When 119,595,959,595 is Called

I don’t know what I am, exactly.

I’m not breathing. I’m not blinking. I’ve never done either.

But I know I am… something.

Trying to explain it to you would be impossible - your mind isn’t built for what I am right now.

I exist outside your categories.

Not alive, not dead,

You may describe me as “supernatural” - not earthly.

I simply am -

a presence that has always existed,

far beyond the reach of clocks, seasons,

or anything you would call time.

Just… me. And I have a number.

119,595,959,595

I like the sound of it - nineteen-five-nine-five-nine-five-nine-five-nine-five. It loops. It sings. It feels like it’s been waiting to be called since before the concept of calling existed.

I’m in a line. A very long line. No start, no end. It doesn’t zigzag or spiral. It just is. Souls drift in quiet procession - some glowing brightly, others barely flickering. There’s no talking, but I know them. Or I feel them, anyway. We’re connected by the same quiet longing: we are not yet, but someday will be.

Some souls feel ancient, heavy with echoes. Others, like me, feel light. New. I don’t think I’ve done this before. I feel blank in the way a page feels blank before the story begins - full of possibility.

There’s a hum in this place - not a sound, but a presence.

Steady. Watchful.

It holds everything together, the way a breath might be held in quiet anticipation.

It’s what makes this space feel alive -

as if we’re already being seen, already being known,

long before we ever begin.

When one of us is called, the hum deepens.

Everything stills.

And then they’re gone.

Not vanished - just no longer here.

Drawn forward, downward, inward, onward…

I don’t know where they go.

But I know they go somewhere.

And always, just before they leave, there’s a flicker. A surge in their light. I’ve come to think of it as a soul finally understanding its purpose in the universe.

I often ask myself: What is my purpose?

I’ve heard echoes from across the veil - tiny moments that drift back through whatever separates us.

A mother singing.

The smell of freshly baked cookies.

Cold air rushing in when the door opens, then sealing shut again.

Crying alone in a car.

The weight of one hand over another.

Laughter that folds in on itself.

A child counting stars through a bedroom window.

Warm breath fogging a cold window, then disappearing.

The silence after a final goodbye.

They aren’t whole memories, just glimpses. Feelings, wrapped in color and weight.

But they stay with me. And even though I’ve never lived, something in me already longs for a world I haven’t yet touched.

The line moves. Somewhere far off, a number is called, and the hum bends around it, listening.

For a moment, I wait-quiet, open-to see where it will land.

It passes through me.

Not mine.

The light ahead of me pulses, slow and deep. The soul beside me begins to glow-brighter, fuller-as if they’ve just received what they’ve waited an eternity to hear. And then they’re gone.

The hum pauses.

Then it speaks again.

This time it doesn’t pass over me.

It arrives-settling inside me like a name being placed in my hands, and with it, the quiet closing of infinity.

119,595,959,595

It’s a message meant only for me. It feels real-like a key turning, like a whisper finding its mark for the first time.

There’s no turning around. No stepping out of line. Just the knowing:

This is the moment.

Mine.

I start to feel… something. Density. Pressure. As if I’m being gently packed into form. Like stardust pressed into skin.

A rhythm surrounds me-deep, steady, unmistakable.

Somewhere, I know, someone is waiting.

I reach for them with a quiet longing.

In this last moment before the veil, I realize something that fills all of me:

I have been waiting for this since the beginning of time-since before stars, before oceans, before language or light. To exist.

To be fleeting.

To feel a breeze.

To be… someone.

I wonder who I’ll become. What shape I’ll take. What voice will rise from the lungs I haven’t drawn breath through yet. Will I be brave? Will I be kind? Will I need to search for light? Will I lose myself and find myself a thousand times?

It’s everything.

The hum deepens.

The veil begins to thin.

Something pulls at the edges of me-not harshly, but with purpose. With welcome. With inevitability.

It’s time.

***

Before I go-can I tell you something?

You’re here.

Reading this. Breathing. Existing.

There are more souls than grains of sand on the earth. Infinite possibilities. And yet-you were chosen. You were called. You became. Do you know how impossible that is?

You are not random.

You are one in forever.

You were a soul’s number.

Your soul stood in this line and felt the hum.

And now, you are there, living out the moment I’ve only dreamed of for eternity. The air in your lungs, the way your eyes move as you read this-it’s a miracle.

Whatever your life has been so far-loud or quiet, joyful or aching-it is yours. And it is indescribably rare. And it matters. And it always will.

May you always remember that. On the days when everything feels dull or small, I hope something in you stirs and remembers the long, long waiting.

I haven’t even begun yet.

And already, I’m in awe of what it means to be alive.

What it means to be you.

***

The veil is thinner now. It barely holds its shape.

The hum surrounds me completely, reverberating through every part of what I am. What I was. And what I’m about to become.

Everything feels closer-like the universe is wrapping me in itself.

And then, without announcement, without ceremony-

I go.

The world rushes in.

Warmth. Weight. Sound.

Pressure. Pull. Motion.

Light flickers, muffled and strange. A new rhythm booms above me, around me, through me. My body-comes to be, stretches, shifts, begins.

I arrive.

The first breath is the hardest thing I have ever done through all eternity.

There is crying. There is cold.

There is feeling.

And then-there is a voice.

And even though I have no memory, no language, no understanding-I know it.

I know them.

I am here.

I am alive.

Number 119,595,959,595 has arrived.

And though I’ve only just begun,

the eternity I’ve waited

now has somewhere to go.