What I thought I heard him say was, “Don’t worry.” So I didn’t. I haven’t. “Don’t take the wheel,” said the voice. “Don’t steer. Don’t figure it out. Don’t navigate. Don’t aim. Don’t want. Don’t plan. Don’t worry.”

What I thought I heard her say was, “Rest. Stay here. Plant yourself beneath the ground. Don’t sprout. Don’t reach. Be at ease. Don’t appear. There’s nothing for you to do here anyway. Stay warm. Relax.”

What I thought I heard was “You needn’t bother. It’s plenty enough that you beat somehow beat the odds, broke through, landed. Now stay where you are. We will do the rest.”

What I thought I heard was a faint bell off in the distance. I thought it might be ringing for me. Inviting me home to the cathedral of all I was ever meant to know.

But I passed it off as a hallucination. Even as it rang again, and again. Ringing in my dreams, chiming me awake each day.

What I thought I heard was a whisper that said, “Come. Get up. Move. Trip over what’s in the way. Make a mess. Break a heart. Know yourself. Love another. Spread out. Get comfy. Stay.”

What I thought I heard was the brush of a felt tip across the pulp of a long-dead tree—the voices of those who, with regret in their hearts, felled the plants and brewed the chemicals and made it possible for me to write these words. To transcribe the whisper so that it is real. So that it is no longer a hallucination.

What I thought I heard was a gentle alarm: There’s only so much time left. A caring challenge: So what’s it going to be?

What I thought I heard was the pop and crack of my long-hunched spine as I finally pressed my feet into the warm grass and stood upright. The bells were clear now. Constant. Beckoning.

It’s no thought: I hear them.

I begin to walk.