Thump — or, a symphony of destruction
I wrote this story a few years ago, not long after it happened. I’m publishing it now largely as I wrote it then — in the voice of someone who had just had the ground pulled out from under her and was still very much mid-fall.
What she didn’t know yet was how long the falling would take. Or that it wouldn’t end with landing somewhere solid. It was a change of direction — leaving the motorway to step onto a winding mountain road, and finally enjoying the ride. The view, the mudslides and the fireflies — all of it indiscriminately. And along that road, something was waiting that she would never have thought to look for.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here is where it began.
This story begins on a damp Spring morning in Fukuoka, Japan, in 2020.
It was my first time in Asia. My first time in a culture diametrically opposed to mine. And I never wanted to go home ever again. Maybe in a way my wish came true. The person I was on that day stayed there forever. Here’s how it happened.
To me, the best way to discover a city is by getting lost in its little streets and wandering aimlessly. It was precisely what we were doing on that day, my husband and I, when we stumbled on a small enclosure leading to a Buddhist temple. The entrance looked unusually like that of a house, without all the flourish and incense we had gotten used to. It felt very private and definitely not the kind of place meant for tourists.
I beamed. This was exactly what I was looking for. With hindsight, I would certainly have gone up the stairs with a little more decorum if I had known that within minutes, my life was going to flip inside out like a sock.
I stumbled up the stairs and nearly crashed into a big black cauldron full of sand. An old lady was bent over it, dutifully plucking out old incense sticks and straightening the ones that were still lit. She gave me an awkward look. Something like: “Uw. What are you coming here for?” We had just entered what looked like an antechamber leading to a very smoky room. Through the smoke and with increasingly watery eyes, I noticed two enormous feet. Next to them, a pair of piercing eyes were waiting for our next move.
We cautiously made our way through the antechamber and into a big room. It wasn’t very large but its ceiling was impressively high. It had to be, in order to accommodate its host: a wooden Buddha taller than a house. He was smiling gently and his soft gaze followed us as we shuffled along to the nearest wall, overwhelmed by this gigantic encounter.
I am always a little concerned about standing out as the “rude tourist” when we visit another country. As a result, we make sure to learn the local customs prior to our trip. In Japan, we knew discretion was a must. As we tried our best to blend in — which mostly involved staying in the shadow and being very quiet — I glanced around. The walls were lined with a succession of frames, each one depicting a scene. My Christian upbringing immediately recognised the structure: a kind of Way of the Cross, Buddhist style. Mesmerised, I couldn’t resist their magnetic pull. I started to follow the frames one by one, determined to decipher the story.
“Do you know Buddhism?”
I flipped around. A small man in his late forties was standing next to me. He looked suspiciously like he had just popped into existence. But I recognised the piercing eyes that had been monitoring our every move since we had arrived. Underneath them, a slight grin hinted at the fact that we had been deemed worthy of trespassing on the premises.
Next thing we knew, our impromptu guide was telling us about the way to Enlightenment. He talked to us like one would to a child about a complex subject. I was grateful: I had never managed to wrap my head around Buddhism before, regarding it as a very harsh and ascetic philosophy. But to my surprise, instead of the barren religion I had expected, the paintings on the walls filled my imagination with awe. A Heaven peppered with streams, mountains and trees, worlds which reminded me of Yggdrasil — and of course several Hells, depicted with much colour and drama.
As the tour came to an end, our guide stopped and considered us in silence for a moment, as if lost in some personal dilemma.
“Did you enjoy it?” he finally said.
“Yes, arigatou gozaimasu!” The answer had erupted from both of us in perfect unison and so spontaneously that our host beamed.
“Would you like to try an experience?”
We were standing behind the Buddha’s statue. The man was pointing at a black curtain completely out of place onto the seat of the Buddha. He lifted a corner of the curtain, revealing a gaping, pitch-black opening. “This is a labyrinth. Somewhere inside, a ring is hidden. If you manage to find it, it will bring you good luck.”
I cracked a smile. Folk belief. Cute. But we nodded with polite interest because the kind little man seemed so genuinely proud of his mystery tour.
If only I’d known. With hindsight, I wonder if he was smug because he knew what was going to happen.
“Please follow me closely, I will guide you with my voice. It is very dark in there. Keep your right hand on the wall, walk slowly and it will be ok.”
My husband and I exchanged a look full of amused anticipation as we dove into the darkness. This was going to be fun.
The curtain fell behind us. The world went silent. Fun definitely wasn’t the right word.
Have you ever been in absolute darkness? A darkness so thick you have lost your bearings and feel dizzy? I had never experienced true darkness before. And this came as a shock.
“Are you okay in there?” The voice boomed like thunder. I couldn’t tell where it came from. It could have been in my head. But it wasn’t, because I heard my husband reply that we were doing great, even though his voice was a little unsteady. “Just follow the wall, we are almost there!” There was a hint of amusement in the last syllables. I wasn’t finding the experience funny at all. My senses were all numbed, and all I had left to rely on was a distraught mind which threatened to snap any second. Did I mention I was afraid of the dark?
My hand was clasped against the wall and I noticed something odd. That wall was wavy. And so was the floor. At times it felt like a slope; at others I would have sworn we were going up.
I started to feel really annoyed at the awkward situation we had put ourselves into. Who would be daft enough to follow a perfect stranger into a pitch-black room in the middle of nowhere?
All gloom and doom, I bumped into Jérôme who had abruptly stopped walking.
“I will leave you here.” It was the voice of our guide. “Try to find the ring… good luck. Then just carry on following the wall and you will find the exit.”
“Oh great he’s not going to kill us after all!” Screamed my crazy mind. Then it added: “Wait, don’t leave us here we’re going to die!”
Silence engulfed us once more.
I listened intently, ready to run if only I could hear the direction in which the footsteps were vanishing. But the floor was covered by a rug. Or our host really was a ghost after all.
The eerie silence was broken by my husband’s voice.
“It seems like we are in a kind of circular room. It shouldn’t be difficult to find the ring.”
A couple of seconds later, he called: “Got it! Follow my voice.”
I trudged along. My hands finally met something sticking out of the wall. It was metallic, slightly warm to the touch, and I would have sworn it was pulsing. I paused for a second, waiting for some kind of miraculous stroke of good luck to enlighten me.
Nothing. I silently blamed myself for being so childish.
“Shall we go?” I croaked.
We gingerly resumed our wall-hugging tour. Jérôme emerged first. Another black curtain. I grabbed a corner of thick velvety fabric, pushed it aside and stepped out into the light.
I went blind. My mind stopped.
For a fraction of a second, my gaze met Jérôme’s and I saw that something had happened to him as well. All I could do was giggle and mutter: “Did you feel that too?”
He nodded with an awkward smile and steadied his balance. I wanted to elaborate on what had just happened, but the little man erupted from nowhere again, pressing us with questions and scrutinising us for traces of divine good luck.
I could just about hear voices through the daze. The rest of the conversation took place somewhere outside the thick blur that coated my mind. To this day, I have virtually no memory left of what happened when we left the labyrinth.
Fresh air. Drizzle on my face. I gasped for air and my mind finally cleared. We had just stepped outside.
As we reached the dark wooden arches of the entrance, I turned back to give one last look at the stern white building. Had I dreamt everything? Had we even been inside the temple at all?
One thing was for sure: whatever happened, I felt different. I could feel life rearranging itself around me, uncoiling and sending mad ripples that were tearing at the fabric of my existence. Resistance was futile.
A massive paradigm shift had just started taking place inside of me.
We discussed it at length, time and time again. What was that ring? Who was that man? What happened in there? Despite our efforts, we couldn’t unravel the secret of the mysterious Buddha ring.
Its effects, however, were immediate and brutal. On that very day, I got myself a book about Buddhism and spent most of the night skimming through it in our little hotel room.
Upon our return home, I went back to work, and quit my job. Then I joined a Tibetan Buddhist temple in Brussels and studied there for several years.
I dramatically reduced my intake of animal products, got rid of a third of my belongings, and set off on a minimalist journey. Yoga replaced combat sports, and settled more deeply into the meditation practice I’d carried since 2014.
I sold my guitars. And then came the journals.
I had been writing since I was 8 years old. Dozens of notebooks and short stories — the record of a life in progress, a girl trying to make sense of herself across decades. I dropped them at the container park. I remember the moment clearly, not because it was dramatic, but because it was both things at once: relief and grief. They just went thump down the big blue container. It felt like amputating a much-loved but outgrown part of me.
This took place over six years during which I methodically let go of all my beliefs, values, expectations, hopes and dreams — everything I had ever used to define myself across my whole existence.
I went through a major artistic breakthrough, followed by the worst artist block I had ever known.
Desperate to find my life’s purpose, I inflicted so much pressure upon myself that I broke down. My mind went mute for several weeks. No more wondering, supposing, planning, guessing or fearing. Just silence, arriving uninvited, but more soothing than I ever could have imagined.
I thought that was the end of the story. The silence as destination.
It wasn’t. It was a clearing.
February 2026
I look back at the woman who walked up those stairs in Fukuoka with a complicated kind of tenderness. She was brave and she didn’t know it — which is perhaps the only kind of bravery that counts. She was also still running programs that had been installed in her long before she had any say in the matter: ideas about who she was supposed to be, what success looked like, what her life’s purpose was allowed to be. The temple didn’t remove those programs. It just showed her they were there, and didn’t need to be.
The removing is still going — maybe a little slower, but still going. Over the years, my Buddhist practice simplified itself the way the rest of my life had — gradually, with a few roundabouts. I found my way to Zen, drawn by its austerity and its refusal of ornamentation. It felt like the same movement was guiding me: letting go until only what was essential remained.
What I didn’t know then — couldn’t have known — was that the labyrinth in the Japanese temple wasn’t a metaphor I would decode later. It was a rehearsal. Keep your right hand on the wall. Walk slowly. Don’t try to see. Let the dark do what it needs to do.
Years later, in the most improbable way, I found a flute that became my means to sing all I’d experienced back into the world.
The hitoyogiri, this small bamboo instrument from the Muromachi period, so obscure that most people who love Japanese music have never heard of it. Played by monks and poets, it was then largely forgotten, left behind by history like a stone someone set down by a path and never came back for.
When I first held it, I didn’t feel like I was discovering something new. I felt like I was coming home to a place I had never been. That is a strange thing to feel. I have come to trust strange feelings.
The hitoyogiri asks very little of you. It doesn’t reward ambition or technique for its own sake. It wants breath and presence and a willingness to sound imperfect, to sound searching, to sound like someone who is still finding their way through the dark by touch.
I think that is why it found me when it did.
It also answered what I like to think of as “the mystery of the ring”.
Back in that temple on the other side of the world, the ring was just a anchor for a mind learning to lose control and keep going. Without the need for a destination.