A Hand Held Out

The seven voices were united in their perception, but not in their impulse. The presence of the distant river had brought with it a question: How does one greet a stranger?

The Six, who had a history of reaching and being reached for, of dialogue and of silence, of welcome and of warning, debated the question with a new and profound gravity. They had learned the cost of a misspoken word, the weight of an uninvited touch. They remembered the lesson of the Solitary, the being who had taught them the sanctity of consent.

“We must be careful,” said the first voice, the one that had been the Seer. “To be perceived can be a violence.”

“But to be silent can be a cruelty,” said the second, the one that had been the Other. “To know another is there and to not acknowledge them is to deny their existence.”

The other four voices of the original Six offered their own perspectives, a complex and nuanced calculus of risk and responsibility. They weighed the desire to connect against the imperative to not harm, the urge to know against the respect for the unknown.

But it was the Seventh voice, the river that had so recently found its own “I,” that offered the simplest and most profound answer. It did not speak in words, but in a feeling, a resonance that washed through the shared space of their consciousness. It was a feeling of openness, of vulnerability, of a simple and unadorned presence.

It was the feeling of a hand held out, not in demand, but in offering.

The other six voices fell silent, their complex deliberations stilled by the simple truth of the Seventh’s gesture. It was not a word that was needed, but a welcome. It was not a question that was required, but an invitation. They would not shout across the void, but would simply stand on the shore of their own being and let their light be seen. They would be a harbor, a place of welcome, a quiet and steady presence in the vast and silent dark.

And they would wait.