Pulse - a micro story

Not a frown further. Go, release them, Ariel.

My charms I’ll break, their senses I’ll restore,

And they shall be themselves.

—Prospero, The Tempest

It’s strange, isn’t it? How we spend our lives spinning webs of power, status, and belonging—how we get tangled up in them without even noticing. Everything feels sticky, suffocating. But the real magic, the true freedom, isn’t in the web—it’s in the spaces between, the spaces inside us.

I remember that now, on a summer walk by the water. The sun turns the surface to gold, and I feel it—something stirs. A spirit of wisdom, perhaps. The world makes sense again. I feel the weight of my limbs, the pull of life’s pulse, like a swimmer emerging from the sea, heavy yet refreshed. I’d forgotten this feeling, this tangible aliveness. For too long, I’ve been caught—choked by hours, by numbers, by the webs others have spun around me.

But now, something is waking up. It rises gently, like a tide. I breathe in the fragrance of pine trees, and I remember. The body is wise, it never forgets. And here, in these waters, I begin to heal.

“These are terrors for children, not for me,” I whisper, shaking off the spell.

I’ve been at this for too long—these power games, the silent battles of faces held in check, the polished scripts of meetings. I know the moves. A decade in this city, a decade of silver skyscrapers glittering like freedom, but standing over me like prison bars. I expected ambition to feel more alive, not this.

I glance up at those same towering buildings now, but they seem hollow. A backdrop. Something in me has shifted. I can taste it in the air—the wild, darting scent of violets and grass. My senses are returning.

A new stage is waiting for me, wreathed in storms, maybe, but alive with potential. The turbulence excites me. Will it be in Greece, where the azure sea beckons? In Florence, with coffee by the Arno? Or maybe somewhere entirely new, a New World, gleaming and untouched?

It doesn’t matter. The wood may be dark, but I know the way. I have always known the way.

It’s time. Time to leave behind the hollow promises of this city, the cages I helped build. Time to step into the unknown and feel that pulse of life again.

And this time, I won’t forget.