It turned out that people could never truly possess anything. No one could possess its essence, even those indispensable parts of the material or spiritual world. Not even those. How much would we have to do to fill the emptiness we had trampled into ourselves along the way? How far would we have to walk to understand the outcome of that distant journey? Countless choices stood opposed on either side: right and wrong; positive and negative; yes and no; speaking and staying silent; smiling and not smiling; leaving and staying. Perhaps we would choose the option we did not want, or perhaps the one we had once believed we would never choose. Faced with these endless choices, bewildered or desolate, we could seldom find our footing.
How much fragmented, drifting time would it take to learn the profound truth that nothing was absolute? Words whose timing I had forgotten, whose exact content I could no longer recall, had slipped unnoticed into dormancy, waiting for the slightest chance of being awakened. Then, one day, they came tumbling back, bloody, as though some life still clung to them, presenting themselves in silence, awaiting an inspection-like disregard and a deliberately raised chin, forcing you to confront them while feeling uneasy or stirred. How had new things worked their way beneath the skin? And how had they pushed aside the old occupants to burrow somewhere deep into the marrow? How many faint rises and falls would it take to prove that "once" had truly existed? As we brushed past each other, our faces cold, as though drained of life, how many times had we carried deeply buried memories past someone with whom we had once, at some forgotten point, been so close? And with what feelings should we remember every passing second that belonged