I placed my hand on the stone wall of the ancient tower. The stone was cold, but it wasn't the cold of matter, but the cold of time—of centuries that had passed, silently settling in every brick, every crack, every worn-out vein. My fingers seemed to touch a layer of memory that had materialized, crystallized into silence.
Between the cracks, as thin as knife marks carved into the flesh of the earth and rock, there was a dark streak. It wasn't still. I sensed it moving, like an invisible current, hidden beneath layers of time.
That dark streak crept along the edge of the bricks, following the grooves in the stone, then disappeared into the clumps of moss silently clinging to the wall. Under the sunlight filtering through the old trees, that dark streak suddenly shimmered, not brilliantly, but painfully – like the final gaze of someone about to leave.
I think of a fallen dynasty – Champa, its citadels stained red with earth, its gods and love stories forgotten in the ashes.
Perhaps, this place was once home to a Cham girl who walked barefoot on the cold stone steps, clutching a stone xylophone, her eyes gazing towards the forest, waiting for someone who would never return.
When the warhorses pulled the tower back to its base, when the flames engulfed the entire dynasty, that love remained, as small as a speck of dust, yet as enduring as that dark stain—it would never disappear.
I stood there, amidst the silent ruins, seeing that dark streak as a living entity—a stream of ink of memory flowing across history, continuing to write things that had never been named.
Dark, winding streaks snaked around the crevices of the bricks, then blended into the tree roots, seeping into the rock like an unending underground stream. No one actually saw them, but everyone had felt their presence, like a whisper in their heart, very faint, but impossible to ignore.
The sky above the tower's dome seemed heavy as well. A mythical bird unexpectedly fluttered from the tower's wing, not the sound of wings, but a delicate touch between the sky and memory. That sound shook the space, leaving an echo like an invisible thread connecting past and present, between soul and body.
In the corner, the fingers of the ancient relief reached up, twitching in the twilight—as if trying to cling to something dissolving. I heard the wind whistling through the empty arches, like Shiva just awakening.
She—her origins unknown—stood beside me, her gaze distant, as if from countless lifetimes. I touched her hand, only touching a thin layer of smoke, fragrant with incense. She was the embodiment of those who had loved in silence, waited in the mist, and dissolved into stone.
I sensed that deep within the tower lurked an ancient heart, cracked and bleeding dark streaks—not of sadness, but the imprint of untold stories, of unfulfilled desires.
The love I felt then had no name, no promises, but it had a form: the form of a silent black streak clinging to an ancient stone wall. I didn't know who it began with, or where it ended, but it existed—needless witnesses, no ceremony.
It is music that does not resonate with sound, only vibrates in the chest whenever we touch something once sacred.
The stone wall was no longer an object. It was a piece of music yet to be performed. Each crack, each dark mark, was a low, resonant note. As the light faded through the moss, I saw not just the scars of time, but a lingering soul. And on those glistening mossy patches, I suddenly saw blossoming green flowers.
I pressed my hand against the stone again, not to understand, but to be silent with it. And in that silence, I heard a breath, not from the temple, but from within myself.
A deep part of me that I once lost—now, it is returning, along with you, along with the shimmering black streaks on the ancient background.
We, and that love, merged into the vastness.
Source: https://baovanhoa.vn/van-hoa/nhung-vet-den-biet-tho-151502.html
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