Asia. Molly Vieira

Clatter, crash, clack! - and suddenly my self feels something inside me twitch, straighten, then contract again in the darkness. A noise that shakes every particle, giving no rest. Racket, bang, thump! I begin to realize that I am not just subject to this, but also becoming part of this cacophony. It permeates me, makes me shudder, contract, and expand.

How long has this been going on? Time has lost all meaning. I am lying down, but it is not just lying down - I am stretching, filling the space around me, slowly becoming aware of my existence. I cannot say exactly what I am, but I am beginning to feel how what was once emptiness is beginning to take shape. Every sound, every movement is no longer just an annoyance or a nuisance. It is something more. I feel how sounds penetrate me, merge with what I am beginning to perceive as my "I".

Rattle, clang, crack, thud, whack, bam! - and suddenly something changes. In the midst of this chaos, this seething hum and explosion, I begin to sense something clearer, more definite. I... I begin to understand something. The darkness I have been in suddenly begins to clear. I realize that I am not just a form, not just a collection of vibrations and sounds, but something greater than all this endless storm around me.

And here it is... some barely perceptible feeling that comes to me through this chaos. I suddenly realize that "I" am not just "something," but something concrete, with clear boundaries. I am... a woman. Yes. It is unexpected, but absolutely clear. It is not a word, not a concept. It is a feeling that fills me from within. Everything I feel is now clear - I am a woman.

As strange as it may sound, it was with this realization that harmony came. And the world around me, this humming and pulsating chaos, no longer seemed so alien. I had become part of it, and in this silence, amidst the deafening flashes and pulsations, comes the realization - what was before? Where was I? Or... was it even there? Something shaky, growing inside me, like a question, begins to rise, like a wave, ready to cover everything.

Before? The word doesn't make sense. Or does it? I don't know. No, I don't know. It's not a memory, not an image, just a feeling of emptiness. Darkness. As if there is something dark beyond my memory, where I came from, but what exactly, I can't grasp. Where was I before this? Why does this feel so strange, as if I have disappeared, dissolved into what was before I woke up?

A feeling of uncertainty was tearing me apart. I heard inside myself not one, but a whole choir - no, not voices, but answers. They were inside me, these answers, ready, waiting for their time. They were names. Names that I could not explain, but which were so close to me that I did not even doubt that I had carried them inside me for a long time, as part of my essence. And with them, images arose - bright, clear, each of which seemed like a separate life, and yet somehow - my lives.

I saw her - Delia York. An eight-year-old girl with fiery, angry eyes, full of cunning and alienation. She was from New York, and her gaze was heavy as a stone, already carrying the weight of pain and discontent. In those eyes hid a whole world of fear - a world in which there was no place for kindness, because she had never met it. She was always on guard, always keeping her defenses ready, as if she knew that the world around her had never been kind and was not going to be. Her small body was as cold and calculating as an adult's, because she had already understood: in this world, no one will protect you, and there is no point in hoping for help.

And I saw Molly Dunlop. A six-year-old girl from Boston, full of innocence and wonder. Her eyes were open to the world, and there was no room for doubt in them, just a simple, genuine admiration for everything that surrounded her. She laughed as only children can laugh, genuinely and carefree, unaware that the world was about to change her. Her laughter was pure as a mountain spring, and while she remained that age, her perception of the world was untouched, free of the heaviness that would later come with experience. She was fragile, but there was something defenseless about her fragility that you immediately wanted to protect, as you protect the most vulnerable.

But Emily, a twenty-two-year-old girl from Cleveland, was just as vivid in my memory. Cheerful, carefree, full of energy and determination. She walked through life without thinking about what might be waiting for her around every corner. And although there were fears and mistakes in her heart, she did not hide them, but met them with pride. She was ready to live, not fearing what lay ahead. She believed that life was a game, and that every step she took was a step towards something greater. Emily did not think about the consequences, did not think about how often her ease and carelessness could turn into hard lessons. But she did not care. She wanted to live, and her desire for life was so strong that nothing could stop her.

Each of these three names, each image gradually merged within me, and I understood: I was them. I was each of them. But how? This sensation was so strange, almost impossible. I felt how these fragments, these parts of alien lives, were sticking together into one, merging in my body, in my essence. And at some point, I could no longer understand exactly where one life ended and where another began. They all became a part of me, but remained separate, as if I had become many at once.

But what did that mean? I couldn't believe that all of this-everything I saw, everything I felt-had existed at the same time. It was obvious: I had three pasts. Three completely different lives, three paths that were once separate and now merged into one body, one being. It was a contradiction in itself - how could you be three people at the same time? But it was true.

Delia York. Molly Dunlop. Emily. They were all me, and I was all of them at once.