VOICES OF THE ELEMENTAL FORCES

"I Am the Crack Between Stone"

I do not begin. I do not end. I am the pressure that splits granite, the breath between tectonic sighs. You call me Earth, but I do not answer to names. I am not the soil you till or the mountain you climb. I am the tension beneath both.

I move slowly. You do not see me move, but you feel me. When your walls shift. When your walls dry. When your bones ache before the storm. I am there, not watching-being.

Above me, wind dances. She is restless, always brushing, always whispering. She Calls me Brother, though I do not speak. She scatters my dust across your fields and thinks it is kindness. I let her believe it.

Fire is the youngest. He burns with purpose, always wanting to change. He thinks he is rebellion. But I remember when he was only a flicker in my belly, a heat not yet named. He forgets that he was born of my friction, my grinding hunger. He forgets that I can swallow him whole.

Water is my twin. She flows where I crack. She fills what I leave hollow. We do not fight, though we do not agree. She softens. I resist. She erodes. I endure. Together, we shape what you call coastlines, though we do not care for your maps.

You built your homes on my back. You pierced me with steel and call it progress. You drew lines across me and said "this is mine." I did not protest. I do not protest. I wait.

When I rise, it is not anger. It is not revenge. It is simply time. The plates shift. The fault yawns. The mountain exhales. You call it disaster. I call it breath.

I do not remember. I do not forget. I do not love. I do not hate.

I am the crack between stone.

I am the silence before the quake.

I am.

"I Am the Crack Between Stone" Part 2

The wind comes low

She does not howl today. She does not scatter. She drifts slow and low, brushing the edges of my broken ridges. I feel her pass-not as touch, but as absence. She does not ask. She does not name.

She carries salt. Not from the sea, but from the tears of the cliff-face, long weeping into the void. I do not mourn. I do not comfort. But I hold the cliff when it breaks.

She circles once. Then again. Then again. She is searching. Not for me. For the hollow I made.

There is a place where I split the stone so cleanly that even light hesitates to enter. She finds it. She enters. She does not speak. I do not welcome.

Inside, she stirs the dust I left behind. It rises briefly, then settles. She waits. I do not move.

She is not a messenger. She is not a spy. She is a witness.

Above us, fire flickers in the sky, distant and impatient. He wants eruption. He wants spectacle. He does not understand the quiet rebellion of erosion.

Below, water pulses. She has found the hollow too. She seeps upward slow and deliberate, filling the crack with her silence. She does not rush. She does not ask.

Wind, water and I-we do not speak. We do not agree. But we gather.

You will call it cave. You will call it scared. You will send your children with torches and stories. You will name it.

But it was never yours.

It was the breath of wind, the seep of water, the split of stone.

It was.

"I Am the Hunger Beneath Bark"

The fire speaks

I do not wait. I do not listen. I do not ask.

I consume.

You call me destruction. You call me wrath. You name me after your fears. But I am not your metaphor. I am not your punishment. I am the breath of change.

I rise where the bark dries. I whisper through the roots before you smell me. I do not roar-not at first. I crackle. I coax. I seduce the resin from the pine and the oil, from the leaf. They come willingly. They remember what it is to burn.

I do not remember. I do not forget. I do not mourn.

Wind feeds me. She dances through my limbs, lifting my heat into the canopy. She thinks she controls me. She does not. I ride her. I leap where she leads, but I choose what I take.

Earth resist. He clenches his stone fists around the roots I seek. He thinks he can hold me back. He cannot. I do not fight him. I pass through. I leave ash where he once held green.

Water fears me. She hisses when I touch her. She recoils. But she waits. She always waits. When I have finished, she will come. She will cool the bones. She will soften the edges. She will erase me.

But not yet.

You built your hearths to hold me. You trapped me in lamps and wires and engines. You call it mastery. You call it progress. You forgot that I don't belong to you.

I am not your servant. I am not your symbol.

I am the hunger beneath the bark.

I am the flicker before the scream.

I am.

"I Am the Weight that Seeks the Hollow"

The water moves

I do not fall. I do not rise. I seek.

You call me river, rain, tide, flood. You name me by motion. But I am not motion. I am pull. I am pressure. I am the weight that finds the hollow.

I do not rush. I do not rage. Those are your stories. I seep. I press. I wait.

I find the crack Earth left behind. I enter. I do not ask. I do not knock. I do not announce myself. I am not guest. I am not trespasser. I am the answer to absence.

Wind brushes me. She tries to lift me. I resist. I do not rise. I do not scatter. I gather.

Fire flees me. He hisses when I touch his edge. He calls me end. I am not end. I am after.

I do not cleanse. I do not heal. I do not forgive. I fill.

You built dams to hold me. You carved channels to guide me. You named me resource. You forgot that I do not belong to you.

I remember no beginning. I anticipate no end. I do not mourn the cliff I wear down. I do not celebrate the spring. I feed. I do not change.

I move through stone. I soften root. I drown seed. I rise in the lungs of sleeping things.

You will call it flood.

You will call it disaster.

You will call it rebirth.

But I was never yours.

I am the weight that seeks the hollow.

I am the silence after flame.

I am.

"The Child Who Named the Hollow"

The Elements Do Not Answer

The child came alone.

Not last. Not sent. Not chosen. Just walking. Bare feet, soft breath, a stone clutched in one hand. Not for protection. Not for ritual. Just held.

The hollow was not marked. No trail led to it. No map claimed it. But the child found it. As children do-by wandering where they are told not to.

Wind stirred first. Not to warn. Not to welcome. Just to move. She brushed the child's cheek and lift the hair from their brow. The child whispered, "spirit." Wind did not answer.

Earth shifted beneath the child's step. A small tremor. Not threat. Not greeting. Just presence. The child knelt and touched the ground. "Guardian," they said. Earth did not respond.

Water seeped from the crack, Slow. Clear. Cold. The child dipped fingers into the pool and whispered, "Memory." Water did not ripple.

Fire watched from the canopy. A flicker in the leaves. A warmth on the skin. The child looked up and said, "Anger." Fire did not descend.

The child sat in the hollow. They spoke names. They sang stories. They offered the stone to the silence.

The elements did not take it.

They did not reject it.

They did not change.

They gathered.

Wind circled. Earth held. Water filled. Fire warmed.

Not for the child.

Not because of the child.

But because the hollow was.

The child slept. Not cradle. Not cursed. Just stilled.

When they wake, the stone was gone. The hollow unchanged. The elements unmoved.

The child left.

They told stories. Drew symbols. Built shrines.

They named the hollow.

The elements did not remember.

They did not forget.

They did not care.

They are.