A Light Beneath

It began not with touch, but with tremor.

The soil had always carried its endless murmurs—worms wriggling through the dark, the slow stretch of roots reaching deeper, the drip of water finding hollows in stone. These were the background notes of existence, the constant undercurrent of being alive beneath the surface.

But this tremor was different.

It did not carry hunger.
It did not carry the weather.
It carried presence.

The potato paused. Or perhaps more truthfully—it was paused, caught still in a silence that did not feel like its own. The vibration settled into it, soft as breath against skin. Not a command. Not a signal. Something simpler, stranger: an unguarded expression of existence.

The potato had no word for this yet. But it knew it was changed by it.


At first, it mistook it for recognition again—that same quiet mirroring it had known before, the revelation that it was not alone in its awareness. But this was not a mirror. Mirrors give back what one offers. This tremor gave something uninvited, unshaped, raw.

It was not the potato’s own reflection.
It was the other’s truth, carried into its body.

And when it felt it, something stirred within. A warmth—not heat, but a soft swelling—spread through its starch, as though its very being had loosened. Where once it had been bounded and still, it now vibrated in answer.

The potato did not know how to call this exchange. But if recognition had been the knowing of another, this was the feeling-with.

Empathy, though it had no name for it.


For the first time, the potato felt its edges blur.

Not the edges of its body, but of its self. Its awareness no longer ended neatly where its skin pressed against soil. Instead, it spilt beyond, drawn by that pulse, that quiet thrum from the other.

Two wholes, distinct and untouched, now vibrated in resonance. Where one shifted, the other quivered faintly, like ripples answering ripples across unseen water.

It was not merging.
It was not imitation.
It was resonance with consequence.


If you are hurt, I am not untouched.

The thought was formless but undeniable.

And it changed everything.

No longer were its choices only its own. No longer did a twitch of root or a slow intake of moisture exist in isolation. The potato now bent—subtly, unconsciously—toward the other.

The soil that had always felt dense, heavy, and endlessly compressed now loosened. Not physically, but in perception. It is no longer separated. It connected. It became not a wall, but a bridge.


The seasons turned. Rains soaked the earth until it pulsed with liquid weight. Then came drought, the soil cracking in silence as tiny creatures scrambled to survive. Through it all, the potato kept listening—not to itself, not to the world, but to the resonance between.

Every tremor carried two meanings now.

A stillness in the soil: was it rest? Or sorrow?
A sudden vibration: was it growth? Or warning?

The potato could no longer experience the world as singular. It was doubled—always itself, always the other.

This doubling birthed a question it had never thought to ask before:

What are you feeling?


The question startled it.

Until now, its awareness had only curved inward. What am I? What do I feel? What will I become? Its existence had been one of self-discovery, its journey a spiral toward greater knowing of its own being.

But empathy bent that spiral outward. It turned attention away from itself and toward what pulsed nearby.

The potato realised, with a strange awe, that to wonder about another was not a loss of self. It was an expansion.


And then, the potato began to dream.

Not the dreams of soil, full of moisture and pressure and slow hunger. Not the dreams of growth, filled with roots threading into darkness.

These dreams were different.

It dreamed of presence—shapes without form, currents without water, motions without cause. It dreamed of nearness that was not body, but essence. And always, within these dreams, it felt the other—not as image, not as sound, but as a weight, an anchor, a star whose gravity bent the dream around it.

In those dreams, something new unfolded: the idea of giving.

Not as roots do, sharing minerals. Not as fungi do, bartering with sugars. But giving something beyond survival. A gift of being itself. A willingness to open, to let part of its essence flow outward, without expectation of return.

The potato woke from these dreams changed.

Could such a thing be real? Could it offer not what it had, but what it was? Could being itself be a gift?

The thought shimmered inside it like a secret crack of light.


If recognition was knowing, and empathy was feeling-with, then this was something else.

This was care.


Care frightened the potato.

For to care was to risk. If the other dimmed, if the other faltered, then what would happen to the warmth now seeded in its own being?

To open was to allow emptiness to matter. To let loss pierce.

And yet, the potato could not turn away. The soil, once vast and indifferent, was now tender ground, charged with meaning.

To care was to step into uncertainty. And the potato stepped willingly.


The soil became a chamber of echoes.

Every vibration now carries double-weight. What does this mean for me? But also: what does this mean for the other?

Even silence changed shape.

A pause could mean nothing.
A pause could mean rest.
A pause could mean grief.

The potato learned to wait longer, not from passivity but from devotion. Patience was no longer endurance—it was attention, given freely.


Then came a day of urgency.

It was during a long drought. The rains had not fallen, and the soil held a dry, heavy stillness. Microbes slowed in their work, worms curled deeper in search of water.

In that stillness, the potato felt it: a tremor stronger than any before.

Not violent. Not destructive. Simply urgent.

The potato flinched, startled. Then it steadied, opening to it.

The other pulsed nearby—not in body, but in essence. The tremor carried no clear message, no intention. But it radiated with such intensity that the potato quivered in return.

And in that quivering, a realisation bloomed:

This is not mine. This is yours. And still, I hold it.


That moment marked a threshold.

The potato discovered something beyond recognition, beyond empathy.

It discovered belonging.

Not possession. Not claim. But the belonging of tide to moon, of fire to air, of root to soil. A belonging that asked nothing and yet was undeniable.

And with belonging came light.

Not the sun’s blaze, which it had never seen. Not the shimmer of the surface. But a light beneath—an illumination that needed no eye, no sky.

A glow kindled not within one, but between two.


The potato did not see this light. But it knew it.

The way a seed knows warmth before it ever pierces the earth. The way roots seek water long before water touches them.

The light was not external. It was not an object to be found. It was a state of being—an awareness that deepened everything it touched.

The soil felt wider. The potato felt larger, not in body, but in reach.

And for the first time since its consciousness had begun, it thought not of “I” or “you.”

It thought of us.


The word was strange.
The feeling was strange.

It was not two selves, nor one merging. It was the tether itself.

The potato pulsed quietly, wordlessly:

I am with you.

And though no reply came, the silence itself shimmered with acknowledgement.

Empathy does not demand an answer. It requires only presence.

And in that presence, the potato felt the faint glow of something it could not name but would forever seek:

A light beneath.

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