The Other Side of the Dome

The river didn’t change. It never did.

It curved like a quiet question around the hill, just below Granny’s home, a proud, whitewashed house with bougainvillea wrapped around the porch posts. The kind of place that smiled at guests and stared down its own.

As I sat near the edge of the river, where the grass was soft and never quite dry. Purple jacaranda petals clung to her dress like secrets. I didn’t brush them off.

I was twelve.

I had everything I was supposed to need. Food, safety, clean clothes, books in two languages. My granny made sure of that. But there were things no one gave me. Things I didn’t know how to ask for. Things like softness. Answers. A voice that would say, I see you. I haven’t forgotten.

My mother had left me here five years ago with a suitcase and a kiss that didn’t quite land. Granny never asked questions. Neither did I.

But my thoughts did.

Today, they were loud. Loud in the kind of way that made the world feel far away, like my own heartbeat was an echo.

I stared into the water. It shimmered, but didn’t reflect. Just ripples and light pretending to be truth. I whispered into the stillness:

"Am I real?"

No one answered.

"What am I? Bone and skin? Thought? A breath inside a machine?"

My voice was calm, but my mind was a storm.

"Maybe I’m just glass, people see through me but don’t see me."

Or maybe I wasn’t anything. Not a girl. Not a daughter. Just a pause in the world’s rhythm. A blink between other people’s stories.

The question grew bigger inside me. So big, it cracked something.

And in that moment, I left.

Not my body, that stayed behind, lying gently on the grass, eyes closed like in sleep. But my soul… my soul took a step sideways.

Into a space that didn’t exist on maps.

There was no pain. No fear.

No weight.

No body.

No light.

No dark.

Just space. Just being.

Just the most freeing nothing I had ever known.

My body didn’t float, didn’t fall. I was held, by what, I couldn’t say. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t sleep. It wasn’t death. It was escape, but not from fear. Escape from the constant hum of having to be someone.

Here, there were no mirrors. No names. No expectations.

No mother who left.

No grandmother who loved in silence.

No child who asked too many questions.

Just myself, in my truest form. A self without noise.

I didn’t want to go back. Not yet.

Not while this quiet still remembered me.