I walked along the coast, watching the sun set behind the mountains. My back straightened, two different parts of me fused together, and I became one — i was so whole it was painful. And inevitable as death.

I wanted to be worthy of the vast and beautiful world that surrounded me, to be an essential part of it. I hadn't understood before how to heal a wound inside me, my broken heart. But then it became clear — it was healing already, same as my cut finger, and I could observe it happening inside and outside at the same time.

I knew I would never be alone again because you were with me, because you were me.

I’ve read that Ancient Greeks believed Hyperboreans ended their lives by throwing themselves to the sea so they could reincarnate after death. I imagined myself doing so, trying to understand what it should have meant for them. Аn attempt to fully dissolve into nature and continue
one’s being as an object of it? Then could these rocks and shells I pick at the beach represent the undying bodies of northern titans, discovered by us, their descendants?

How would it feel? To be entwined by seaweed, blissfully deaf deep down underwater, rolled smooth by the waves, nameless, undone.

I looked around, felt the calming scent of decaying marine life and suddenly realized — everything is dying.