by memories or thoughts, a gaze that falls upon the world as if for the first time, unmediated by the sediment of experience, free from the slow accumulation of disappointment or delight. The tree is itself, not an archetype. The sky is an utter blue, not a repository for longing, not a vault for prayers. Each silent moment unfurls, its surface crackling, but no recollection rises to meet it, and so perception floats, light as dust, above the objects of attention. A glass of water refracts the window, doubling its brightness. The face in the mirror, stripped of its history, is a geography of inscrutable terrain: cheekbones not yet mapped, a mouth that has spoken no words, eyes that have not known laughter or grief. The self, at that moment, is a vessel abandoned by memory, washed clean by an inner tide. Here is only sensation, and the faintest whisper of awareness, drifting at the edge of consciousness, as if the mind sits on the threshold of a door that opens onto pure being…

© KD.W.Heim