The fifth side between silence and whisper

Whenever the world narrows with voices, a gap expands within us that is neither like silence nor like noise. Something coils in the deepest point within us, sometimes we may not be able to name it, language may betray us in choosing names befitting it, but it has a sharp impact, causing us a state of confusion as if we were on a confessional platform for the first time. When words are lost and only their echoes are heard, we begin to search for a fifth unseen direction, unheard, untraveled by anyone, known only to those who have broken without their voices being heard. From the fifth direction begins our journey, which we cross barefoot on the embers of awareness; that journey has no paved roads, its paths are radiant voids, resembling our silence more than the chatter of the world.

As we traverse distances stripped from the maps of sound towards the fifth direction within ourselves, hidden between the gasp of silence and the sigh of whisper, a faint feeling is born in us, which words dare not describe. In that suspended distance like a thin thread between dream and reality, we listen to a silence whose words were written without ink. The fifth direction is the one perceived only by those who wore their soul and crossed the trenches of noise with it, abandoning their need for speech, where only the tremor of the idea is heard as it is a fetus in the womb of confession, where the pain is not yet named, and the ink is in its purest form, completed by silence. In the fifth direction, voices are still crossing the paths of arrival, and letters on the threshold await permission to enter.

In the fifth direction, time passes without hands, and the self separates from its physical weight to become a radiance of meanings; there, questions do not wait for answers, while memories blend with the longing we cannot hide, but allow to sneak through the windows of the heart without prior permission.

In the fifth direction, absence turns into a living being, sitting beside us, looking at us with astonishment as if it has known us for a long time. In that hidden space, we do not suppress pain, but listen to the sound of its footsteps as it walks barefoot through the corridors of our depths. There, everything we fear emerges from its hiding place, not to harm us, but to give us a new chance to see ourselves as we have never seen before.

The fifth direction is neither a homeland nor an exile, but a breaking point cooked over a slow fire and matured quietly within us. The fifth direction is the extent we resort to when our senses tire and our mind yawns; there, things speak their original names, wearing their first form, pure, clear, intuitive, natural without masks.

The fifth direction is the direction through which one who crosses it does not return as before; they emerge carrying their voice within their ribs, not on their tongue. The fifth direction does not write its words with ink, but with silence; its feelings are also silent; in love and happiness, it observes silence because it does not need to turn into a trend or a paid advertisement, and when it grieves, it does not practice condemnation and lamentation, but observes patience and silence. Only there do we understand that the harshest things in life may not be said, and the most beautiful things in us are seen more in actions than words.

The fifth direction lies between silence and whisper, where we are without needing to say: here we are. The fifth direction is not an end, but an unannounced beginning. When we leave it, we do not wave to anyone, nor will we seek applause. We will suffice with hearing ourselves not by their voice, but by their whisper and trembling. We do not need to understand everything that happens in the noise of the world; we do not need words. We will continue walking with contentment, carrying inside us a direction with no map. We smile whenever the world around us falls silent for a few seconds, but the world never truly silences; because it does not master silence nor acknowledge it, but we fully realize that true silence is not absence, but the true return to embrace the fifth direction.

Dr. Balqis Al-Kibsi
Journalist | Writer | Poet | Novelist | Literary Content Creator