oblivion

There are moments when the mind becomes strangely quiet.
Not peaceful. Not calm. Quiet in the way a room becomes quiet after someone has closed the door from the outside.
You can still hear things, but they seem very far away.
A voice calling your name.
Rain against glass.
The slow ticking of a clock.
Your own breathing, coming and going without asking permission.
And somewhere beneath all of it, there is a question.
Not a question you have ever learned how to answer.
A question that feels older than you.
If you knew what was waiting for you on the other side, would you still choose to open the door?
Perhaps that is what people mean when they talk about fate.
They make it sound beautiful afterward.
They call it destiny when the story ends well.
They call it tragedy when it doesn't.
But when you are standing inside the moment itself, there is nothing beautiful about it.
There is only choice.
One road leads back to everything you understand.
The other leads somewhere you cannot name.
And sometimes the cruelest thing about being alive is that you are expected to choose without knowing what either road will cost.
She would think about that question much later.
Much later, when she understood that some doors do not appear because you are looking for them.
They appear because someone, somewhere, has already decided that you are ready.
And sometimes you don't walk through them because you are brave.
Sometimes you walk through because you are tired of standing outside.