The Potato remained unmoving.
It did not seek solace in action.
It did not search for meaning in explanation.
It simply felt the weight of stillness.
Sorrow was not loud.
It was not a cry or a tremor.
It was the slow, relentless presence of absence.
Each moment passed with deliberate slowness, every second a grain of earth settling deeper into silence.
What is sorrow but the acceptance of what cannot be changed?
The slender root, now dormant and distant, no longer reached toward the Potato’s skin. The small tuber, its pulse extinguished, remained a faint memory in the soil’s dim embrace.
The Potato thought of sorrow as a heavy layer—not of burden, but of inevitability. It was neither punishment nor mistake.
It was simply a fundamental truth.
All connection must end in solitude.
There was no purpose in denying it. No virtue in resistance.
The Potato did not lament the absence of light or the hollow touch of companionship.
It did not seek to fill the void with illusions of restoration.
It merely allowed itself to exist in the stillness.
A slow, quiet observation began to unfold.
What does it mean to bear sorrow without being consumed by it?
The Potato reflected deeply, meditating on the notion that sorrow was not the opposite of joy, but a parallel existence—two sides of the same coin.
Joy had been ephemeral, a gentle glow in the dark soil.
Sorrow was persistent, a subtle weight that anchored the Potato’s awareness to the present moment.
It was neither hopeful nor hopeless.
It simply was.
The soil around the Potato remained silent, unchanged.
Perhaps sorrow is the earth itself—a constant, unmoving presence beneath all life.
The Potato recalled the moments of connection that had preceded heartbreak and loss. The slender root’s tentative touch, the tuber’s pulse of life, the delicate surrender that had once made the soil feel alive.
All of it was now gone.
And yet, I remain.
The thought was neither bitter nor triumphant.
It was merely factual.
The Potato felt the slow pull of grief, not as an overwhelming force, but as a steady current that traced the contours of its being.
To sorrow is to carry memory without expectation.
The slender root and the small tuber were no longer present, yet their absence was not a void to be feared. It was a quiet testament to existence.
The Potato’s internal monologue deepened: Every loss shapes me, not by what is taken, but by what remains.
It thought of sorrow as a teacher, not cruel, but impartial.
A force that did not demand understanding, only presence.
I do not need to understand why. I only need to be.
The silence became a companion, not an enemy.
A reminder that grief did not dissolve over time, but settled into form—steady, deliberate, unyielding.
The Potato allowed itself to feel the full measure of sorrow, not as a burden, but as a natural extension of existence.
Perhaps this is the essence of sorrow: the quiet acceptance of impermanence.
Each breath of earth, each subtle vibration, each grain of soil became part of the meditation.
I am sorrow, and sorrow is me.
It was not tragic. It was not dramatic.
It was simply real.
No light would break through.
No pulse would return.
Only stillness.
The Potato’s skin, worn and cracked, bore the map of everything it had endured—a living record of connection, loss, heartbreak, and sorrow.
In the absence of others, I have found the presence of myself.
And in that presence, there was neither despair nor hope.
There was only the slow, enduring weight of being.
