Melvin stood at the edge of the building, hands buried deep in the pockets of an expensive coat that had never once succeeded at making him warm. The rooftop gave him a clean view into the lives of strangers—little illuminated aquariums of human existence.
Across from him, in the apartment directly opposite, an
introverted young man sat hunched over a glowing laptop, his face illuminated
ghost-blue, fingers tapping with the desperation of someone trying to outrun
himself through productivity. In another apartment, a couple sprawled across a
massive sofa, laughing at something on television, the sort of laughter people
carefully manufacture after years together so the silence doesn't begin asking
questions. Far to the right stood an office block, almost entirely dark except
for a lone cigarette ember glowing on a balcony like a dying lighthouse.
Melvin watched it flicker, a tiny rebellion against the
dark.
The wind was ghastly. Nairobi at night had a way of making
it seem colder than it really was, mostly to humble rich people who bought
apartments with rooftop access. He shivered violently and looked up at the sky.
Beautiful Sunday night. Most people were settling in for
rest. Most people still believed Monday mattered.
It was time. He stepped onto the ledge.
For a brief moment, he felt absurdly calm. He even thought,
with grim amusement:
So this is how billionaires handle emotional problems.
Very inefficient.
Then he stepped forward. One moment, he was falling. Next,
the world vanished.
— — —
Pain. Not ordinary pain. Not injury. This was pressure
itself becoming conscious.
Gravity pressed against him with ancient hatred. His lungs
felt crushed inward. His skin screamed. His eyes watered uncontrollably, as if
existence itself had become too heavy to bear. He gasped. He opened his eyes.
The sky above him was empty. Not black. Not dark. Void.
Beneath him lay an ebony terrain shaped like rolling hills, polished smooth as
volcanic glass. No stars. No moon. No sound except a low hum that seemed to
come from inside his own bones.
Ahead lay two paths. One bent left toward a distant glow.
The other disappeared into absolute darkness.
No hesitation. Melvin moved toward the light, limping
instinctively. The crushing pressure had eased, but his body still hurt with
surgical precision. Every nerve ending was acutely aware of its own suffering.
After what could have been minutes or centuries, he arrived
before a gate. Something waited.
The creature had the torso of a man and the head of a
serpent, though even that description somehow fell short. Its scales shifted
continuously, as though reality could not settle on a single version of it. Its
eyes were pale silver. Ancient. Amused.
It did not speak. Yet words unfolded in Melvin's mind.
You will undergo three trials. The Tree of Life. The
River of Nourishment. The Lighthouse of Salvation.
Melvin blinked. The creature tilted its head slightly.
Most people hear those names and expect inspiration—a very
unfortunate misunderstanding.
— — —
The walk to the tree felt eternal. Time no longer moved
properly here. His thoughts stretched strangely. Memories arrived uninvited. At
one point, he was certain he had been walking for several decades. At another,
he was convinced he had taken only three steps.
Then he saw it. The tree stood on a distant hill, glowing
beautifully in unseen light. From afar, it looked divine. Sacred. Almost
welcoming.
But the closer he approached, the more wrong it seemed. The
bark twisted unnaturally, like muscle beneath skin. The branches bent at
impossible angles. The roots moved subtly across the ground like sleeping
snakes shifting in their dreams. The fruit hanging from its branches pulsed
softly with inner light, translucent like wombs carrying unborn things.
The air smelled strangely familiar. Like childhood. Like
church polish. Like fear.
Melvin slowed. The tree breathed. Not metaphorically. It
inhaled, branches expanding slightly before contracting again. The fruits
whispered faintly. Not words. Memories.
He should have run. Instead, he moved closer, hypnotized.
The roots stirred. Hair-thin tendrils slid silently across the black earth and
wrapped around his feet. At first, he barely noticed. Then the roots pierced
his skin. Tiny intrusions. Needles entering flesh. They moved upward, slowly,
through his nervous system with obscene intimacy, threading through muscle and
vein while the tree watched patiently.
Melvin gasped. Still, he could not stop walking. The pain
intensified gradually until it became unbearable. The roots reached his spine.
Then his skull. Then his brain. Agony detonated through him. He screamed. The
tree merely shimmered softly as though pleased.
Ah, yes, came the serpent's voice somewhere behind
him.
Generational trauma. Extremely invasive species.
Melvin tried to pull away. Impossible. The roots had become
him. His nervous system now partly belonged to the tree. And then the first
fruit descended into his hand. The moment his fingers touched it — MEMORY.
— — —
He was five years old again, kneeling, with his siblings
beside him. His father towered above them, holding a tin of sugar like it was
uranium.
"You were told sugar is for Sundays."
The voice was cold. Controlled. Dangerous.
In the Machui household, sugar possessed the moral gravity
of narcotics trafficking. Melvin remembered the fear vividly now. The
calculations. The silence. The tension in the room whenever his father entered.
Their home had not felt like a home. It had felt like a court-martial with
furniture.
Memory after memory flooded him. Punishments. Rules. Rigid
discipline for microscopic infractions. His mother's bruises. The muffled
crying behind the bedroom walls. The way everybody learned to walk quietly. The
way joy felt suspicious in that house.
His mother moved through memories like a fading ghost.
Beautiful. Fragile. Permanently exhausted by sadness. Depression wrapped around
her like a wet cloth.
Then boarding school. Sweet liberation disguised as Catholic
punishment. Even at eight, he had wanted escape more than comfort.
The tree forced him deeper. His brother, Chase, dead at
eighteen in a drunken accident. His father standing emotionless beside the
coffin.
"He lacked discipline," Father said.
That sentence buried something in Melvin permanently. He
stopped visiting home after that. Stopped calling. Stopped needing. Or at least
pretended to.
The tree pulsed violently. Suddenly, the memories shifted.
Corrected. Now he stood beside his father rather than before him. And he heard
his father's thoughts:
I need to make them strong. My father did this to me. Am
I doing too much? No. This is what fathers do. Isn't it?
Fear. Confusion. Loneliness.
Melvin staggered. Then his mother's thoughts flooded in.
I am failing them. I am disappearing. I do not know how
to survive this life.
Then his own childhood thoughts.
I want Dad to hug me. I want someone to say everything
will be okay.
Then his siblings. The same longing, the same fear, the same
ache.
The tree forced him to feel everyone simultaneously. No
villains. Only wounded people passing pain downward like an inheritance.
Tears streamed down Melvin's bark-covered face. Seasons
passed across his skin. Leaves sprouted from his shoulders and died again and
again. Years collapsed. The roots slowly withdrew from his nervous system at
last. Every place they left behind turned warm golden-brown instead of black.
Healing hurt differently.
When the final root disappeared, something heavy crashed
behind him. Melvin turned. A massive shell lay shattered on the ground. A
turtle shell. Scaled black. Immense. He stared at it in horror. He had carried
it so long that he had never felt its weight.
The serpent materialized beside him.
Defense mechanisms. Remarkable things. Humans call them
personality.
— — —
The River of Nourishment arrived without warning. The earth
vanished beneath him. Then water. Violent. Freezing. He was dragged downward
through monstrous torrents that crashed against jagged black boulders.
The river held shapes. White silhouettes. Human forms.
Ghosts tumbling helplessly beside him, begging. Always begging.
Whenever he slipped beneath the water, his lungs burned with
unbearable pain, though he never drowned. The pain sharpened thought instead of
ending it. The river demanded consciousness.
Melvin remembered learning to swim as a child. His father is
screaming instructions. The near drowning. The strange peace he had briefly
felt while unconscious underwater. The first moment he had secretly thought:
Death might actually be restful.
The river somehow laughed. Not literally. But he felt mocked
by existence itself.
"Why is this called nourishment?!"
He screamed as he crashed through the rapids. No answer.
Only current.
Days passed. Or years. There was no sleep here. No
exhaustion. Only endless motion.
Eventually, he noticed something. The calmer he became — the
easier he floated. The more panic entered him — the heavier the water grew.
Dark thoughts dragged him down. Resentment thickened the river. Fear poisoned
his movements. But surrender — true surrender — made the water carry him.
So, he learned. Stroke by stroke. Breath by breath. Thought
by thought. The river became a meditation through violence. Eventually, he
moved with impossible grace. The torrent still raged around him, but Melvin
flowed within it effortlessly.
The serpent appeared, seated casually atop a boulder,
smoking what looked suspiciously like a cigar made of stars.
The mind is fascinating—entire civilizations destroyed by
thoughts they never questioned.
— — —
There was no moment of rest.
Then came the city—the Lighthouse of Salvation.
Melvin walked unseen through streets filled with people
drinking, gambling, scrolling endlessly, snorting powder in nightclub
bathrooms, laughing too loudly, and crying privately. From each person, black,
smoky strands extended, connecting to a colossal sphere floating above the city
like a malignant moon. The strands pulsed, feeding it. Addiction. Despair.
Fear. Self-hatred. Distraction. Hopelessness. Every dark impulse flowed upward
into the giant black mass.
Melvin approached people desperately. Tried to speak. Nobody
heard him. Tried to touch them. His hands passed through their bodies. But the
strands — the strands he could feel, touch, and manipulate.
He followed them upward across a vast ocean, where monstrous
shadow-creatures circled endlessly in the mist. And there — between the ocean
and the city — stood the lighthouse. Dark. Waiting.
The climb nearly killed him. The wind howled with voices.
Some begged him to stop. Others mocked him. Still others promised comfort if he
turned back.
At the top, a chair waited. Ancient. Metallic. The armrests
were warm. Others had sat here before. Many others. Beside it rested a
crown-like device, connected by cables. Melvin understood instantly. This was
not a reward. This was duty.
He sat. Placed the device onto his head. Grabbed the
handles. Pain exploded through him. Then light erupted from the lighthouse.
Blinding. Golden. The ocean trembled. The black sphere screamed.
And Melvin realized something extraordinary: every truthful
thought strengthened the light. Every act of compassion expanded it. Every
hopeful word further illuminated the darkness. The strands attached to people
began snapping one by one.
A young man dropped a syringe and began to sob. A woman
closed a betting app and looked at the sky for the first time in years. A drunk
man suddenly remembered his daughter. Every awakened soul brightened the
lighthouse further.
Melvin wept openly. This felt like purpose, not success or
achievement. Purpose.
Then the serpent voice returned.
This is your work now. To hold the light while others
forget they possess one.
Joy flooded through him. Real joy. Not pleasure. Not escape.
Something sacred.
Then, suddenly — darkness. The serpent stood before him
again.
You have been here for five hundred years. In your world,
not one day has passed. Wake up. Do your work. Or else.
The last words dissolved before they were completed, which
somehow made them far more terrifying.
— — —
Melvin awoke to furious honking. He inhaled sharply. Leather
seats. Dashboard lights. A Maybach. Rain against the windshield. He stared
around wildly. Alive.
He remembered now. The rooftop. The ledge. The decision.
His phone buzzed repeatedly beside him. Twenty-three missed
calls. Three business magazines wanted interviews about the sale of his
company. Someone had texted:
"Congratulations, legend. You made it."
Melvin laughed softly. Long. Uncontrollably. The sound
frightened even him. Made it. What a hilarious little phrase.
He looked out the windshield at the waking city. For the
first time in his life, he could see the strands.
If this message stirred something in you, don’t let it fade.
1. Join my LinkedIn
Habit Coaching Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/habits-with-coach-edwin-7399067976420966400/
2. Join my Habit
WhatsApp Community at https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbAmKkOBvvsWOuBx5g3L
3. Ready to level up your
life? Join my 12-Month Personal Transformation Program and
let’s intentionally build the next version of you — with clarity, discipline,
and momentum. Call or WhatsApp me directly at +254 724 328059, and
let’s begin.
Comments
Post a Comment