The Fire and The Fountain: Part 5 – Alchemy of Being
Part 5: Metanoia – Alchemy of Being
Rädsla awoke with a sharp breath, his body tense, his pulse uneven. The dim light of dawn crept through the towering windows of his office, casting long shadows across his mahogany desk. He sat motionless, his fingers tracing the cold glass of an untouched whiskey tumbler. His mind reeled.
Was it all a dream?
The sanctuary. The pillars. Asih’s unwavering presence. The stillness that had unraveled him. He could still feel it—an echo lingering beneath his ribs, unsettling in its quiet certainty.
He pressed his fingers against his temples, trying to shake the weight of it off. Yet, when he looked at his reflection in the window, something felt different. It was still him—the same sharp suit, the same calculating eyes—but something beneath the surface had shifted.
And he wasn’t sure if he could ignore it.
A voice stirred within him, familiar and insistent. Forget it. Power is control. Love is a liability. This voice had shaped him, had built his empire. It had been his anchor.
And yet, another voice—softer, unfamiliar—asked: Then why do you feel so empty?
He exhaled sharply, shaking his head.
No.
He had built his world on certainty, on dominance, on knowing exactly how to seize control. And yet, in that space with Asih, he had been confronted with something he could neither fight nor bend to his will.
His phone buzzed. A message flashed across the screen:
“The deal is complete. Call me when you’re ready.”
The offer was clear. All he had to do was reclaim himself, silence the questions, return to who he was before. It was simple. Familiar. Safe.
His hand hovered over the phone. His pulse quickened.
Just make the call. Step back from the edge before it’s too late.
Before he could move, a small voice cut through the silence.
“Daddy, Daddy, is today the day?”
Rädsla turned. His son stood in the doorway, grinning up at him, bright-eyed and expectant.
Something inside him twisted.
He looked down at the child, then at the phone in his hand.
A moment of hesitation.
Then, his voice was firm. Steady. Unyielding.
“Let ‘er rip.”
Below them, the heavy wrecking ball slammed into the sanctuary.
⸻
The sanctuary was gone.
Dust still lingered in the air, a thick, choking veil over the ruins. The once-sacred pillars had crumbled beneath the force of steel and stone, reduced to rubble. The echoes of the wrecking ball’s impact still rang in the ears of those who had called this place home.
A few had fallen to their knees in the street, their faces streaked with dust and tears. Others clung to one another, silent in their grief.
But amid the devastation, one thought overpowered all else.
Asih.
They ran, their feet pounding against the earth, desperate to find her. To tell her. To warn her.
They found her in the garden.
A quiet, hidden place, nestled beyond the reach of the city’s ceaseless hunger. Here, the wind moved through the trees, the leaves whispering secrets only the stillness could hear.
She sat on the grass, hands resting lightly on her knees. Unmoved. Unshaken.
Waiting.
“Asih!” One of them stumbled forward, breathless. “The sanctuary—it’s gone. They—” The words broke apart in their throat. “They destroyed it.”
Another fell beside her, voice trembling. “Everything we built… everything we were…”
The grief in their voices was a raw wound, and yet Asih did not rise. Did not weep.
She placed a hand gently against the earth, fingers pressing into the soil.
“They destroyed the walls,” she said softly. “Not the sanctuary.”
The wind carried her words through the garden.
Her followers looked at her, eyes wide with confusion.
“But Asih… there is nothing left.”
She lifted her gaze to them, her expression serene.
She moved to tend the roots of a young sapling, her hands steady, her heart untouched by ruin.
“Once the lesson is learned, the forms & tools may dissolve. We mustn’t mistake the tool for the lesson.”
She gently turned the soil through her fingers, her hands grounded in the earth.
“Here are four flowers,” she said softly, her voice a quiet melody in the wind. “Once, they were seeds buried deep beneath the earth, unseen. But still, they grew. And now, we see their beauty—an expression of love, manifest in fragile form. Four pillars remain, not of stone, but of truth, rooted in the soil of our hearts. Is their sweet fragrance less or more by the temples constructed and destructed by a man miles away?”
“And, these trees. These tall trees around us were tiny saplings long before the temple was built. Are they any shorter today?”
“This garden blossoms around us, not as a memorial to what had been lost, but as a living testament to what had been learned.”
Her eldest student pleaded, tears streaming down his face, “But, Asih, why didn’t you stop him?! Why couldn’t you protect our temple?!”
“My purpose is not to stop the natural progression of man; not to take them out of the world. My purpose is simply to serve in the protection of the seeds. This was a very unique opportunity to plant seeds on infertile ground.”
The lesson was not in the form, but in the growth. The garden flourished. The lesson endures.
New seeds have been planted.
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