u/AnInklingOf_

CW: Death of a child

L’appel du vide. The call of the void. I had briefly learned of the concept in passing during a psychology course in college. “The sudden, indescribable urge to jump off a balcony or step into a freeway,” she had so gracefully described it. But it was different from intrusive or impulsive thoughts; she harped on this when I questioned her further after class. I didn’t really get it personally. Why would I ever want to do that?

Well, that was until Elenore. My gorgeous, sweet, beautiful Elenore. She was my daughter. I’d gotten her mother pregnant during an opportunistic night together. She didn’t want to keep her, but I insisted I would take full custody and raise her all on my own. And that was what happened. Elenore was born, and I never saw her mother again. But that was fine. At least I had her.

She was the best damn thing that ever happened to me. I loved everything about her— her smile, her laugh, the sound her little feet made against the hardwood floors as she began to walk— she was perfect. I gave all the love I could muster and then some. We were so happy.

Then it happened.

I was driving us home after picking her up from daycare, and as we crossed an intersection a busted blue pickup truck ran the red light and t-boned us. I came out unscathed. Elenore…. She died on impact.

That was when I began to feel it. Recognize it. L’appel du vide. The call of the void. But it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t…. psychological.

Near ledges and streets my brain would go fuzzy and I would lose control of my body. There was an inviting warmth that filled my body, that drew me in like a mother’s embrace. It felt otherworldly, yet so familiar.

Once I was chopping vegetables for a casserole I was to bring to a potluck. My friends insisted I come, to get out of the house. Out of my head. Suddenly a feeling of warm vertigo washed over my body, and as I stared at the cutting board covered in half-minced onions I opened the palm of my left hand. Slowly, methodically, I slid the blade of the knife across my hand and watched as crimson pooled and leaked down the creases of my hand.

Then in an instant I was cold, and my hand stung. I dropped the knife like it burned and hurried to clean my wound. That was the moment I knew something wasn’t right.

I called up my old psychology professor to ask her about the phenomenon. L’appel du vide. The call of the void. She explained the concept to me again, always willing to indulge a curious mind. And at the risk of sounding like a lunatic, I explained my recent experiences. The tone in her patient responses turned from pleasant to concerned the more I divulged. I left out the part where I actually cut myself with the knife, I feared telling her that might land me in a psych ward.

Maybe that was where I should be.

In the end, she wasn’t much help. She encouraged me to seek psychiatric help, that the symptoms I was experiencing were most troubling. But I knew that this was no mental phenomenon. What she had described and what I had experienced were too dissimilar. I needed someone who could understand things of a… stranger nature.

A spiritual friend of mine recommended I visit witchy tea shop she frequented, she said the owner had all kinds of experience in paganism and spirituality of the non-Christian sort. I didn’t specify why I was looking for someone of this caliber, and she didn’t pry. I appreciated that.

When I entered the little cottage I was immediately hit with a strong herbal scent, a mix of incenses and brewing tea I presumed. The woman that approached me was dressed in flowy layers and crystalline jewelry, and she spoke with a calm authority that set my mind at ease.

I told her of my plight. From losing Elenore to the first instance of the call, to cutting my hand. She listened quietly, not speaking until I was done. Then she told me… a lot. I honestly don’t recall most of it. I didn’t understand most of it. But one thing she said stuck with me. More than anything she or my professor had said:

“A grieving parent is more susceptible to cosmic forces.”

When I arrived home, I sat on my couch and let the woman’s words echo in my mind. Over and over.

Then I felt it again.

That warm wash of compliance. Of surrender. I sat there as I was cradled and soothed in the arms of something I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. I knew this wasn’t psychological. It wasn’t human. But I couldn’t bring myself to care, not when it felt so… right. There was nowhere else in the universe I was meant to be other than right here, sitting on the edge. It wanted to hold me, to comfort me. And as I sank deeper and deeper into its embrace, I understood.

L’appel du vide. The call of the void.

And who am I to resist the call?