Myth Archives - Rest and Trust

September 1, 2023September 21, 2023

What is a Name According to the Inklings? A Label or A Portal into Being?

What is a name according to the Inklings?

When Frodo stabs a Ringwraith at Weathertop with his sword and cries out in Elvish, “O Elbereth Gilthoniel!” he doesn’t know what he is doing. Later, Aragorn explains what happened at that moment,

More deadly to him [the Witch-king] was the name of Elbereth.

But why is the name of Elbereth (Varda) so deadly to the Witch-king? Isn’t it just a sound?

It turns out, it’s not. In our divided consciousness, we tend to separate the name from its bearer. We do so subconsciously because modern consciousness perceives everything in fragments. We think that the name is merely a sound, and the thing it denotes is a physical object that exists separately from its name. But that’s not what we find in the Inklings.

In Tolkien’s legendarium, the Elvish languages seem to represent the one proper language, or “language as it should be.” It is the primal proto-language not yet divided by the curse of Babel. It proceeds from the consciousness that perceives the world as a Whole, and in it, words are always one with what they name. In fact, words contain what they name as in a “house.”

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger spoke of words as “the house of being,” not labels or tags on things. He said,

For words and language are not wrappings in which things are packed for the commerce of those who write and speak. It is in words and language that things first come into being and are.

So, what is a name according to the Inklings? It is a portal that ushers the invocator into the invisible realm concealed behind the sound.

For the Inklings, the name and the named are one. The named one is IN the name. The Lord of the Rings was written from a different consciousness than ours as Tolkien himself seems to indicate – it was the consciousness of participation, not separation. Tolkien said,

I have long ceased to invent… I wait till I seem to know what really happened. Or till it writes itself.

For a participated consciousness, there is no difference between the name of a thing and the thing itself. The thing exists in its name. That’s why words always effect what they name. The name is not a denotation; it’s an invocation. That’s why Elbereth was really there at Frodo’s call. There is no other explanation for Frodo’s survival – if Varda wasn’t there, Frodo would have been consumed by the Darkness. But she was there fully present in her name.

What was the theology of St. Gregory Palamas?

Gregory Palamas, an Orthodox monk of the 13th century, came up with curious teachings about uncreated divine energies present, as it were, in the invocation of the divine name.

For him, the Name was not merely an empty sound or a denotation but a living symbol that ushered the invocator into the power behind the sound shape. The true name has the potency to awaken, revitalize, and reveal meaning.

Incidentally, Tolkien’s Middle-earth started with a name when the author came across the name of Earendel in an old Anglo-Saxon poem. Reading the first few lines of the poem produced in him “a curious thrill, as if something had stirred in me, half wakened from sleep. There was something very remote and strange and beautiful behind those words.”

An early 20th-century Russian theologian Pavel Florensky (the founder of Onomatodoxia) was keenly aware of the power of words to engage the invocator into sacramental communion with Logos. According to Florensky, true words do not just communicate; they change. The message is not just information; it is transformation.

At the dawn of the Soviet era, in post-revolution Russia, one of the ways the new regime sought to “create the new Soviet man” was by changing the language and vocabulary.

They literally changed the grammar, spelling, syntax, morphology, and vocabulary of the Russian language to expel certain words and supplant them with a new vocabulary introduced by Bolshevik party ideologists. A whole body of abbreviations and contractions was enforced which, according to Florensky, sounded more “like a splinter in the tongue.”

This practice was, in his vernacular, “linguistic deformity,” the “mangling of words through deliberate disfigurement.” The maimed lexicon of the Soviet machine had its purpose – reducing reality to something less than it is to obtain control.

Who are our modern-day language-makers? They are not poets, monks, or myth-makers. They are technology gurus and people with divided consciousness. So, our language gets inundated with technogenic expressions like “He can really push my buttons,” as if we were devices.

All reductionism is ultimately aimed at gaining control. For example, when we “name names,” we reduce a person to a caricatured controllable state. It is a will to dominate.

Just as Mordor’s black speech by its very sound summoned the reality of domination and oppression, so the reductive language of our day brings with it a less-than-human lifestyle.

The purpose of fragmented language is quite deducible from its effect – the loss of wonder. The ancient Lethe was wonderful; “water resources” are not. They are manageable, to be sure, if that’s what is desired. And often that’s exactly what is desired.

The world has shrunk in our contracted language. Most of it we can’t see because our consciousness often sets limits to our perceptions. We don’t see the giant behind the world. The world doesn’t loom large for us. To reverse the curse, we need to reverse the language. How do you do it?

C.S. Lewis said,

“And if true verse but lift the curse, they (words) feel in dreams their native Sun.”

The art of naming, the art of coining true metaphors, will do the trick.

As we find proper words, our speech will regain its fiery Pentecostal power. The curse will be lifted, and we will tremble at the sound. We will wake up.

March 28, 2023March 28, 2023

The Magic of Lothlórien – How Tolkien Used Vertical Speech to Allure us into the Silence Around Words

The magic of Lothlórien in The Lord of the Rings is a fine example of how the Inklings use the power of vertical speech.

Quoting Max Picard from The Worlds of Silence, Peter Kreeft said that in modern writing, words have lost their vertical static quality:

The architecture of the Hebrew language is vertical. Each word sinks down vertically, column-wise, into the sentence. In language today we have lost the static quality of the ancient tongues. The sentence has become dynamic; every word in every sentence speeds on quickly to the next … each word comes more from the preceding word than from the silence and moves on more to the next word in front of it than to the silence.

In modern writing, words are used primarily as communication tools. People use words to get their message across. This type of speech is message-driven, not meaning-driven.

You look for words just to move the reader along as quickly as possible from one word to the next horizontally. Words are whips to get the reader going.

The Inklings use words vertically, not horizontally.

For them, each word is alive. Each word speaks through a particular sound shape – and needs to be heard.

When you “hear” the word’s speech, the curtain of the world is drawn for a second or two and you see… what the words dimly point to.

The Inklings use words to allure the reader to the silence around the words – not to get the message across. As Treebeard said:

You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.

To use words vertically means to find words that make the reader spellbound for a second or two. Preferably longer.

The right words are inspired by Mercury himself – they descend from heaven like fire and become “proper names” in the mouth of the herald.

Like a piercing line of poetry, they make you stop breathing the air of the world and plunge into a meditative reverie as you breathe in the fragrance from beyond the walls of the world.

Tolkien’s description of the magic of Lothlórien is a case in point.

How does Tolkien describe Lothlórien?

Just like Tom Bombadil, Lothlórien could easily have been left out of the plot. Linearly speaking, nothing “happened” there except that the fellowship felt the magic of Lothlórien and got some rest.

Technically, the chapter about Lothlórien is just as extraneous as the chapter on Tom Bombadil.

But it’s a fine example of vertical speech that introduces the reader to the perilous realm of Faerie.

The effect of entering the realm of the Lady is such that all the company feels the presence of some inexplicable magic.

For some, it is a delight. For some, it is torment.

Tolkien seems to suggest that the whole land was Galadriel’s mirror – not just the stone mirror itself. As the fellowship walked through the enchanted wood, they saw their secret thoughts and desires revealed as if in a mirror.

Some liked it; some hated it. But they couldn’t hide from it.

They stepped into a land of the Last Judgement unfolding 24/7.

January 30, 2023January 30, 2023

The Great Dance in C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Owen Barfield

When I first read C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra years ago, I was a bit confused at the end. Especially, when I got to the part about the Great Dance, in which “there seems no centre because it is all centre.”

As Ransom was listening to the Eldils delivering long speeches about the nature of the Great Dance, I thought these speeches sounded more like doxologies than explanations – as if the speakers didn’t care about making anything clear but rather were weaving songs of praise out of thin air.

And then, Ransom actually SAW their speech turn into SIGHT. The speeches of the Eldils became The Great Dance before his eyes:

“He thought he saw the Great Dance. It seemed to be woven out of the intertwining undulation of many cords or bands of light, leaping over and under one another and mutually embraced in arabesques and flower-like subtleties.”
C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

What a strange ending, I thought. But somehow, at least in Ransom’s mind, it was a fitting resolution to the plot.

December 6, 2022March 17, 2023

Why Did Arda Become Round, or How Was Sauron Made by the One Ring?

Why did Arda become round? Originally, it was flat. It was made round only after the fall of Numenor.

Its roundness was its curse. The consequence of leaving the “Straight Way.”

Thus in after days, what by the voyages of ships, what by lore and starcraft, the kings of Men knew that the world was indeed made round…

Is there any significance in this roundness?

Deceived by Sauron, the Numenorians craved immortality. They rejected the strange gifts of Iluvatar given to Men – the gifts of mortality – the ability to leave the Circles of the world through letting go.

The Númenóreans began to murmur, at first in their hearts, and then in open words, against the doom of Men…

Why did Arda become round?

The downfall of Numenor led to the reshaping of Arda. Around the year 3319 of the Second Age, the world was changed. It became round. A circle. A ring.

Like a ring, the world became closed upon itself. Thus ended Men’s desperate search for immortality. It ended in creating bad infinity, the non-stop repetition of the same, a rat race of life, never coming to the destination.

People were still trying to find the Straight Way to the Blessed Realm but soon found that all roads were now bent. There was no longer a Straight Way to the blessed realm geographically. All roads were going in circles.

Their great mariners would still search for the Isle of Meneltarma because many believed that from the summit of the Meneltarma, the Pillar of Heaven, one could still see a glimpse of the Deathless shores.

But they found it not. And those that sailed far came only to the new lands, and found them like to the old lands, and subject to death. And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle… and they said: ‘All roads are now bent.’

With bad infinity, no matter where you go, you come to where you started – to the old lands, subject to death. It is the curse of the Ring.

October 18, 2022April 11, 2023

Who is Tulkas? The “Expecto Patronum” of Tolkien’s Universe to Fight Off the “Darkness of Unlight”

Who is Tulkas in The Silmarillion? What is the symbolism behind this myth?

C.S. Lewis once defined a good myth like this:

The narrative is more of a net whereby we catch something else.

The story itself may be quite ordinary – a sculptor carved a lady out of a block of stone, and it became alive (Pygmalion and Galatea).

Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, and her mother Demeter prevented all plants from growing until Hades was commanded to let her go for some months out of the year.

There’s nothing extraordinary in the story itself. Yet, we feel there’s something behind it.

Elizabeth Browning put it like this:

Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes; the rest sit round and pluck blackberries.

It’s how we choose to look at the common bushes that determines whether we see them burning.

According to G.K. Chesterton, such is the function of our imagination:

The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange.

And such is the function of mythopoetry – a genre that allows us to look at ordinary things through the eyes of Faerie and discover a world of extraordinary meanings behind them.

The key to entering Faerie is inside each and every one.

In Owen Barfield’s philosophy, this change of lens happens when a person allows their state of consciousness to be shifted by a line of poetry. And then they follow the call ringing through “this verse that lifts the curse” and enters the perilous realm of Faerie.

The cosmogonic myths of Tolkien’s The Silmarillion are of the same nature – they are an invitation to enter through the door of the external story and into the invisible realm behind the story, which is the land of Meaning.

One such myth is the myth of Tulkas the Valiant.

How did Tulkas beat Melkor?

Greatest in strength and deeds of prowess is Tulkas, who is surnamed Astaldo, the Valiant. He came last to Arda, to aid the Valar in the first battles with Melkor. He delights in wrestling and in contests of strength… he is tireless. His hair and beard are golden, and his flesh ruddy.

Who is Tulkas? Why did he come to Arda last to aid the Valar in their battles with Melkor? And most importantly, why was Melkor so afraid of him?

So came Tulkas the Strong, whose anger passes like a mighty wind, scattering cloud and darkness before it; and Melkor fled before his wrath and his laughter, and forsook Arda, and there was peace for a long age.

Of all the Valar, Melkor hated Tulkas the most.

There’s a spiritual and mythical significance to this. Tulkas is hated with bitter hatred because he represents the laughter of Iluvatar in the Great Music.

September 27, 2022March 7, 2023

The Third Theme of the Music of Iluvatar – a Mighty Echo of Owen Barfield’s “Final Participation”

If there is one connective tissue between the fantasy imaginations of the Inklings, it is the theme of our participation in the Divine Music – the Music of Iluvatar.

The worlds of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Owen Barfield are born in Music and governed by Music.

In Tolkien’s legendarium, the Ainur descend into Arda, the created Realm, as individual themes of the Music of Iluvatar to behold their unique part becoming incarnate in the visible elements of air, earth, water, and other substances.

Enamored of their part in the celestial symphony, the Ainur follow this “music-made-flesh” into Arda and dwell therein because each yearns to participate in the Divine Thought.

They didn’t yet know how the Music would end – the only thing they knew was that the discord of Melkor would somehow be resolved by the coming of the Second-born to whom Iluvatar gave “strange gifts.”

The Third and final theme in the Music of Iluvatar announces the coming of Men in a soft, slow, and immeasurably sorrowful theme, from which its beauty chiefly comes.

How does Narnia start?

C.S. Lewis’s Narnia also begins in Music, the Song of Aslan, which is “the deeper magic” of his fantasy world – the magic of growing that opposes the black magic of domination.

Aslan sings his world into existence, and all the stars join him in the Song.

Owen Barfield’s The Silver Trumpet is a metaphor for the Music from the invisible realm that awakens us from the spell of unconsciousness when we hear the call. Its call is irresistible and shatters all man-made idols, or the “unsaved images,” so our transformed consciousness can commune with the Music.

September 3, 2022March 28, 2023

Amazon’s The Rings of Power Review – An Alternative Way to Begin the Series

I wasn’t planning to write a review on Amazon’s The Rings of Power, but my son asked me a question I couldn’t ignore.

And thus there awoke in the world the Two Trees of Valinor. Of all things which Yavanna made they have most renown, and about their fate all the tales of the Elder Days are woven.

As we finished watching the first episode of The Rings of Power last night, my son asked me after a pause:

“What do you think?”

“Don’t know yet,” I answered, “not too bad, I suppose, but I hoped there would be much more Tolkien in it.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, “there’s Galadriel, Elrond, Sauron, hobbits. What else?”

“Hm…” I scratched my head, “I guess to have more Tolkien there you need to start the tale how he started the tale.”

“Do you mean with the creation of Arda?” he pressed.

“No, with Music. The Music. The world of Tolkien began in Music.”

“So, how would you have started the series?” he finally asked.

I smiled.

“Let me think,” I said, and there was silence in the room for about half an hour broken only by the chirping of a cricket outside.

And silence was over all the world in that hour, nor was there any other sound save the chanting of Yavanna.

Finally, I broke the silence.

“All the tales of Elder Days are woven around the fate of the Two Trees. Do you have any idea why?”

He shook his head.

“Imagine Galadriel and her brother Finrod sitting by a murmuring brook at twilight. He asks her: ‘Do you know how Elves came about?’

‘No.’

The camera zooms in, and we see the following scenes unfold in Galadriel’s big blue eyes as she listens to Finrod’s tale.

‘By the starlit mere of Cuivienen, Water of Awakening, the Elves rose from the sleep of Iluvatar; and while they dwelt yet silent by Cuivienen their eyes beheld first of all things the stars of heaven. Therefore they have ever loved the starlight, and have revered Varda Elentari above all the Valar.’

Galadriel sees in her mind’s eye the mere of Cuivienen and then looks up and suddenly sees Varda walking among the heavenly hosts.

‘Who is it?’ she asks her brother in amazement.

‘Varda, the spouse of Manwe, the chief of the Valar.’

‘Who are the Valar?’

June 21, 2022May 31, 2023

What Led Anakin To The Dark Side – Can “Good” Lead to Evil?

Like any true myth, the story about Anakin Skywalker turning to the dark side is compelling in its overwhelming persuasiveness. What led Anakin to the dark side?

C.S. Lewis once wrote in a letter to Peter Milward that a good myth is

“a story out of which varying meanings will grow for different readers and in different ages.”

And then he added that a myth is not really dependent on the words in which it is told or the art form in which it is conveyed. It’s not the narrative itself that makes the myth convincing but something much more elusive.

“The narrative is more of a net whereby we catch something else.”

What led Anakin to the dark side?

What I caught in the net of the Star Wars myth is HOW Anakin was led to the dark side — it happened, oddly enough, through his inordinate desire for something good.

As a young boy he swore a solemn oath at his mother’s grave: “When I grow up, I will become strong and will never let my loved ones suffer and die.”

This oath marked his transition to the dark side long before it happened in chronological time. At that moment, a bargain was struck in his soul for the possession of a loved one in exchange for breaking God’s law.

At that moment, he made a decision for himself to never ever part with his loved ones again, no matter the cost. The perfectly good desire — to protect his loved ones from death — turned in him into a demonic possession when he put it on a pedestal.

As Tim Keller said, an idol is a good thing turned into the ultimate thing.

An idol is usually a good thing that we make ultimate. We say, “Unless I have that, I am nothing.”

Why did Anakin choke Padme?

When Anakin had to choose between losing Padme — fearing that she might die in childbirth — or turning to evil to “save” her from death, he chose evil. It was his desire to “save” her at all costs that led Anakin to the dark side. For him, the dark side became a means of saving his loved one. He chose evil to achieve what he thought was the ultimate good.

Ironically, this led to Padme’s death. He choke the one he wanted to save with his own hands. When we turn a good thing into the ultimate thing and try to get it at all costs, we lose that good thing — destroy it with our own hands.

Such is the harsh logic of idolatry. We are captivated by some version of good and turn it into the “summum bonum” — without noticing it. And then everything becomes a means to an end, a sacrifice offered on the altar of this god.

A wise man once said that a myth is something everyone knows without being told. This “story” lives in humanity’s collective unconscious, and we all instantly recognize it once it is put in the form of a narrative.

May 21, 2018April 10, 2023

The Song of the Void: The Self-Fish story

In the blue-blue sea, there lived a fish called Self-Fish.

What a strange name, you might say.

Who gives such a name?

Well, it’s actually a whole group of fish. They are called “Self-Fish” by other sea creatures who are sure about themselves that they don’t belong to this category.

She knew very well who she was – Self-Fish. Of that she was reminded daily.

“Stop thinking about yourself all the time.”

“You never care about others,” the others chided.

“Why are you looking at yourself all the time?”

“If you weren’t Self-Fish, you would have had more compassion on our poor nerves.”

“Why am I Self-Fish?” thought Self-Fish. “I need to change. From now on I will think about others all the time.”

And that’s what she did.

Tired of being shamed and blamed, she decided she would be looking out for the interest of others.

She was hoping that others would start appreciating her more and more and would finally stop calling her Self-Fish.

But the more she tried to please others, the less they seemed pleased.

In fact, they blamed her all the more.

“You should think more about others and less about yourself! Shame on you, Self-Fish.”

“What’s happening?” thought Self-Fish.

“It’s not working. Am I so hopeless?”

And so, she doubled and even tripled her efforts.

But the more she tried, the less it worked.

Finally, she got so exhausted and hopeless of pleasing others that she flung up her fins in utter desperation:

“I must be doomed. I was born Self-Fish, and I will die Self-Fish.”

“Die hard,” said a crab who lived next door, and whose name happened to be Bruce.

“What do you mean?” asked Self-Fish in bewilderment.

“Nothing. Just talking to myself,” grunted Bruce as he clipped off a seaweed with his sharp claw.

“What’s your problem?”

“I am,” replied Self-Fish, “I am Self-Fish.”

“No worries,” said Bruce. “Have a coffee.” And he handed her a Frappuccino.

“You know what? Stop trying to save the world,” finally said Bruce after a pause.

“It never works. Believe me, I know. No matter how many times you try to save the world, it always gets back in a mess.”

“Hmm…,” said Self-Fish, “but if I stop trying to save the world, wouldn’t it be selfish?”

“Selfish is as selfish does,” replied Bruce.

“To be selfless, you must first have a Self that you can give up. There is a world of difference between giving up yourself and giving up on your Self.”

“What do you mean?” asked Self-Fish in utter amazement.

“You must first become who you are. Become Self-Fish.”

“But… but… I am that already!”

“You see, if you don’t have a Self, you are not really a Self-Fish.

And to have a Self, you must start looking at yourself before you look at others. Look at your Self!”

“But if I keep looking at myself, I will be more selfish.”

“Trust me on that,” said Bruce grimly and gave her a look that couldn’t be resisted.

So, Self-Fish looked at herself but didn’t see much to look at.

“What do you see?” asked Bruce.

“Nothing special,” replied Self-Fish.

“Just keep looking. Just keep looking.”

“There’s nothing to look at,” finally said Self-Fish and turned her eyes away.

“It’s just me.”

“Just keep looking.”

“What’s there to see?”

“Don’t you see… a kid?

“A kid?”

“Yes, a scared little kid. A kid who was left all alone in the dark.

Believe me, I have met that kid once. A long time ago.”

“You did?”

“Old story,” said Bruce.

“I see her,” suddenly exclaimed Self-Fish and felt salty tears welling up in her eyes.

It seemed to her that up to this day she had been swimming in the ocean of tears.

“Good. Now take her gently by the fin. Hold tight. And never let her go. No matter what. Don’t leave her. You are her mommy now. And one day, she will be ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“To take on the world.”

“Have to go,” said Bruce.

“There’s another Apocalypse nearby. Remember to always look at her and never-ever-ever let her go, no matter what the others say.”

And then Bruce hopped on his cool Yamaha jetski and was off in a flash.

Sure enough, the “others” showed up in no time.

“Hey, what are you up to?” snapped the red snapper.

“Nothing… just looking at myself,” replied Self-Fish.

“Shame on you, Self-Fish,” snapped the snapper. “Always looking at yourself.”

For a brief moment Self-Fish stopped looking at herself and started looking at the snapper.

Suddenly she felt she was blushing from gill to tail.

She was almost about to blurt out a funny joke or two so as to divert his attention – the art she had mastered so well – but then something made her choke on her own words.

She distinctly heard a small little voice coming from inside her.

“Don’t leave me,” it said.

“What?” echoed Self-Fish and looked at herself intently.

And then she saw a little baby fish left alone in a dark cave and trembling all over.

She looked so little and so miserable that Self-fish immediately wanted to look away, get busy, invite the red snapper to dinner, hide in her little hole at the bottom of the sea – do anything so as to not think about it anymore.

But something made her look. She didn’t even know what it was.

It was so hard not to turn away, and yet there was something very beautiful about that little one.

She had eyes full of ocean-like sadness.

And there was a great big void.

And the void was so deep and wide and empty that one could easily drown in it.

It was like a gaping abyss in the crevice of time, an insatiable black hole sucking everything in with its irresistible gravity.

It was at once a pack of hungry wolves, a mighty hurricane, a raging ocean, and a gentle flower.

And there was beauty in it.

Some soft light was peeping out of that void.

It was coming from within as if it belonged to the void itself.

And this light shone out of the vast emptiness and there was life in it.

And in this light, there was something one could gaze upon hours and hours on end.

There was a river of peace flowing out of it, and a warm embrace of utter tranquility and healing.

There was a desperate cry as well as a dance of joy.

There was profound sorrow as well as a whiff of tingling freshness.

There was an ugly wound and a well of inner harmony.

There was at once Chaos and Order, as if fashioned by the hand of a masterful Artist.

“Don’t leave me,” asked the kid again.

“I am here. I am looking at you,” said Self-Fish, “and I will not leave you.”

The little one stopped trembling and looked up.

Self-Fish took her by the little fin and together they went shopping.

She was constantly looking at her, and the kid seemed to transform before her very eyes.

The longer she looked at her, the calmer and the happier the kid grew.

And with this calmness and peace settled over the little one, Self-Fish totally forgot about others.

She was alone in the world, but for the first time in her life she felt fine in her own company.

She was alone, and yet she wasn’t lonely.

She was by herself, and yet she was keenly aware that there was someone else with her.

As she spoke gently to the kid, it seemed to her that she was hearing another gentle voice speaking to her through her own words.

And as that other kind voice filled her heart and mind, she grew calmer, and stronger, and happier.

“Who are you?” she asked and looked around in amazement.

And from the unfathomable depths of her Self she heard a still small voice saying,

“Don’t look away. I am not out there, I am in here.”

She looked at her kid again, and suddenly it seemed to her that she saw someone else.

She saw another baby far-far away in a cold dark cave, and his mother rocking him gently in a manger and humming a familiar tune.

“I am not out there, I am in here,” repeated the still small voice.

“Just keep looking. Just keep looking.”

She drew closer, peeping into the darkness of the cave, and fixed her gaze firmly upon him.

And as she looked, the darkness of the cave receded like a mighty tidal wave, and a soft light poured from inside of the void, filling it up to the brim.

And her ocean-like sadness shook and gave way to a quiet sigh of relief.

And the salty tears she swam in for years became a bubbling brook of healing waters.

And out of the gaping hole on the inside came a beautiful song – the song of the void.

“Nice song,” commented someone passing by.

“Bruce!” exclaimed Self-Fish. “It’s so good to see you!”

“And you. You look radiant.”

“You know I’ve seen him.”

“The kid?”

“The kid.”

Bruce smiled.

“So, I see you are ready to take on the world,” said he and pointed to the empty seat in his jetski.

She laughed, hopped on, and off they went into the big wide blue.

Eugene Terekhin, May 21, 2018.

Buy paperback and ebook on Amazon