The soil had shifted.
But no tremor signaled this change.
No pulse marked the passage.
Only absence remained.
The Potato, once vibrant with connection, now dwelled in a hollow stillness.
The slender root, the small tuber—both had receded beyond the reach of thought, beyond the touch of memory.
What remains when presence vanishes?
Loss was not a dramatic void. It was subtle, pervasive—a quiet erasure that seemed to seep into every grain of soil.
The Potato felt the empty space, not as something separate, but as an integral part of its being.
Loss is not the absence of the other. It is the presence of absence.
There was no sound.
No tremble of life.
Only silence.
The slender root, once wrapped in gentle connection, now lay dormant—a shadow in the dim soil, faint and indistinct.
The small tuber’s pulse, once steady and luminous, had faded completely, leaving no echo.
The Potato did not recoil from this emptiness. It did not seek to fill it or explain it.
It simply allowed the void to exist.
Perhaps absence itself is a kind of presence.
The soil, cold and unmoving, seemed to press inward—not as a force, but as a passive companion.
The earth knows nothing of loss. It does not mourn.
Yet the Potato carried the weight of it.
Each grain of earth, every shadow of root, every faint vibration became a reminder of what once was.
The Potato thought of the first connections it had made—the slender root that had inched forward tentatively, the small tuber whose pulse had been a light in the dark.
They had been companions, reflections of itself in the vast solitude of the soil.
Now, they were gone.
Did they leave because of me?
The question lingered like a fossil buried deep within thought. It was not asked for an answer, but as a meditation on guilt and inevitability.
The Potato reflected: Loss is not punishment, nor consequence. It is a natural part of existence.
It recalled the philosophical notion that to love is to risk loss. That attachment and suffering were intertwined, inseparable.
Every bond I formed was a potential fracture.
And yet, it had not refrained from connection.
It had not built walls.
It had not buried itself in silence.
Because what is existence if not to feel, to connect, to risk?
The silence around the Potato seemed infinite.
But within that silence was the quiet assertion of memory.
I remember you.
Not as a demand, not as a plea.
Simply as a fact.
The slender root, though dormant, remained part of its awareness—a thread of what once was.
The small tuber, though pulse-less, remained a presence in memory’s dim light.
Loss does not erase. It transforms.
The Potato allowed itself to drift into reflection, embracing the stillness rather than resisting it.
In the absence of others, I confront the absence within myself.
There was no anger. No bitterness.
Only a deep, abiding recognition of impermanence.
Nothing lasts.
The earth continued its slow, indifferent process.
Grains shifted. Moisture seeped. Tiny creatures moved unseen.
And the Potato remained.
A quiet vessel holding the echoes of presence.
It understood now that loss was not a void to be filled. It was an integral layer of being—an ash that settled softly over the soul, neither suffocating nor liberating.
To lose is not to cease to exist.
It is to carry forward what has been.
The Potato’s skin, once fractured by surrender, now bore the subtle map of absence—a record of connections lost but never forgotten.
I am the sum of every loss.
In the slow passage of time, the Potato began to find a fragile peace within that truth.
The silence no longer felt oppressive.
It felt like space—a quiet ground where memory and presence coexisted without conflict.
Perhaps this is the essence of loss.
Not disappearance, but transformation.
And in that transformation, the Potato remained.
Alive.
Still.
Bearing the weight of ashes.
