Ash Reforged

What the world calls madness… may just be a soul remembering truth in a place built on lies."

Ash couldn't sleep. Not after the dream.

In it, he saw a man—wild eyes, tattered robes, a wine bottle swinging in one hand, scripture in the other. A mad monk. Laughing like thunder while spinning through empty streets, shouting verses that made no sense and yet—somehow—pierced the center of Ash's chest.

The words didn't just echo—they reverberated. They didn't mean what they seemed. They meant something… deeper.

Ash woke in a sweat. His heart thudded not with fear—but recognition.

That morning, he didn't go to the office.

Instead, he wandered. Past concrete towers and glass malls, ignoring the rhythm of corporate life calling him back like a dull drum. Instead, he found himself in an alley, watching an old man feed birds with leftover rice. Quietly. Reverently.

"Even pigeons eat with more presence than we do," Ash thought.

Later, back in his apartment, he sat by the window.

A moth tapped endlessly against the pane, circling a lightbulb that buzzed with dying energy.

He watched it. Gentle sadness in his chest.

"That little thing might only live a day."

"And yet, it flies. It feels. It reacts. That short moment is its entire life."

And then—

"What if… I'm the moth?"

His breath caught.

"What if our 80 years are just one blip to something greater?"

"A day in heaven… a year on Earth."

He remembered that line from childhood. Dismissed it then as myth. Now, it returned with weight.

"Time is perception," he whispered.

"And perception is chained to form."

He stared at his hands.

"If a fly's one day is its everything…

Then who are we to beings beyond time?"

He wrote in his notebook:

"Light doesn't age. The soul is light.

Time is not real. It's just the echo of form decaying."

He stared at that final line.

"I am not the container."

That night, the dream returned.

The mad monk was waiting, perched on a temple roof under a moon that didn't look like Earth's moon. He held a scroll in one hand, wine in the other. His smile was vast and terrible.

Ash stood below, unsure whether to bow or run.

"You seek truth," the monk laughed, "but still carry a watch."

He leapt down, robes flapping like wings.

"Tell me, boy…"

"If time is an illusion—why are you still in such a hurry to be someone?"

🌀 To be continued…..