1947

Without a Trace

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Fire

The element of the creative and destructive worlds

Everything that you can see around you is grey.
The wait has been endless.
It is dawn.

My only purpose is to survive one more day
here in this place
now.

Slowly the sun rises, bright and clear,
dissolving the morning mist.
You can feel its heat.

At this moment I exist without a sense of time.
The warmth on my skin is primordial,
Infinite.

You are neither finite nor infinite.
Do not deceive yourself.
They are mere words.

 
Earth

The element of the solid world

Their names are engraved on the shining black marble.
You run your fingers over the letters.
You cry.

They died for reasons which they could not comprehend.
They fought for mistaken beliefs.
Why?

That word is the wound from which you will never recover.
Each day you will inflict it on yourself.
Each night it will heal.

How do I escape this circle of suffering,
understand what it means
to dream?

Your dreams will only be understood by another’s dreams.
They must pull themselves from the emptiness
to be engraved in stone.


Water

The element of the liquid world

Your knife lies on the table.
Your body is warm.
You feel neutral.

I pick the knife up.
I open the blade.
Why not?

You place your hand on the table.
You stab down into the palm.
You watch.

A small gash appears in my skin.
The wound is superficial.
It bleeds.

Slowly the drops of blood form a pool.
It is no longer a part of you.
It slowly congeals.


Air

The element of the moving world

You repeat the sounds that you do not understand.
They gradually turn into meanings.
You remember them.

Subjectivism  deism  existentialism  atheism  humanism
romanticism  determinism  hedonism
nihilism

Each sound becomes the same as the other sounds.
Shapes to fill the emptiness.
Echos of nothing.

But they are the realities of my life,
of my mind, of my body,
of myself.

How limited you are.
Your sounds will soon fall silent.
Eventually all traces of you will disappear.

Valediction: the action of saying farewell

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