Falling

The fragment that closed the previous version of the work. It is not part of the revised text, so it is preserved here rather than deleted. It can be restored to the end of the work at any time.

Ah — it is a question sinking quietly into the seam between dream and waking.

In the abyss, words sink slowly.
Sound recedes; it is heavy, and still, and yet somehow gentle.
In the deepest place, where nothing reaches anyone, my own outline blurs and dissolves.
What is there is no longer "I" — only the blue echo of a memory.

In the shallows, the sun comes down.
The shadows of words dance on the sand, are carried off by a wave, and the next moment it is as if they never were.
Even so, that one glimmer just before vanishing burns itself into the chest.
The light is brief, vivid, cruelly beautiful.

It doesn't matter where the jellyfish glows.
Deep or shallow.
Let it drift, softly, and simply shine.
It needs no reason.
Give it a reason and the light would surely bend a little out of true.

I am here now, in the space between the deep and the shallows.
Drifting as though sinking, sinking as though I drift,
slowly unbinding my own outline.
Like a jellyfish — quietly, quietly — I want to go on shining.

That, and nothing more.

The foundation of parts I–VI. The word "mould," the faceless shadow, and the flat declaration "this is flight" all come from here. A nearly identical draft existed, differing only in the final lines; the two were merged into this one.

Into the indigo dark, I fall.

I fall.
I only fall.

There is no up, no down. The world is nothing but layers of deep, stagnant blue. Time has already come undone; the outlines of memory have melted away, and all that remains is the sensation of a body being quietly carried off. That low sound behind my ears — is it the beat of my heart, or the long, long breath the darkness itself exhales? Each time the cold air crawls across my skin, I sink one layer deeper toward the floor of the blue.

I fall.
I fall.
Without the means to resist, I simply fall.

How far I have fallen, I cannot say.
An instant, or an eternity.
Somewhere in that bottomless gloom, a memory from childhood floats up. The old fish tank in my grandfather's house. The silence of black gravel. Tropical fish swaying under a dim lamp. Inside that transparent cage, the fish never fell — they only drifted.
And now I understand: that aquarium was the first mould from which this darkness was cast.

I fall.
I am falling still.

Behind me, a presence took shape.
Before I could turn, it was already there.
A shadow darker than the dark. It borrowed the form of a person, but the face had been gouged out — faceless.
That hollow socket stares at me. The shadow falls at exactly my speed, keeping close, now and then extending something like a long finger to graze my ankle.

Fall.

There is no voice.
Only that single word, seeping into the marrow of my bones.

I fall.
I fall.
Fall, the darkness commands.

I try to scream.
But all that spills from my throat is breath, vanishing frail as bubbles. The shadow does not laugh; it only deepens. An outline so vague that its vagueness is the cruelty.

In time, sounds came crawling up from the bottom that has no bottom.
The whisper of distant waves.
Someone's stifled weeping.
And a child — myself, small — calling out my name.

In that instant, a thin white tear of light split the darkness open.
The falling continues.
But the light thins the layers of blue, leaving behind a cold ache, like something touched by a fingertip.

I reach toward that light.
I reach.
And still I fall.
And still, I go on falling.

As I near the light, fragments of memory surface.
My mother's faint smile.
The afterglow of fireworks on a summer night.
The cold collar of a dog I lost.
And myself, once, standing at the cliff's edge, and stepping off.

Only here do I finally understand.
This is not a plunge.
This is flight.
Only by sinking into the depths could I turn my eyes away from the pain of being alive.

The shadow closes in behind me.
Cold fingers touch my shoulder.

Still falling?

The voice had the shape of a sweet temptation.
Like this, forever.
Like this, down to the floor of the blue.
Leave behind no name, no wound — sink all the way through.

I shake my head.
The light is right before me now.
I fall.
I go on falling.
And falling, I reach out my hand.

The light burst open.

White.
Blue.
And then the colour of morning bleeds through.
The indigo dark comes loose like a scrap of night and scatters.
Before I knew it, I was kneeling on soft earth.
Birdsong.
Wind stroking the grass.
Beyond the seawall, the ocean holds the red of dawn.

But when I turn, the shadow is still there.
The residue of indigo, standing in a borrowed human shape.
The faceless hollow, watching me in silence.

I rise.
I start walking toward the morning.
Instead of falling, I walk.
And still the shadow keeps close behind.
It does not go.
It will not go entirely.
When night comes, I suppose I will fall again.

I fall.
I fall.
But for now, I am here in the light of morning.

The basis of parts VII and VIII. "The sea did not begin beyond the seawall. It began at my feet," and the nod given to "That's enough now, isn't it?" both come from here. In the final version the closing line — "and at last, everything went quiet" — was cut so that the descent could carry on into IX.

But I could not keep walking.

The soles of my feet turn suddenly to soft mud.
No — not mud.
It was water, deep and stagnant.

My knees sink.
My waist sinks.
The cold of the indigo climbs to my chest.
I do not look back.
Only forward, forward, sinking as I go.

The sea did not begin beyond the seawall. It began at my feet.
The light of dawn shines only on the surface, and loses its colour the moment I go under.
Blue into indigo.
Indigo into ink.
Ink into no colour at all — into nothing.

I fall.

The water pressure wraps itself slowly around my body.
Cold fingers push down into my lungs.
My pulse sounds far away.
The beat of my own heart reaches me as though it belonged to someone else.

The shadow sinks alongside me, just to my left.
The faceless hollow is turned toward me.
No longer grazing me now — it holds my left hand firmly.
That hand is neither warm nor cold.
Only heavy.

You came this far, and you still want the light?

The shadow's voice rings directly inside my skull, there in the water.
I did not answer.
All that leaves my throat is bubbles.

Deeper still. The light is gone entirely now.
In its place, far, far off, a faint blue-white glimmer blinks.
It is not the light of fish.
It is only dead memory, phosphorescing as it rots.

The child I was is crying at the bottom of a well.
On the cliff, I am still standing there.
My mother's smile has already lost its shape, leaving only the outline of "something once was."

The shadow whispers at my ear.

Sink all of it. Down here, no one will ever find it. The pain, the name, the morning — all of it.

I tried to shake the hand off.
But my fingers are tangled in the shadow's fingers and will not come free.
If anything, it is I who am gripping harder.

From the floor of the water, a low groan rises.
It is not the sound of waves.
It is every voice I have ever held down, melted into one.
Screaming, weeping, praying, giving up —
all of it become a single long, black breath.

I sink further.
How deep, I no longer know.
The pressure soaks into the marrow.
And still I go on falling.

The shadow leans its faceless head against my shoulder.
That empty socket fits itself exactly over my ear.

That's enough now, isn't it?

Slowly, I nodded.

The moment I nodded,
the last of the light fell out of my body.
The lingering scent of morning,
the birdsong,
the feel of the wind —
all of it turned to bubbles and fled upward, upward.

And I only fall.
Together with the shadow.
To the floor of the deep sea.
Down.
Down.

And at last,
everything went quiet.

A draft in a plainer register, where the shadow stays formless — the darkness itself become a living thing. Its paradox of relief ("there is a bottom; there is an end") is unique to this version, but the final work chose to give the shadow a human shape, so it was not used.

— Inside the indigo dark, I am falling.

I can't tell up from down. There is no sound, and yet the inside of my ears rings without stopping. The world is as quiet as something holding its breath, and only the air against my skin is cold. I strain my eyes, but all I can see are layers of deep blue. Blue becomes darkness, and the darkness deepens further, carrying me down and down without end.

The falling has no weight to it. But fear, certainly, is heavy. It is as if I swallowed a dull stone somewhere in my chest, and with every breath it shifts a little. I open my mouth to call for help, and the voice does not become sound; it dissolves into the dark.

How long I have been falling, I no longer know.

Still — falling, I was remembering. When I was a child I saw the sea at night. Seen from the top of the seawall, it was like black cloth that had drunk the moonlight. Only far out from shore did a vein of deep indigo run through it. That, I think, must have been the same colour as this darkness. Cold up close, beautiful from far away. Touch it and there is no coming back.

Suddenly, at my feet — or at my back — I felt something touch me.

I go rigid. But it was not a hand. Not a wing, not a branch. Something quieter, and much larger. It was as though the darkness itself had become a single living creature, running alongside my fall. It should be invisible, and yet there is a gaze. I am being looked back at.

In that moment, the falling slowed a little.

It did not stop. I am falling all the same. But when the speed changes, the world abruptly begins to take shape. At the bottom of the darkness, a single thin thread of light appeared. Far. Impossibly far. And yet certainly there. I reached my hand toward it.

My fingertips tremble.

I can't reach. Not yet. But the moment I understood that I couldn't, I felt, strangely, a little relieved. There is a bottom. There is an end. This is not an endless fall. I am still going somewhere.

The nearer it came, the whiter the light grew.

White broke through the blue at last, the blue thinned, and the darkness around me came undone like cloth being torn. The last of the indigo fluttered like a scrap of night.

And then I stopped falling.

Morning was in front of me.
But I still felt that someone had been watching me down there at the bottom of the dark, and for a long while I could not stand up.

Here the shadow hangs back, watching from several metres away. Its final gesture — an outstretched hand, an invitation to fall again — and the way it thins as the narrator walks are unique to this draft. The finished work chose to keep the shadow close instead, so this version was set aside.

Inside the indigo dark, I am falling.

Up, down, even time — all of it has melted. That low sound behind my ears: my own heart, or the darkness breathing out? The air stroking my skin is cold and clings like something sticky, soaking an indigo chill deep into my lungs. I reach out, but my fingertips catch nothing; they only cut through layers of blue.

How far I have fallen, I cannot say.
A second, a year, or an eternity.

Falling, I remembered something old.
The aquarium I saw as a child at my grandfather's house. Black gravel settled on the bottom, tropical fish swimming their slow sway beneath the dim lamp. The fish never reached the bottom; they only hung there in the blue water. This darkness is like the colour of that tank. Is it something made to keep living things enclosed?

Then I felt a presence behind me.

I try to turn, but my body moves only slowly. There is no gravity, and yet the motion drags. What was there was a shadow slightly darker than the dark. It had the shape of a person, but the edges were blurred, and where the face should be there was only a deep indigo hole. The shadow glides along with my fall, and now and then extends something like a long finger, reaching for my ankle.

"Fall," the shadow said.
There was no voice, and yet the word rang directly in the back of my head.

I tried to scream, but all that came from my throat was a soundless breath, like a bubble. The shadow drew back a little, leaving behind something like a laugh. But it never disappears entirely. Always, a few metres behind, it watches me fall.

Before long, sound began to rise from the bottom of the dark.

First the distant sound of waves.
Then someone weeping.
And last, a child's voice — mine — calling my name.

That was when the light appeared.

A single thin white thread of it. Like morning light through a crack in a ceiling. As my falling slowed, the light thickened, dissolving the indigo around me. Desperately I reached toward it. My fingertips shook; tears rose and spilled and dissolved into the dark.

As I neared it, the light began to show fragments of memory.

My mother's smile.
A sky of fireworks on a summer night.
The collar of a dog I lost.
And myself, in the instant I stepped from the cliff.

I understood.
This is not a fall.
I am running away.

The shadow came near again. Right behind me now. Cold fingers touch my shoulder.
"Still falling?" the shadow whispers.
"Here is fine, isn't it? Just like this, forever."

I shook my head.
The light is right there. A little more. Just a little more.

The light burst.

The world turned white, then blue, then the colour of morning.
I was kneeling on soft ground.
Birds are calling. Wind moves through the grass.
Before me was a seawall I knew. The sea I saw as a child, spread out and stained with dawn.

But there is still a presence behind me.

I turn slowly, and there stands the residue of indigo, a shadow in the shape of a person. The faceless hollow looks steadily at me.

The shadow slowly held out its hand.
As if to say: let's fall again.

I stood, and began to walk toward the light of morning.
With each footfall on the ground, the shadow thins a little.
But it never vanishes completely.
I know this:
when night comes, I will begin to fall again.

Even so, for now, I walk in the morning.
The indigo dark is still there, just behind my own shadow, keeping quietly close.

Draft A taken apart line by line, with more room to breathe. Its clearest gain is the aquarium reversal, split into two sentences — a denial, then the turn. Part II of the finished work borrows that structure, while keeping the word "mould" from Draft A.

I fall

  I fall

Into the indigo dark, I fall.
I fall.
I only fall.

There is no up, no down.
There is only the sense of a deeply settled blue.
Time comes undone, outlines collapse, and only the body is quietly carried away.
Whether the sound behind my ears is my heart or the breathing of the darkness itself, I can no longer tell.
Each time the cold air strokes my skin, I sink, little by little, toward the floor of the blue.

I fall.
I fall.
Without time to resist, I fall.

How long it has been, I cannot say.
In a gloom that could be an instant or an eternity, I suddenly pick up a memory from childhood.
The old aquarium in my grandfather's house.
The silence of black gravel.
Fish swaying under a thin lamp.
Inside that transparent box, the fish never fell; they only drifted.
And yet now I think:
it is not that this darkness resembles that aquarium.
Rather, that aquarium was, from the very beginning, a small copy of this darkness.

I fall.
I am falling still.

Behind me, a presence.
Before I could turn, it was there.
A shadow darker than the dark.
It has the shape of a person, and yet the face has dropped away.
That featureless hole was looking at me.
The shadow falls at the same speed, as if keeping me company.
Now and then it stretched out something like a finger and grazed my ankle.

Fall.

There was no voice.
And yet that single word sank straight into the back of my thoughts.

I fall.
I fall.
Fall, says the darkness.

I tried to scream.
But from the back of my throat came only breath, vanishing like bubbles.
Perhaps the shadow laughed.
Or perhaps it did not laugh, and only grew denser.
Its outline is vague, and being vague, all the more unnerving.

In time, sound rose from the bottom that has no bottom.
The sound of waves.
Someone weeping.
And a child — myself — calling my name.

That was when it happened.
A light like a thin white thread tore a seam in the dark.
The falling goes on.
But with the light's arrival the darkness thinned a little, leaving on the layers of blue the sensation of a fingertip's touch.

I reach toward that light.
I reach.
And still I fall.
And still, I fall.

The nearer the light, the more the fragments surfaced.
My mother's smile.
Fireworks on a summer night.
The collar of a dog I lost.
And myself, once, standing motionless at the cliff's edge.
And there, at last, I see it.
This is not a plunge.
It is flight.
Only by going toward the depths could I keep my eyes off something.

The shadow had come right up behind me.
Cold fingertips graze my shoulder.

Still falling?

The question had the shape of a temptation.
Like this, forever.
Like this, to the floor of the blue.
Like this — no name, no wound — sink all the way through.

But I shook my head.
The light is right there now.
I fall.
I go on falling.
And yet, falling, I reach out.

The light burst.

White.
Then blue.
From the depth of the blue the colour of morning bleeds out, and the indigo dark comes undone, thread by thread.
Before I knew it, I was kneeling on soft ground.
Birds are calling.
Wind moves the grass.
Beyond the seawall, the sea receives the morning.

But turn, and it is still there.
The residue of indigo, standing in the borrowed shape of a shadow.
The faceless hollow, watching.

I rise.
I walk.
Toward the morning.
Instead of falling, I walk.
And still the shadow keeps close behind me.
It does not go.
It will not go entirely.
When night comes, I will fall again.

I fall.
I fall.
But for now, I am still in the morning.

"That is not hope. It is only a light telling me that beneath this floor there is another floor still" — the decisive sentence of part IX comes from here, as does the closing line about the black where no breath goes.

Into the dark indigo, I fall.
No — not fall so much as sink.
Held in the arms of heavy seawater, drawn slowly, slowly, toward the bottom.

I can't tell up from down.
There is only the sense of dark water closing on all four sides.
My ears ache with a sharp ring; sound recedes; in its place, pressure slips in beneath my skin.
Indigo seems to fill me to the depth of my lungs, and with every breath I become, a little more, part of this depth.

I sink.
I sink.
Resist, and still I sink.

My sight has already lost its edges.
The dark is not merely dark.
It becomes layers, folding over one another, taking on a viscous depth that closes around me.
The nearer the floor, the more the blue turns black, and the black grows denser, until it is less a colour than pressure itself.

I sink.
I sink.
I am going toward the deep sea.

Down there, time has sunk as well.
The sound of the second hand is gone; only memory drifts.
The sea of childhood.
The seawall at night.
The lamp of a ship, glowing far off.
All of it seems to have been somewhere far above this dark I am descending through.
Look up and it seems within reach, and yet there is no going back.

Suddenly, I felt something touch my feet.
Rock?
Seaweed?
Or the shadow of something sleeping on the bottom?
I go rigid.
But before I can find out what it is, a deeper silence closes over me.
The soundless sea forgets my name.

I sink.
Deep.
Deeper still.

At last, beyond the dark, I saw a faint light.
Too distant, too weak — a bare reflection reaching into the deep.
But I know what it is.
That is not hope.
It is only a light telling me that beneath this floor there is another floor still.

Toward that light I go on sinking.
Toward a blue without end.
Toward a silence that reaches no one.
Deeper into the deep sea.

Darker, further into the black where no breath goes

Draft F reworked, with the shadow brought back in. Most of part IX is built on this version — "the soundless sea dissolves my name," "the weight of the water soaks into the marrow." The last exchange with the shadow was moved forward into part VIII.

Into the indigo dark, I sink.

No — not sink so much as this:
held in the arms of heavy seawater, dragged slowly toward the bottom.

There is no up, no down.
Only layers of dark water, sealing off all four sides, wrapped around my whole body.
My ears ache with a sharp ring; sound has already receded. In its place, pressure comes pressing out from inside my body.

Indigo fills me to the depth of my lungs, and with each breath I take, I become part of this depth. The cold crawling over my skin is not merely cold. It is soaking the memory of an ancient sea, slowly, into my blood.

I sink.
I sink.
Resist, and still I sink.

Vision loses its edges, and the darkness is not merely dark.
It becomes layer upon layer, thickening, viscous, tightening around me.
Blue turns gradually to black, and the black grows denser still, until it is no longer a colour but pressure itself.
The weight of the water soaks into the marrow, and even my heartbeat becomes something that only echoes, far off.

I sink.
I sink.
I am going toward the floor of the deep sea.

Down here, time has sunk as well.
The sound of seconds is gone; only memory drifts, slowly.
The night sea of childhood. The black water seen from the seawall. The lamps of a ship swaying far away.
All of it is the afterimage of a lost world, somewhere far above this darkness.
Look up and it seems within reach, and yet there is no going back.

Suddenly, something touched my feet.
A reef?
A mass of old seaweed?
Or the cold shadow of something sleeping on the bottom?
Before I know it my body has gone rigid.
But before I can find out what it is, a deeper silence closes over me.
The soundless sea dissolves my name, slowly.

I sink.
Deeper still.
Toward the floor that has no floor.

Then, beyond the dark, a faint light wavered.
Too distant, too weak — a trace of afterglow reaching into the deep.
It is not hope. It is only a cold light, telling me that beneath this floor there is another floor still.

Toward that light I go on sinking.
Toward an indigo without end.
Toward a silence no voice can reach.
Deeper, into the deep of the deep.

The shadow comes gliding down beside me.
Faceless. The residue of indigo.
It keeps close to me as I sink, and stretching out something like a long finger, strokes my shoulder softly.
"Still sinking?" whispers a voice that is not a voice.

I do not shake my head.
I only close my eyes, quietly.
The pressure tightens over my whole body, indigo fills my lungs,
and there is nothing left for me to do but sink.

I sink.
I sink.
Like this, forever.