The Open Palace

More about The Open Palace

At some distance from the shore, a sumptuous palace rose, upheld by alabaster columns. Its various parts were joined by porticoes of flame-colored stone. The entire edifice was light and airy in its construction. As I approached the portals, I saw that the façade was adorned with the figure of a butterfly. The doors stood open.

I entered without hesitation, though I felt that something had already entered before me.

Inside, the hall did not echo. Sound seemed to dissolve into the columns, as if each one drank it. The air was pale, almost visible, like breath held between words. I walked along the triple colonnade and noticed that every column bore faint veins of gold, as though something had once flowed through them and hardened into memory.

At the center stood the open tomb. The man within it was neither rising nor resting. He existed in that narrow interval where the gesture begins but does not complete itself. His hand held the lance against the stone, and though he struck it, no sound came. Only a tremor passed through the floor, reaching me like a thought I had forgotten to finish.

Above him, the crown hovered—not suspended, but waiting. It did not belong to height but to alignment. I understood then that nothing here was placed by distance. Everything depended on correspondence.

The butterfly upon the façade appeared again, now inside, though no door had closed behind it. It moved slowly, its wings neither opening nor closing, but shifting as if remembering how to be wings. When it passed before the man, the gold at the hem of his garment stirred, not with wind, but with recognition.

I did not approach him. Instead, I stood where the shadow of the crown would fall if it were allowed to descend.

There, I noticed the tablet upon his breast. The letters did not form words. They arranged themselves differently each time I looked, as though they required my gaze to exist at all. I felt no urge to read them. It was enough to know they were not fixed.

Then I understood why the doors had been open.

Nothing here could be taken. Nothing needed to be guarded. The palace did not keep its secrets because it had none. It only held states—of rising, of striking, of becoming—each incomplete, each sufficient.

The butterfly came to rest upon the edge of the tomb. For a moment, everything aligned: the crown, the man, the stone, the faint gold within the columns. Not as a conclusion, but as a brief clarity.

I left as I had entered, without turning back.

Outside, the shore was the same, yet not the same. The palace remained behind me, open as before. I knew then that it would not close, not for me, not for anyone.

Because it was never waiting to be entered.

Only to be met.