haul yourself up. The air bites, the raft drifts, and the shore never comes closer. Beneath the rotting wood, the dark has no floor.
The Way
You grip until your knuckles burn, but the wood betrays you and you go under. Water forces its way in – mouth and eyes and lungs – and you are kicking, thrashing against a blackness that keeps opening, pulling you down and down, and there is no bottom, there has never been a bottom— Your knee strikes stone. The insult. All those years lashed to wreckage, and the water barely reaches your knees. Your legs tremble, strangers to the weight they were made to carry. Shame floods you. Let it. You are standing. The ground does not care how long it took.
The Shadow
The wood shifts beneath him. His fingers whiten on the planks, locked there so long the knuckles have forgotten any other shape. The Steadfast touched bottom once, years ago, in calmer water. His foot found stone, and for one breath nothing held him up but the earth. His knees buckled. His spine groaned under a weight he hadn't known he carried. Before the next breath, he kicked off the stone and swore never to sink again. He builds his life on the raft: lashing every plank tighter, mending what rots. He dies clinging to the wood with lungs full of air, his dangling feet a handspan from the unyielding stone. ■The Unflagging touched bottom once. The moment her feet found stone, silence became a roar – her own pulse, deafening in the stillness. Under that pulse she hears herself, whole and unbearable. For one breath she was still, listening. Before the next, she struck the water and swore never to pause again. She never stopped thrashing. Not towards a shore; away from stillness. Driftwood strikes her shoulders; she ignores it. To cling is to pause. To pause is to listen. Her arms lock into a rhythm that leads nowhere, whipping the surface to foam. She drowns in the pauses between her strokes.
The Cut
How shallow was the water you chose to drown in?
Bathos
"Most abysses are knee-deep"
Mneme
BATHOS
Most abysses are knee-deep
The Threshold
You thrash in the water. Your fingers catch wreckage – planks, snapped spars, anything that floats – and you haul yourself up. The air bites, the raft drifts, and the shore never comes closer. Beneath the rotting wood, the dark has no floor.
The Way
You grip until your knuckles burn, but the wood betrays you and you go under. Water forces its way in – mouth and eyes and lungs – and you are kicking, thrashing against a blackness that keeps opening, pulling you down and down, and there is no bottom, there has never been a bottom— Your knee strikes stone. The insult. All those years lashed to wreckage, and the water barely reaches your knees. Your legs tremble, strangers to the weight they were made to carry. Shame floods you. Let it. You are standing. The ground does not care how long it took.
The Shadow
The wood shifts beneath him. His fingers whiten on the planks, locked there so long the knuckles have forgotten any other shape. The Steadfast touched bottom once, years ago, in calmer water. His foot found stone, and for one breath nothing held him up but the earth. His knees buckled. His spine groaned under a weight he hadn't known he carried. Before the next breath, he kicked off the stone and swore never to sink again. He builds his life on the raft: lashing every plank tighter, mending what rots. He dies clinging to the wood with lungs full of air, his dangling feet a handspan from the unyielding stone. ■The Unflagging touched bottom once. The moment her feet found stone, silence became a roar – her own pulse, deafening in the stillness. Under that pulse she hears herself, whole and unbearable. For one breath she was still, listening. Before the next, she struck the water and swore never to pause again. She never stopped thrashing. Not towards a shore; away from stillness. Driftwood strikes her shoulders; she ignores it. To cling is to pause. To pause is to listen. Her arms lock into a rhythm that leads nowhere, whipping the surface to foam. She drowns in the pauses between her strokes.
The Cut
How shallow was the water you chose to drown in?