I perch atop the highest dune of my Sahara sanctuary, under a midnight sky strewn with distant pinpricks of light. The desert night air is still, save for a light whisper of wind. In this secret place I have carved from sand and silence, I practice the balance I was born to uphold. A heavy granite boulder floats before me, suspended by nothing more than my will. It is a delicate dance: I will it to rise from the earth like a freed bird, then steadily slow it until it hovers just above the ground.
Sometimes it takes all my concentration to hold the stone steady, like keeping a breath of air in my cupped hands. I remember my father's gentle voice from a fading dream, reminding me that power is a weight as real as the stone I command. I smile at the thought; even here, half a world away from my home, his lessons live in me. No matter how far I travel, I am still Obasi Mensah, a Ghanaian son threaded to his ancestors by more than blood and memory.
Each time I gently set the boulder back down, I feel a truth settle in my chest: every action has its counter, every gift a price. I am still learning to measure mine. Tonight the desert sky shifts: a single star winks out and returns, a familiar constellation trembling just at my sight's edge. My fingertips tingle. The very air around me seems to pulse, as if the universe itself is drawing a breath. Something is off-balance beyond these dunes.
I breathe in the hot midnight wind and listen to the silence, letting it speak. My heart thrums like a drumbeat, and I whisper a name I have called since first the power came: "Obasi." The word tastes of earth and sweat in my mouth. A distant owl calls out, and I watch the stars pour down their light.
The galaxy arches overhead, a wide river of stars and stories. In that vast tapestry, I trace a pattern in my mind: a rift, subtle and humming, like a wound in the night sky. It winks again, impossible to miss. My pulse accelerates—should I intervene already, or wait and see what ripples this causes? I push the boulder aside; it comes down with a gentle thud that echoes in the silence.
For now, I remain at the rim of my world, fingers tightening on sand. The secret of this sky's tremble might not be mine to claim, and yet it calls to me. Somewhere in the vast expanse of starlight, balance has been disturbed. I alone have felt its pull across the endless dunes.