They arrived in Trieste singly or, in pairs bearing belongings. They did not appear as trauma survivors. Rather they seemed like individuals awakening from an extended, bewildering and profoundly lovely dream.
They used to be the Vacants. That term was outdated. Today they referred to themselves as The Re-Awakened.
The Academy didn't provide workshops for them. Mira, the poet just kept the library doors unlocked beyond closing time. They would make their way attracted by the scent of aged paper and the absence of any screens. They weren't seeking direction. They wanted someone to observe.
Devon organizing items, in a nook unintentionally turned into a confidant. He discovered how to hear others out without jotting anything down.
A woman called Livia, a corporate lawyer prior to her Protocol sat beside the chilly fireplace. "It wasn't dark " she remarked, her tone curious. "That's what people fail to grasp. It was… a white light. No shadows. No corners. Every thought simply… faded away before it could develop an edge. It was like a calm pond without wind without fish, without a bottom. It was deeply beautiful." She glanced down at her hands, which were nervously playing with a thread on her sleeve. ". Then I craved a cup of tea. Not just the concept of tea. The craving itself. It felt like a fracture, in the whiteness. A dreadful beautiful aching fracture."
A man called Emil, a carpenter recounted his experience of the Gentle Shock. "I was at home. The broadcast played.. The scent of pine resin came to mind. Not the timber itself. The resin. The sticky vexing magnificent goo, on my fingers. I dropped to my knees. I wasn't weeping. I was… reconnected. To irritation. It was the valuable sensation I'd ever known."
Their narratives were not, about incarceration. About banishment. They had belonged to a nation named Nothing. Although it lacked suffering it also lacked any climate. Their suffering was the inverse of brutality; it was the recollection of a happiness so total it had obliterated them.
The quiet sessions held the impact. Anya, a Re-Awakened and ex-musician would take her place at the slightly, off-key piano nestled in the library's corner. For weeks she merely gazed at the keys. One day she rested one finger on C and played it. The sound lingered, flawed, resonating softly through the atmosphere. She waited until the sound vanished entirely. Then she repeated the action. Devon understood that she was, in fact rediscovering the framework of a decision. The startling weighty liberty of producing noise where previously there had been silence.
They started to locate one another. A casual informal network formed focused on the Academy. Extending via encrypted lines. They did not share beliefs. They shared a feeling: the everyday surprise of choice. Of favoring one type of bread above another. Of being annoyed by a day. Of desiring conversation or solitude. These ordinary wonders were their shared narrative.
Flavio watched them from the garden holding his tuning fork. He noticed their movement—not with the precision of his previous creation but with a tentative exploratory elegance as if they were adapting to walking under gravity after living on the moon. He remained silent toward them.. His concern, for the moss grew, if anything even more focused.
One night a young Re-Awakened called Leo spotted Ben putting books back on the shelves. "We're not mad " Leo remarked without being asked. "That's the assumption. We ought to be enraged about the years taken from us."
"Are you not?" Ben inquired.
Leo reflected. "It's… trickier than that. It's similar to receiving a present then having it removed only to find you long, for it. Yet you despise it too.. You're afraid it could be presented once more." He gazed at the shelves the stunning mess of human ideas. "For the part we're worn out. Desiring is… draining."
Ben agreed with a nod. "This is the fatigue. Welcome again to the effort of simply being human."
The Academy evolved into something beyond an institution. It turned into a refuge for longing. A sanctuary where those recovering from serenity could safely explore their cravings, alongside others who grasped the significance of an ordinary cup of tea the earth-shaking impact of a familiar scent, the magnificent jarring wonder of one carefully selected flawed note.
They did not come for answers. They came to whisper their stories of the white light into a room that held the shadows of ten thousand old, difficult, beautiful books. They came to relearn, in company, the most basic and profound human skill: how to bear the weight of their own wants, and to find, in that burden, the only thing worth calling a life.