حاضر يا عبد الرحمن 🌘
(وسأكون وول كما تحب).
فهمت قصدك
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Chapter Eighteen — Something Is Buried… and Something Is Not
Jon was buried.
It was not physically difficult.
The ground was soft.
Rain had passed through a few days earlier.
The soil opened its mouth easily.
What was difficult…
was placing him there.
To move a body that had been moving yesterday
into a place where nothing moves.
Saō Hyun dug with his hands.
He did not use a tool.
He did not think.
He did not feel time.
He only dug.
Until his nails broke.
Until blood mixed with the dirt.
Until he could no longer tell the color of his hands from the color of the earth.
When he finished, he placed Jon in the pit.
He laid him gently.
Adjusted his shoulders.
Wiped a little soil from his forehead.
He said softly:
"I will cover you only a little… it won't be heavy."
He did not know why he said it.
Jon would not hear.
But he said it.
He covered him.
Layer after layer.
Until he disappeared.
Until he became like an idea.
Something you know was here… but you cannot see.
He sat in front of the grave.
He placed no stone.
Wrote no name.
Did nothing to show that someone was here.
As if the grave knew itself.
He sat.
He looked at it.
And said inside himself:
You were stronger than me.
You were ahead of me.
You knew better than me how to live.
Then he asked:
Why did I remain?
Why was I not there instead of you?
He did not expect an answer.
He was only getting used to the sound not returning.
He looked at his hands.
They were empty.
He said:
They took everything… but they left me.
Then he whispered:
Why?
A long time passed.
He no longer knew whether it was day or evening.
The shadow moved.
The wind changed.
The birds fell silent.
But he remained.
As if guarding something that cannot be guarded.
Then…
The sound came.
Wood on a road.
Slow wheels.
Hooves.
A cart.
It approached.
It stopped.
The sound of cloth shifting.
Someone stepped down.
Footsteps approaching.
Saō Hyun did not raise his head.
He did not care.
He was occupied with something too large to be interrupted.
The man stood before him.
Silent for a moment.
Then said in a calm voice:
"This is a bad place to sit for too long."
Saō Hyun did not answer.
Did not look.
Did not move.
The man said:
"The earth here keeps things more than it should."
He paused.
Then:
"And it does not give them back easily."
Saō Hyun felt something.
Not fear.
Not threat.
Something like… knowledge.
As if this man saw the grave the way he did.
Saō Hyun said at last, in a low voice:
"I did not ask it to keep him."
The man was silent.
Then said:
"But it did."
Saō Hyun did not know who he was.
He did not look at him.
And he did not ask.
Because some questions… once released, do not return.
And some meetings… if named, they change.
So he remained silent.
And the man remained standing.
And the grave remained between them.
Something that belongs to no one…
and leaves no one.