I don't know how long the darkness lasted. Nor do I know if it deserved an ending. Sometimes darkness is not the absence of light: it is a pause that the body needs to find its form. From that place without clocks, the only thing I could think—or feel—was a straight line, drawn freehand, connecting two points on my chest. And a word that I did not say, but that I heard very clearly: "Come back."

Consciousness came and went like the tide. At times, a warm wave lifted me toward the light; at time