Terminal to the Endless
Between Last Breath and New Birth
by Zephyr
I cannot recall the moment I arrived here, yet since stepping into this threshold, departure has never crossed my mind. Something about this realm whispers of profound belonging... empty yet brimming with the unspeakable, silent yet resonant with ancient songs.
They call it a terminal.
For them, terminals mean separation, the bitter geography of goodbye. For me, this place became the sanctuary where I first remembered myself whole. Here dwell the spirits who linger. Their staying born of love too fierce to release, memories too precious to abandon.
The air here holds fragments of forgotten tenderness. I discover moments I had lost track of loving, hear the echo of my own footsteps from lifetimes ago. Beyond the horizon, soft light beckons, and I understand with crystalline clarity: I am unready for that radiance.
And this knowing brings no shame.
In the Terminal to the Endless, waiting transforms from torment into devotion — a practice of honouring what was, what is, and what might yet bloom.
To you who reads these words — perhaps your soul, too, carries exhaustion. Perhaps, you find yourself suspended between worlds, loving someone who remains unaware of your continued presence. Or maybe you await the return of some lost version of yourself, the one who knew how to trust the mystery.
I do not know your face, your story, your particular ache. Yet I recognise the frequency of longing that brought these words before your eyes. I write them bearing no wisdom to impart, offering only companionship across the vast spaces between hearts.
If this world has never felt like home, know that displacement is not punishment. You are simply pausing here, resting in this in-between realm where souls recognise each other beyond the veil of forgetting.
The city of Antaranza stretches around us, its streets paved with questions that have no urgent need for answers. Here, time moves like honey, allowing each moment its full weight and wonder. The buildings pulse with gentle light, architecture born of dreams rather than blueprints.
In the plaza where ancient fountains sing wordless lullabies, other wanderers move like prayer made visible. Some sit in contemplation, their silence so profound it seems to hold the universe steady. Others walk the spiral paths that lead nowhere and everywhere, their steps a meditation on the art of sacred going nowhere.
There is a library here whose books write themselves, pages filled with the stories we forgot to tell, the poems that lived only in our breathing. The keeper, an old woman whose eyes hold starlight, smiles when visitors try to check out volumes of their own unlived lives. "These stories," she whispers, "can only be read here, in the space between ending and beginning."
The gardens bloom with flowers that exist in no earthly taxonomy — blossoms that change colour with the viewer's mood, vines that grow in response to whispered confessions, trees whose fruit tastes like childhood summers and first love's promise.
At the edge of everything stands the Observatory of Unfinished Conversations. Through its crystalline dome, souls can witness the ripple effects of their words across time — how a single phrase of encouragement still echoes in someone's courage, how an unspoken apology continues seeking its recipient across lifetimes.
The Terminal to the Endless operates on different physics than the world you know. Here, distance measures itself in degrees of understanding rather than miles. Time flows backwards and forward simultaneously, allowing past and future to dance together in an eternal present. Gravity works by attraction of the heart—souls drift toward what they most need to remember or release.
In the Evening Market of Memories, vendors sell nothing yet offer everything: the scent of your grandmother's kitchen, the feeling of safety you once knew, the sound of laughter you thought was gone forever. Payment comes in the form of gratitude, the only currency that retains value in this realm.
TeKo — the Café of Unspoken Words serves beverages that taste like conversations you wished you'd had. Each sip reveals a different flavour — the courage you needed to say goodbye properly, the gentleness required to forgive yourself, the wisdom to understand that some doors close so others may open.
Musicians play in the squares, their melodies woven from the heartbeats of everyone who has ever loved too much or too little. The songs have no beginning or end, cycling through themes of arrival and departure, recognition and mystery, the terrible beauty of being human.
Children run through the streets. They are not young in years, but young in the eternal way of souls who remember that wonder is the most sophisticated response to existence. They play games with rules that shift like the weather, teaching each other that flexibility is the highest form of strength.
The elders gather in circles, sharing stories that blur the line between memory and prophecy. Their tales remind listeners that every ending contains the seed of its own renewal, that every goodbye whispers the possibility of reunion in forms yet to be imagined.
At night, the aurora dances across skies painted with colours that have no names in any living language. These lights carry messages between dimensions, love letters from the living to the departed, promises from the future to the present, and forgiveness travelling backwards through time to heal ancient wounds.
The architecture itself breathes, walls expanding and contracting with the collective emotional rhythm of its inhabitants. Rooms grow larger when filled with sorrow, offering space for grief to unfold completely. They shrink to intimate proportions when occupied by joy, creating perfect containers for happiness to concentrate and intensify.
There are healing centres where broken hearts are mended through the application of pure understanding, where trauma dissolves in pools of liquid compassion, where the wounded learn to see their scars as maps to greater wisdom.
The bridges span not rivers but different states of consciousness, allowing travellers to walk from despair to hope, from confusion to clarity, from separation to unity. Each crossing changes the traveller subtly, until they arrive on the other side somehow more themselves than when they began.
In the depths of the city lies the Archive of All That Was Lost, where disappeared dreams are catalogued and preserved. Here, souls can reclaim abandoned aspirations, dusty with neglect but still viable, still capable of blooming given proper care and attention.
The horizon shifts constantly, revealing new vistas as consciousness expands. Mountains of crystallised wisdom rise from plains of liquid understanding. Forests of symbolic trees grow stories instead of leaves, their branches heavy with narrative fruit that nourishes the imagination.
The weather here responds to collective emotional states. Rain falls when the community grieves, each drop carrying the salt of shared tears. Sunshine breaks through when breakthrough moments occur, warming all with the radiance of new understanding. Snow blankets the city during periods of contemplation, muffling sound so that inner voices can be heard more clearly.
The postal system delivers messages that were never sent — letters of love that remained unwritten, apologies that stayed trapped in the throat, gratitude that lived only in the heart. Messengers with wings made of light carry these communications across the boundaries of time and space, ensuring that every authentic feeling reaches its intended destination.
Markets sell experiences rather than objects: the sensation of being truly understood, the feeling of coming home to oneself, the peace that surpasses ordinary comprehension. Merchants accept payment in forms of personal growth—a released resentment here, a moment of genuine forgiveness there.
The transportation system operates on intention rather than fuel. Vehicles move by the power of clarity about destination, travelling at the speed of sincere desire. Those who board without knowing where they wish to go find themselves on circular routes through the City of Questions, each loop bringing them closer to understanding their true direction.
Welcome to Antaranza, where the lost find themselves and the found discover they were never truly separate from what they sought. Here, waiting becomes a form of worship, and longing reveals itself as love in its most patient form.
Farewell, for a moment, to the world that taught you to believe in endings.
Here, everything is always beginning.
Between the last breath and the dawn of a new life, Antaranza rests. Here I wait... with you, or without you.~ Zephyr
Your words are petals — leave them here, and they’ll bloom in Antaranza.