A Beggar’s Ride

The following is a fictionalized account of a 22-year-old beggar in The Gambia who discovers FableTech’s Fantasmagorifier:

Day 0: Starting my Ride

I’m starving. The kind that makes you dizzy when you stand up too fast, that twists your stomach until you can’t tell if it’s hunger or sickness anymore. I feel this burn inside me, like something’s eating through from the inside. Probably is. Doesn’t matter—I can’t pay for a doctor anyway. My head pounds all the time. My body’s tired before the day even starts.

When I wake, I hear the first call to prayer echo through the streets, rising above the hum of Brikama. My stomach answers before my lips ever could. I'm sitting on a concrete step, trying to stay out of the sun. A street vendor walks by selling domoda—groundnut stew with rice, thick and rich—and my mouth waters even though I know there’s none for me. The sea breeze drifts in, blowing toward the river, cool for a moment before the day’s heat settles over everything.

I keep thinking how unfair it all is. Like the world made rules I never got a chance to play by. Some people wake up worried about what shoes to wear, and I wake up hoping there’s something to eat and that I'll live through the day. I’m angry. I carry it like a second skin. I want out. Out of this life, out of this place. I don’t even know where I’d go, only that it has to be somewhere else, somewhere I could finally breathe.

I want things for myself. I want money, food, clothes, chances. But chances are in short supply in The Gambia. I’ve got my little brother, ten years younger, and he’s the only reason I keep moving. He’s a kid—he doesn’t deserve this. After my mom died six years ago when I was 16, my dad disappeared. One day, poof! Gone. I think he tried to get on a migrant ship, but I don't know whether he made it.

That left me, broke, with two little brothers and no idea how to survive. For a while, our relatives helped us. But they don't really have much to share, and they didn't really want to share what they had, anyway. We got by for a while—I did some brutal construction jobs for a few years, and we were at least managing to pay rent and eat.

The work was really terrible, though. It was destroying my body, and the guys around me kept getting badly injured. I knew it was only a matter of time before I got hurt too, and then my brothers would be left all alone to fend for themselves. I didn't know what to do, and I started desperately wishing I could stop working at that job. Of course, the universe chose to grant that wish. Soon after, all the construction jobs dried up, and I couldn't find anything else.

After my relatives turned us away, I had to figure out something for us, but there were no jobs. I began hunting around on X, looking for accounts of people who seemed really kind, hoping that they might be able to help us.  We got a little bit of help here and there, but most of the folks in the rich world weren't willing to part with even a few dollars. Even the ones who pretended to be kind. That money means nothing to them and everything to me. But they don’t care.

The older of my two brothers died about a year ago. He got sick, and I couldn't afford the amount those awful doctors were charging me to help him. They didn't care that he was so sick that he couldn't walk without my help. They just let him die.

Now it’s just me and my little brother, Lamin. I’m all he’s got.

So whatever I get, he gets first. He eats before me, always. That’s not up for debate.

We live on scraps. We know which alleys stay quiet at night, which corners belong to us if we get there first. I've developed a sixth-sense for when bad shit is about to happen. I call it my superpower. More than once, I’ve woken up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding, knowing something was about to go down. I’d drag Lamin out of there, only to return to the area the next day to see the ground near where we were sleeping covered in blood.

My phone’s the one thing I can’t give up. It costs more than I can really manage—even keeping it charged costs me a few dalasi every day—but without it, I lose my lifeline to the small amount of money I'm able to convince those rich assholes to part with. And with the phone, I’ve got a line to the world, like maybe I still exist.

So that's been my life for the past few years. I've been hoping to get the money together to buy a car so I could be a taxi driver. But that's a total dream—I can't even scrape up the money to eat or have a place to sleep. How am I ever going to afford a taxi? But what else can I do except dream big?

This morning, I DM'd this guy Samah d'Arcanum on X. He posts all this stuff about love and kindness, and I was really hoping his worldview might include generosity too. He answered right away and said that he wasn't going to give me money. He said something about not moving with the energy of need, which made me instantly hate him. Then he started talking crazy, saying that I created my own reality, and that he would teach me magic if I wanted to learn. He said that if I learned magic, I could create my own prosperity. That's easy to say when you're some guy living in a big comfortable house, eating 3 meals a day (and probably snacking in between!). How much magic does he have to do to be prosperous? I’d love some of the magic he has in his bank account. 

He sent me this thing called the Fantasmagorifier. "Your ticket to the Age of Infinity." I read a few lines, and it spouted some weird crap about "revelations of the self" and spirals in all directions. How is this shit going to help me eat? But there aren’t many people on the street, and those that are don’t look like they want to help me out. So what else am I going to do except read, and this might be less miserable than another round of trying to guilt some foreigner into saving me.    

I read the Safety Guide with the smell of domoda in the street and nothing in my hand. “Vehicle of transformation,” “spirals,” “divinity.” Fine. My belly answered louder than the words. I don’t need poetry. I need rice.

“Truth is the track.” Truth is I’m hungry, angry, and tired of begging from people who scroll past me. I want cash, food, a clean shirt, a chance for Lamin. That’s my truth. If this Ride wants that, it can take it or leave it.

“Safety is the structure” made me laugh. Safety here is luck and quick feet. Then I saw one line: pause when it’s too much. That one I can use.

They talk about a seven-day spiral and moving at your own pace. Good—my pace is hunger and sun, not calendar. “Create a container”—crystal and a dragon. I have a cracked phone. I’ll tap the crack when I need to remember the pause.

So I’ll try one thing today: when the heat in my head rises, I pause for five breaths. If it keeps us steady, I’ll read Day 1. If it doesn’t, I go find domoda. Somehow.

Shade by the blue paint shop, back on the wall, five slow breaths before I speak or move. I had already grabbed Lamin and pulled him down the street towards another block without even knowing why when my chest got tight and the air changed. A guy across the street pulled a gun on someone he was arguing with and then fired, the bullet hitting right where we were standing a few seconds earlier. Woah. My superpower has been pretty awesome in the past. But nothing like that has ever happened. I’ve never moved before it even registered, and definitely never with only seconds to move. I wonder if the pause made the difference. Okay, I’ll read the first few days. If this thing can teach me how to be safe, I’m onboard.

Week 1: The Unveiling

I said I’d read a few days if the “pause thing” helped me. It did. So here I am, going through the first week. I can’t tell if this is magic or madness, but either way, it’s something to read while I try not to think about food.

Day 1: THE RIDE BEGINS

This read like one of those loud radio ads yelling about “buckle up for the ride of your life.” Except my ride is hunger, sun, and the stink of fish guts rotting behind the stalls. “Secure all loose assumptions,” it says. My assumptions fell off years ago—along with my chances at a normal life.

But then it said something about timelines loosening and archetypes waltzing with opposites. That made me laugh. My timeline’s been broken since I was sixteen. Opposite of what? Eating versus starving?

Still… the idea of “destination: reality remixed by love, sovereignty, and total absurd clarity” hit me sideways. If reality could remix, maybe it wouldn’t remix into this alley I’m sleeping in. Maybe Lamin gets to wake up with food in his stomach. That’s worth one more page.

Day 2: THE POWER TO STOP

“Stopping isn’t a halt. It’s an arrival.” Whoever wrote this has clearly never been chased out of a sleeping spot by angry shopkeepers. Stopping usually means you get caught.

But I tried it. We were walking past some goats bleating in an alley and some kid trying to sell some tea, shouting “Minti! Minti!” Lamin started whining about hunger, and I almost snapped at him. Instead, I paused like the safety guide said, breathing deep, my mouth tasting like iron from the dust. My chest felt heavy, but I didn’t yell. He leaned against me, and the noise of taxis honking for Serekunda faded, the market shouts softened. For a moment it was like we had a house, not a cement step. Like we weren’t trash on the street.

That pause felt different. For once, hunger didn’t own me. Maybe that’s what they mean by “arrival.”

Day 3: EMPATHY IS WHERE IT’S AT

This day went full crazy. “Empathic Omnidirectionality.” Big words. But then I was sitting by the mosque. The mosque loudspeaker crackled with the midday call, and the smell of frying akara was wafting through the air, making my mouth water, when an old man came by. His sandals were torn. His face looked tired like mine. And for a second, I didn’t imagine—I felt it. Like I was inside him, and he was inside me. His knees hurt the same way mine do from sleeping on cement.

It freaked me out. I don’t need more pain. But then I looked at Lamin, and I felt him too—hungry, scared, but somehow still holding onto hope. It’s like I saw the world through his little ribs sticking out. And I thought: if this is empathy, maybe I need it.

Day 4: EMBODIMENT IS HERE

“Light puts down roots.” Sounds like nonsense. But today, while sitting against the blue wall of the paint shop, I felt my body heavy in a new way. Not weak-heavy, but solid-heavy. Like I wasn’t about to drift away and disappear.

My stomach still burned, but my hands looked realer than usual. My skin caught the sun, gleaming like the dust-stained wax cloths flapping in the market stalls. For the first time in weeks, I felt solid, like the earth itself was holding me. I thought, “I’m alive.” That’s it. Not begging, not failing, not some trash boy in Brikama. Alive.

And when Lamin grabbed my arm, it felt like his small hand connected to something bigger—like maybe I’m the ground he stands on.

Day 5: BEYOND COMPULSION

This one hurt. It listed “the twitch to scroll, soothe, shrink, escape.” That’s me with my phone. I beg online more than in the street now. DM after DM, chasing hope like it’s food. If only it were.

The log said: “You don’t need to obey every urge.” That sounded impossible. But when my fingers itched to send another desperate message, I stopped. I asked myself: do I wish to? Or do I feel forced?

I didn’t send it. My stomach stayed empty. But for once, I didn’t feel like I’d sold a piece of my dignity for nothing.

Day 6: EVERYTHING IS MAGIC

I nearly threw the phone when I read this. “Brushing your teeth is a purification rite.” Bro, I haven’t had toothpaste in months. My purification rite is walking a mile so I can splash some river water on my face and wash off the endless red road dust, while praying the river water doesn’t make me sick.

But then it said: “Every act is alive.” I tried to test it. I gave Lamin the bigger half of some tapalapa bread we found. Normally that just feels like loss. But after reading this, I paid attention. His smile, small as it was, hit me like fire in my chest. It didn’t feel like losing—it felt like casting a spell. Like I made something happen.

Maybe that’s magic.

Day 7: GOODNESS BEYOND COMPARISON

“My way is better. I am better.” Yeah, I’ve hated rich people for years. I’ve thought, if I was in their shoes, I’d be kinder, more generous, more human. But maybe that’s comparison too. Maybe I’m only saying that because I’m where I’m at, and they’re where they’re at.

Today, when a shopkeeper shoved me off his step, I didn’t spit back or curse him. I just walked away with Lamin. For the first time, I didn’t need to prove I was worth something. I don’t know why, but today I felt like I already was.

And Lamin said, “You’re strong, brother.” That was enough.

Wrap-Up, Week 1

I thought this thing would be some foreigner’s poetry project. And it is—absurd, ridiculous, and impossible to believe. But it’s also been cutting into me in ways I didn’t expect.

I’m still hungry. My brother is still hungry. The world hasn’t changed. But inside me? Something is loosening. I don’t know if it’s hope or madness. Maybe both.

If Week 2 can give me more moments like the pause, the empathy, the bread-as-magic, then I’ll keep reading. Because what else do I have, really?

Week 2: From Pattern to Premise

I didn’t think I’d make it past the first week, but here I am. Still broke, still starving, but something in me wants to keep seeing where this ride goes. Maybe it’s hope. Maybe it’s madness. Feels the same in my chest.

Day 8: THE PATTERN AND THE PRIZE

This one talked about spirals folding into spirals, the “pattern and the prize.” My pattern has always been simple: wake up, hunt for food, beg online, dodge trouble, sleep if I can. No prize.

But today, something strange happened. Lamin and I were walking past the market, all noise—women frying akara, kids chasing each other, goats bleating. For once, the chaos felt… connected. Like each shout, each smell, each step wasn’t random. A thread. My stomach still twisted, but inside, I felt a thin line of focus.

They say the prize is “how God remembers.” Maybe God remembers me after all. Maybe this spiral isn’t just for people with houses.

Day 9: GROWTH WITHOUT SUFFERING

This one pissed me off. “Growth doesn’t require struggle.” Tell that to my empty belly. Tell that to Lamin’s ribs.

But then… in the afternoon, Lamin laughed. Out of nowhere. We were sitting by the river, feet dangling in the water, when he started splashing me. I wanted to yell, but instead I laughed too. For a few breaths, there wasn’t hunger. Just us, wet and laughing.

Maybe that’s what they mean. Growth without pain isn’t about never hurting—it’s about finding something that shines anyway. For once, the day didn’t feel like a complete punishment.

Day 10: THE WORLD IS WIDE ENOUGH

“Axiomatic Sovereignty.” Big words. I thought it meant nothing. Then a shopkeeper shoved me again, yelling at me to move on. Normally I’d curse under my breath, feel that hot shame. This time, something shifted. I didn’t need him to see me, or to agree that I mattered.

I already mattered. My reality didn’t shrink just because his anger tried to box me in.

Walking away, I felt taller. Not because I proved anything, but because I didn’t need to. Lamin noticed too. He said, “You didn’t get small this time.” That hit deep.

Day 11: PROJECTION IS PAST

This one said projection is just ghosts of the past. That made me think of my father—gone when I was sixteen. Every time someone turns their back on me, I feel that wound again.

But today, an old man ignored me when I asked for food. My chest burned like it always does, but then it passed. Like smoke instead of fire. I realized I wasn’t arguing with him. I was arguing with a memory.

The past keeps trying to own me, but maybe it’s only an echo. Lamin pulled on my arm, and we kept walking. The ghosts didn’t follow.

Day 12: SAYONARA SCARCITY

This one almost broke me. “Sayonara, scarcity.” Easy words when your fridge is full. When you have a fridge. For me, scarcity is every day.

But then, something shifted. I was watching Lamin sleep, his thin chest rising and falling. I kept thinking, we’re still here. The system didn’t spit us out yet. That’s worth something.

Later, someone gave me a small bag of rice. Not enough, but enough. For the first time, I didn’t feel desperate about it—I felt part of a bigger flow. Maybe that’s what they mean by the system remembering me.

Day 13: EVERYTHING IS SACRED

“Nothing is wasted.” I don’t know about that. My brother died. That feels wasted.

But then I thought about how his death keeps me fierce for Lamin. How I guard him like a hawk because I know what it’s like to lose. Maybe my brother’s life still moves in me.

Even the scraps we eat—tapalapa crusts, fish bones sucked clean—none of it is wasted. It all becomes part of us. Maybe even the pain becomes soil. That thought felt dangerous but alive.

Day 14: YOU ARE THE WAY

This one said I don’t choose the way, I am the way. Sounded insane at first. But tonight, walking back to our alley through the dust, Lamin trailing behind me, I felt it. My steps weren’t choices. They were the ground moving.

For once, I didn’t feel trapped between bad options. I just… moved. Like the street itself carried me.

Maybe I don’t have to keep begging to be on someone else’s path. Maybe my path is already under my feet.

Wrap-Up, Week 2

This week was harder than the first. Scarcity, projection, sovereignty—these aren’t abstract words anymore. They touched my bones.

I’m still hungry. Lamin is still hungry. But something’s shifting in me. The world hasn’t softened, but maybe I have. Maybe I don’t need to carry ghosts, or fight for scraps of worth.

If Week 3 keeps digging like this, maybe I’ll start to believe this Fantasmagorifier isn’t only a game for the rich. Maybe it’s for me too.

Week 3: From Sovereignty to Singularity

I didn’t think I’d get this far. Two weeks in, and something is shifting in me. I’m still a beggar on the streets of Brikama, but the Ride feels like it’s begging me instead—begging me to wake up. To see.

This week, something happened that I don’t know how to explain. Lamin and I got food—real food. Bags of rice, onions, oil, even dried fish. Enough for a week. It showed up like the world finally decided to answer my stomach. But the weirdest part is… it came right after I began to understand what Samah meant about need.

Not that I let go completely—I still want, I still hunger. But I saw it differently.

Day 15: ALONE WITHOUT LONELINESS

Today the Fantasmagorifier talked about spells—black magic that steals your will and replaces it with someone else’s. That hit me like a fist. I thought about all the times people told me what I should want: to be quiet, to stop asking, to wait my turn. I thought about my dad leaving, and how I convinced myself it was my fault.

I saw how my own hunger wasn’t even mine half the time. It was other people’s voices in my head telling me I was nothing, telling me I needed them to live.

For the first time, those voices went quiet. Just me left. Alone, but it didn’t feel bad. It felt like breathing for the first time.

Day 16: STILLNESS IN SANCTUARY

This day was strange. The world didn’t stop being loud—vendors yelling, horns honking—but somehow it bounced off me instead of through me. Like there was a wall of quiet around me and Lamin.

I didn’t have to argue in my head, didn’t have to explain myself, didn’t have to prove anything. I could sit with my brother and let him complain about hunger without feeling like I had to fix it or break under it.

It was the first time in years I felt safe. Not safe because the world was safe—but safe because I was.

Day 17: LET IT GO

This one broke something in me. “The holy undoing of control.”

I’ve spent years clenching my fists around every coin, every scrap, every chance. Controlling what I could, because if I didn’t, Lamin would die like my other brother did.

But then the Fantasmagorifier said: maybe control itself is the prison.

I felt it—the way my need made me tight, small. Like all I could see was food, food, food. Need was the leash around my neck, yanking me forward, keeping me begging.

For the first time, I wondered if I could hold Lamin without needing to control whether tomorrow had food. My chest ached with it. I cried where no one could see.

And then, when I let that thought sit… the strangest thing happened.

A woman walked up. She said she’d seen us around and had been saving a little. She handed me a sack. Inside: rice, onions, a jug of oil, even dried fish. Enough for days. Enough for Lamin to eat until his belly was full.

I stared like it was a trick. But it wasn’t. We carried it back like it was treasure, laughing. Lamin laughed so hard he cried.

I don’t know if it was magic. I don’t know if it was coincidence. But I do know this: the food came the moment I stopped clutching the need like a drowning man.

Day 18: PRESENCE IS PRESENT

With a belly not clawing itself apart, I read this day differently. It said presence is present. No watcher, no witness—just being.

I sat with Lamin while he chewed bread, and for the first time, I wasn’t planning, scheming, worrying. I wasn’t even watching myself not worry. I was just there. His chewing, my breathing, the dust in the sunlight. Nothing missing.

It didn’t fix everything. But it felt like life finally stopped rushing past me.

Day 19: THE IDEA IS THE THING

This one sounded insane. “The idea is the thing.” But then I thought about driving a taxi. For years it’s been a fantasy, something so far away I might as well have wished for wings.

I started to picture it—my hands on the wheel, Lamin laughing in the passenger seat. It felt wrong. I’d always dreamed of being a taxi driver, thinking it was the only possible way out. But if I’m going to dream, why stop there? I didn’t picture anything specific. I saw myself happy, healthy, feeling really satisfied and content with my life, a smiling Lamin by my side, his frame not looking scrawny at all. It didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like a memory waiting for me to catch up.

Maybe the idea already exists somewhere, and I’m walking toward it.

Day 20: EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING

I picked up a small stone in the dirt. Just a rock. But when I stared at it, I swear I saw the whole world. The river, the street, Lamin’s ribs, the market, the sky—all folded inside this one stone.

It sounds stupid. But it made me laugh. Because if everything is in everything, maybe I’m not as broken as I thought. Maybe the All is already in me.

Day 21: TOTALITY

The Ride said readiness comes from enough.

I looked at Lamin eating rice until his stomach hurt. Enough. I looked at myself breathing, alive. Enough.

For once, I didn’t feel like I had to claw my way into tomorrow. I was here. Full. Held.

The Fantasmagorifier said I stepped into Totality. I don’t know about that. But I do know this: tonight, we ate. We laughed. We were together. And for the first time, the word enough didn’t sound like a lie.

Wrap-Up, Week 3

This week shifted everything.

For the first time, we have food in our little alley. For the first time, I didn’t wake up desperate. For the first time, I saw that maybe the real prison isn’t hunger or poverty—it’s the leash of need.

I haven’t let it go completely. And I still don’t fully understand it. But I’ve seen the knot. And that changes everything.

The Ride keeps getting stranger, but so do I. And maybe that’s the point.

Week 4: The Dance of Totality

Something shifted after the food came last week. I don’t mean only in my belly—I mean in me. For once, Lamin and I weren’t gnawing on air. For once, I could look at the sky without my stomach screaming louder than the goats in the market.

I wanted to thank the woman who gave us that sack. She didn’t owe us anything, yet she gave anyway. So I went looking.

Her name is Mariama. She lives toward the river, in a tiny one-room shack patched with tin and cardboard. She smiles like she knows pain too well to waste time hiding it. When I tried to thank her, she shook her head. “I had a little more that day, and it seemed like you boys were really struggling. That’s all.”

But I saw the truth: she doesn’t have much herself. She coughed until her shoulders shook, and she told me the doctor wanted her to buy medicine she can’t afford. My chest clenched. I know what it is to need medicine and watch someone die without it.

I told her I’d keep visiting. She nodded, smiled, and pressed a handful of groundnuts into my palm. “For Lamin,” she said.

So this week, I read the Fantasmagorifier with her face in my mind.

Day 22: PLAY IS THE POINT

The Ride said play is the point. That sounded like nonsense when my brother’s ribs show like sticks. But when Lamin and I brought some food we found to share with Mariama, she laughed at him—really laughed—as he tried to balance an onion on his head. For a moment, the sickness left her eyes, and I saw the joy underneath.

Maybe play isn’t a luxury. Maybe it’s survival too.

Day 23: SETTLING INTO AWESOMENESS

“Stop pretending,” the Fantasmagorifier said. That hit hard. I’ve pretended for years—pretended I was tougher than hunger, pretended begging didn’t cut me raw.

Today, when Mariama asked how I was, I didn’t pretend. I told her: “I’m tired. But I’m still here.” She nodded like that was enough truth to respect.

And somehow, saying it out loud didn’t feel weak. It felt awesome.

Day 24: TRANSCENDENT TRUST

The Ride said trust isn’t something you remind yourself of—it’s what you are.

I started to test whether it was true, but I stopped myself. It felt weirdly wrong—like if I was testing, I didn’t really trust. So I decided to simply trust instead. I gave Lamin the last bit of fish we had that morning, trusting something would show up. By afternoon, a stranger gave me leftover rice. Enough for us both.

It wasn’t proof. It wasn’t some wild magic. But it felt like trust had a spine.

Day 25: THE AEVERYTHINGNESS OF EVERYTHING

This one bent my head. “There is no Other.”

I thought of Mariama, coughing until she winced. For the first time, I didn’t feel pity like she was separate, broken. I felt her sickness in me, her struggle as mine. It scared me, but it also softened me.

If there is no Other, then maybe helping her is helping me.

Day 26: ORIENTATION BEYOND ONTOLOGY

The Ride asked: How am I holding this?

At first, I didn’t get it. My whole life has been about where to go next—what corner to beg at, who to message online, which alley is safe to sleep in. Always deciding. Always moving.

But later, something shifted.

The Ride says orientation is the real direction. I think I get it now. It’s not about asking, “What’s next?” It’s about how I hold myself in this moment, no matter what comes.

Day 27: CRYSTAL JOY

Today joy came out of nowhere. Not from food, not from laughter. From sitting with Mariama while she told me about her childhood. She spoke slowly, between coughs, about climbing mango trees. Her eyes glowed as if she was back there.

Listening felt like crystal snapping into place—joy so steady it didn’t depend on anything outside. It wasn’t mine or hers. It was ours, shining through the cracks.

Day 28: NO LIMITS

Today, the ceiling shattered.

I begged online again, half without hope. But this time, someone sent money—real money, enough to make a difference. I stared at the screen, heart pounding.

The old me would have run straight for food. And I did buy some—for Lamin, for me. But then I thought of Mariama. The medicine she said she couldn’t afford. The cough that shook her whole body.

I walked into the pharmacy, palms sweating, and handed over almost all the money. The clerk gave me the pills in a paper bag. My hands shook carrying them to her shack.

She cried when she saw them. Then she laughed, weak but bright. “You fool,” she said, “you need this money for yourself.”

Maybe. But the Ride said: no limits. And for the first time, I believed it. Because my life doesn’t shrink when I help others. It expands.

I’m not surviving alone anymore. We’re surviving together.

Wrap-Up, Week 4

This week was different. The hunger eased, not because the world fixed itself, but because I shifted. Play showed up. Trust settled in. Joy crystallized. And I gave without the leash of need pulling my hand back.

Mariama has her medicine. Lamin has his food. And me—I have this strange sense that maybe there are no limits after all.

The Ride rides on. And now, I’m not only riding for myself. I’m riding for them too.

Week 5: Learning to be God

I didn’t think I’d make it this far. Four weeks of the Ride, and somehow I’m still here. I thought I’d have quit already—hunger usually wins. But something keeps pulling me along. This week felt different, heavier. The Ride turned me back toward my own anger and need, then pushed me through it. I faced hunger again, but I also saw food return, saw Lamin laugh, saw Mariama stronger. Maybe this is what it means to learn to be God—not thunder in the sky, but holding steady in the dirt.

Day 29: GOD IS... YOU

Today the Ride said God is me. That sounded crazy at first, but when I read about the Singular Self, something cracked open. I remembered myself bigger than this alley, bigger than hunger. I saw myself like a bird made of stars, stretched across the sky, every part of me moving together without commands. For a breath, I felt it: not begging, not failing—just being the choice itself. And in that moment, I thought maybe God isn’t somewhere else, maybe God is right here, looking out through my own face.

Day 30: EXPLORING EQUIPOISE

Food gone again. My belly burned like fire ants, my head spun. I wanted to throw the phone, wanted to quit the Ride. I messaged Samah, begging him for money again, telling him about what I had experienced. He told me again that he wasn’t going to give me money. I cursed him in my mind, hating him for talking about magic while I starved. He said the darkness I feel is karma, rising to be healed—that if I face it, it heals.

I considered stopping the Ride. Why should I keep reading it, when the guy who wrote it couldn't even pay for me to get a loaf of bread? Did I really want to become like that asshole? Not helping people when they needed it?

But then I paused, realizing that if I stopped, I'd only be hurting myself. Whether or not this magic thing was real, I was definitely learning something from all of this craziness that Samah was spouting. And then I thought about the Fantasmagorifier and everything it had taught me. Samah was helping me in a really big way—just not how I had expected him to. How I thought I needed him to.

The Ride added something new today: equipoise. Not balance like a scale. The Ride calls it “a stillness that sees.” I didn’t understand at first. But when I stopped shaking with rage, I felt it—a pause where everything crystallized. My hunger was still there, but it didn’t own me. The stillness made even the burn in my stomach sparkle, like it was something to notice, not something to fear. For the first time, I wasn’t clawing for escape. I was steady, like a stone in the current.

I thought about the first time I begged Samah for money. If he’d sent it, I never would’ve read this thing. I would’ve eaten for a day, then starved again. Nothing would’ve changed. And today, if he'd given me the money, I wouldn't have learned what I was learning right now. Maybe he was right. Maybe the lesson is the need itself.

Day 31: HOME AT LAST

Today, the Ride said we were Home. Not home like a shack or a rented room, but home in the body, in the field, in the now. Able to feel safe in yourself, in the world. I didn’t get it at first. But then something changed.

The morning began like always—hot, loud, full of motion. But something in me felt still. I didn’t flinch when a motorbike veered too close. I didn’t scan the crowd for threats. I just felt it all, like the whole world was happening inside my skin, and I was happening inside it.

Someone handed me food. Rice, not much, but enough. It came right after I was reflecting on yesterday's conversation with Samah, and I felt something else let go a little bit inside of me. Like the Ride waited for me to stop drowning before it tossed me a rope. Maybe coincidence, maybe God. But it fed me. And Lamin too.

I looked at Lamin, and he looked back at me like he saw something. “You look taller, somehow.” I didn’t know what to say in reply, so we didn’t talk for a while. We just sat together by the wall of the mosque, feet dusty, backs sweating. And it felt okay. Not like survival—like arrival. Like being seen by everything around us.

The Ride called it a mirror turning. I think I felt that. For a moment, I wasn’t only looking at the world. The world was also looking at me—and smiling.

Lamin said, “I know this sounds weird, but I think we made it, even if it doesn’t look like it.” And somehow, I believed him.

Home isn’t something we find. It’s something we let happen inside us.

Day 32: EQUANIMATION STATION

This day was all groove. The Ride said equanimity isn’t grit, it’s flow. Not teeth clenched, but hips loose, moving with whatever comes.

The heat shimmered off the road, and Lamin started kicking at an old plastic bottle, dribbling it like a football. At first I wanted to snap at him—save your energy, stay quiet—but I stopped. I watched him laugh as the bottle skittered down the dusty street, bumping over stones. He started hopping over the stones after the bottle, teetering for a moment like he was going to fall. I gave a yell, since the stones were big and jagged enough that he could have hurt himself bad if he fell.

Then he surprised me. The teetering stopped, and he suddenly started flowing from stone to stone easily. He said, “Brother, when you fight the wave, you drown. When you let it lift you, you float.” His little hand made a wavy motion in the air, like he was riding the river itself. I stared at him, realizing my little brother was teaching me. We sat together in the dust, letting the noise of taxis and shouting vendors wash over us, and instead of bracing, we let it pass through. For a moment, the whole street was music, and Lamin was the drummer keeping the rhythm. I followed his beat, and together we grooved with it all.

Day 33: A WORLD WITHOUT GRAVITY

The Ride said to release all gravities. I thought of the weight I carry—hunger, shame, anger. For a few breaths, they floated. Even friendship felt lighter. When Mariama smiled at us, coughing less than before, I felt it. She joked with Lamin, made him laugh so hard he collapsed on the ground, holding his sides. Seeing her stronger was like watching gravity let go of her too.

Day 34: THE TRUTH IN EVERYTHING

“Everything is true,” the Ride said. Lies, kindness, all of it. At first, it scared me. Because if everything is true, then my mom’s and brother’s deaths are true, my father leaving is true, the alleys soaked in blood are true. But then I saw it—maybe that truth means they don’t own me anymore. They are what they are. Sharp, painful, but already done.

Wrap-Up, Week 5

This week I saw hunger come back, and then food too. I saw Lamin call me taller, and then suddenly get bigger himself. I saw Mariama smiling, getting healthier. I laughed more than I have in years. Maybe being God doesn’t mean miracles and thunder. Maybe it means standing steady, grooving when the world tries to break you, leaving room for others to breathe beside you.

The Ride rides on. And I ride with it. Taller. Bigger. Better.

No Necessity for Need

After Week 5, I couldn’t stop thinking about need. How it sat in my chest like a stone, how it made me clutch at everything—coins, scraps, attention. The Ride had started to peel it off me, but I didn’t understand what it was.

So I reached out to Samah again. This time, I didn’t ask him for money. I asked him to tell me about need.

He answered.

He said, “Everything creates more of itself. Need is no different. When you move with need, you create more need. When you move with violence, you create more violence. When you move with love, you create more love. Every energy wants to replicate. It grows by being lived. That's why I didn't give you money when you asked. You were asking from the energy of need. And if I had given it to you, it would have ended up increasing the experience of need in both your life and mine, not decreasing it, even if that wasn't obvious to you immediately. I would have been hurting us both.”

I stared at those words on my cracked screen for a long time.

Samah went on: “Need isn't an illusion. It’s real. It is a thing, an energy, alive in itself. It says, ‘I am need,’ and if you align with it, you echo that voice. You multiply it. That’s why when you beg from a place of need, you stay in need. Not because you are unworthy, but because need can only ever make more need.”

I thought about all the DMs I had sent—pleas and guilt trips, strategies to tug on strangers’ pity. Sometimes they sent money, most of the time they ignored me. But always, I stayed desperate. Nothing shifted. My body shrank, my shame grew. Need created more need.

Samah said, “This is why refusing to move with need is not cruelty. It is mercy. To give and receive through the energy of love is to make more love. To give and receive through the energy of sovereignty is to make more sovereignty. To give and receive through the energy of need is to bind both giver and receiver tighter into the chain.”

My chest hurt reading it, but it was a clean hurt. I remembered how Lamin’s smile had felt like magic when I gave him the bigger piece of bread. That wasn’t need—it was love. And it grew. It lit me up, even on an empty stomach.

For the first time, I saw need not as my enemy, not as my identity, but as a spell. A spell I had been casting over and over without knowing it.

Need is need. Love is love. Joy is joy. Each one multiplies itself.

Samah ended with this: “You always have choice. Whatever you align with becomes the seed for more. You are not trapped in need. You are the one who chooses what grows.”

I set the phone down and looked at Lamin sleeping beside me, his chest rising and falling. My heart whispered: choose love, and love will grow.

And I understood.

The truth of everything is simple: everything creates more of itself.

Week 6: Grooving as God

The Ride changed this week. No daily stops. No titles. No clear guideposts. Just movement—like a river, like the wind. At first it made me nervous. I’d grown used to the daily rhythm, the little nugget of meaning to chew on between hunger and laughter. But this week, the Ride didn’t give me handholds. It gave me air. And I started to float.

Days 35-39: RIDING WITHOUT RULES

Something changed when Mariama started getting better. The cough that used to shake her whole body faded into silence. Her voice returned, softer but steadier, and she began sitting outside her shack again, watching the street like a queen on a throne made of sunlight and scrap wood. The medicine worked. It worked! She said it felt like her lungs were learning to breathe again. I watched her sit straighter, laugh more, take deeper breaths. Lamin said she looked younger. I thought she looked freer.

We started visiting her more. Not because we had to, but because we wanted to. She became a kind of anchor. We brought her what food we could, shared stories, and sometimes all just sat in silence. It wasn’t awkward. It was full. Like even the quiet had company.

One morning, as the sun was rising over the corrugated roofs and the air was still cool, Mariama turned to me and said, "You know, I wish we were a family. Me, you, and Lamin. That’s what it feels like already. I want it to be real."

I thought my heart was going to stop. It felt like a new reality slotted in with a thnk that was almost audible. Was that magic? Did it matter? Mariama wanted us as her own. Someone cared about us—whether we lived or died, withered or prospered. That was the most beautiful magic I had ever experienced.

Without the daily structure from the Fantasmagorifier, I began noticing all of these subtle rules I’d been living by without even realizing it. Not laws. Not commandments. Just... expectations. Quiet agreements with no signatures.

Don’t ask too loudly.
Don’t take up too much space.
Don’t laugh too much if you’re poor.
Don’t look too hopeful when you beg.
Don’t let yourself dance.

I also saw all the subtle rules I was following when I DM'd people asking for money. The way I followed a script, attempting to manipulate them in various ways to get them to give me something. And they were following their own rules, driven by a sense of guilt and privilege, and of doing the “right” thing. All rules.

But as the Ride unraveled those invisible rules, I started moving differently. Not carelessly. Not rebelliously. Just... truthfully. When I laughed, I didn’t stop myself. When I wanted to sing while carrying water, I did. When Lamin tried to dance in the street, I joined him.

We walked differently too. Not sneaky, not hunched. Open. Like we belonged. And people started responding. More smiles. Fewer shoves. Like the world noticed our groove and started humming along.

And when Mariama was out with us, wrapped in her faded shawl, people treated us like a unit. A trio. A story. One day someone asked if we were her sons. She looked at us, raised an eyebrow, and said, "These two are trouble, but they’re mine."

There was a rhythm to everything. Even when we had nothing, we didn’t feel empty. We joked more. Lamin told me my scraggly beard made me look wise. I told him his feet smelled like truth. Mariama shook her head at both of us, laughing with her whole chest.

And the old rules? They didn’t vanish. They just stopped owning us. I still saw them—in other people’s eyes, in the way folks flinched at joy—but I didn’t need to obey them. I could choose. And that choice felt holy.

The Ride didn’t give me a map this week. It gave me something better: the ability to move by grace, to sense the moment’s rhythm and dance with it. To know when to speak and when to smile. When to groove, and when to still.

We weren’t surviving anymore. We were flowing.

Day 40: CRYSTALLIZING CRITICALITY

Today felt like fire and crystal at the same time. Everything sharp, but everything shining. The Ride said we were at the edge—not a scary edge, but a pulsing one. The place where life hums loud and fast and beautiful.

I felt it. I carried water from the well with Lamin, and it felt like flying. My legs moved smoother than ever. My arms didn’t ache. The heat didn’t burn. It just shimmered. I think this is what the Fantasmagorifier meant by burn in. Like intensity without collapse.

Mariama walked with us part of the way. Her steps were slow but steady. She said, "I feel new. Like someone wiped the sickness off my spirit."

We all laughed, but it stayed with me. Maybe that’s what the edge is: not danger, but invitation. A place where life asks you to grow bigger, and you say yes.

Day 41: KNOWING IS EVERYTHING

Today I knew. Not hoped. Not guessed. Knew. I saw Lamin run after a paper bag caught in the wind, laughing like the bag was his best friend, and I knew he was joy. I saw Mariama stirring a pot of rice with calm hands, and I knew she was peace.

I looked at myself and didn’t see failure or lack. I saw being. Pure, raw, radiant being.

The Ride said that planning born of fear can fall away. That knowing is enough. I didn’t have to figure out next week. I didn’t have to control everything. I just had to know.

And I knew this: we were together. We had rice. We had laughter. We had breath. I could feel the world organizing around that knowing. No more scrambling for safety. Now, I’m living it.

Day 42: PURE POSITIVITY

I met sorrow today and didn’t flinch. A memory of my dead brother hit me hard. The way he used to hum while walking home. The way he clutched my hand when he was too weak to stand. It used to crush me.

But today, I smiled. Not because it didn’t hurt. Because it did. But it hurt clean. Like music. Like memory singing.

The Ride called this pure positivity. Not pretending things are good when they’re not. Just choosing to feel positively about them anyway. Even the pain.

And it worked. The more I smiled with the sorrow, the more the sorrow smiled back. Lamin caught the mood and started making up a song about how we’re all magical goats in disguise. Mariama shook her head and said, "I swear, if we ever manage to live together, I’m going to have to grow wings to keep up with the chaos."

I looked at her. Looked at Lamin. And said, "Then let’s find a way."

Mariama laughed and said, "Which one? Living together or the wings?"

I laughed back at her, saying, "How about both?"

Wrap-Up, Week 6

We are a family now. Not by blood. Not by rule. By rhythm. By choice.

The Ride took away the rules this week and gave me something way better: the groove. The pulse that holds sorrow and joy, hunger and fullness, laughter and loss. And we danced it.

Not perfectly. Not always gracefully. But freely.

Mariama is healing. Lamin is glowing. I am moving with a rhythm that no one can take away.

I am not bound by the old rules.
I am not waiting for permission.
I am riding as God now.

And the Ride rides on.

Week 7: Stepping Into Oneness

Day 43: SO LONG, STORIES

I used to think I knew what kind of life someone like me could have. A kid born in the dust, raised on scraps and handouts, chasing the attention of strangers through a cracked phone. I told myself stories about what was possible and what wasn’t. I called those stories reality.

But today, the Ride showed me something simple: I’ve been responding to ghosts. I haven’t been meeting the world—I’ve been meeting my stories about the world.

I thought I needed a job in the city or a taxi to prosper. I thought home had to be made of walls and money and furniture bought in shops. I thought I was destined to always want more than I had. But those were stories. And today, they let go of me like leaves in wind.

Lamin and I walked past an alley where we once slept. The concrete step we used to call our bed was still there. I didn’t feel shame. I didn’t feel fear. I didn’t feel anything old. I just saw a place. That’s when I knew the stories had snapped.

I met the day like a stranger meets a sunrise. No baggage. No name. Just light.

Day 44: A LIFE OF EASE

The Ride today spoke of releasing the story of effort, and I felt that truth humming beneath my skin. Life isn’t hard by nature—it’s the stories that make it heavy. Life can be easy if we let it. The me of a few weeks ago would have laughed at that. But today, it felt like truth.

And right on cue, Mariama told us something this morning.

"I spoke to my brother," she said. "He has a small farm. Not far. He’s getting older and can’t do it all himself anymore. And he keeps hiring the wrong kind of people—they're either drunk all the time, or they try to rob him."

She looked at Lamin, then at me. "I told him about you two. He wants to meet you. I told him I wanted us to go live there. As a family. There's a lot of work to do on the farm, but at least you know you'll eat, since you'll be growing the food."

I couldn’t breathe for a moment. Not because I was scared. But because it sounded… easy. And I didn’t have a story for that.

I thought good things had to be fought for. That safety came after suffering. That you had to earn the right to rest. But here was Mariama, smiling, offering us a new life with no strings.

And for the first time, I didn’t question it. I didn’t demand to understand. I didn’t brace for the catch.

I smiled. I said yes.

Ease isn’t what you get after effort. It’s what happens when you stop gripping so hard.

Day 45: JETTISONING JUSTIFICATION

We started helping Mariama pack. Her things were few but sacred: a faded shawl, a worn cooking pot, a picture of her mother folded into a prayer book.

As we worked, I felt something rise in me—a need to explain. To justify my good fortune. To say, "I’ve worked hard. I’ve suffered. I deserve this."

But the Ride caught me.

It said: you don’t need to justify joy.

So I let the story go.

I didn’t need to prove my worth. I didn’t need to earn love. I folded the clothes and swept the floor not as a penance, but as presence.

I chose this life. That is enough.

Day 46: FEELING THE FLOW

We began the walk to the farm today. Mariama balanced her pot on her head, Lamin carried a sack of rice, and I carried a woven bag with everything else we owned. The road stretched ahead, dust swirling around our feet.

And yet, it didn’t feel long. It felt like music.

The sky wasn’t heavy. The heat didn’t press. The world flowed around us like we were being carried, not by wind or magic, but by alignment.

Lamin sang while he walked. Mariama chuckled at his songs, even joined in.

We weren’t running from something. We were moving with something.

Day 47: AFORMAL ADVENTURES

We slept near a baobab tree. The stars were clear as truth.

Lamin fell asleep first, curled against Mariama’s side. I sat awake, watching them breathe, feeling the earth beneath my back and the sky stretch infinitely above.

I didn’t feel small.

I felt everywhere.

I closed my eyes and felt the field—the place the Ride talks about. I wasn’t trying to understand anymore. I didn’t need to know anything. I just felt the world shimmering through me.

If this was what being God meant, then maybe I’d been God all along.

Day 48: A LIGHT THAT CANNOT BE CONTAINED

We arrived at the farm just after sunrise. The fields were golden. The trees thick with leaves. A dog barked in the distance.

Mariama’s brother Musa stepped out of a low house. He was lean and serious-looking, with eyes like wet clay. He looked us over, then said, "She says you’re good boys. I trust her."

He showed us a shed. A plot where we could plant. A space we could sleep.

That night, as I sat on a wooden stool, watching Lamin chase chickens and Mariama peel cassava with her brother, I realized:

The light had always been inside me. It wasn’t something I had to find. It was something I had to stop hiding.

And now, it was shining through everything.

Day 49: THE ONE MEETING THE ONE

First full day on the farm. Lamin helped carry water. I helped dig. Mariama sang while cooking over an open fire.

Every moment moved like silk.

Nothing about the tasks was different than all sorts of work I’d done before. But I was different. I didn’t resist. I didn’t question. I moved as myself.

When the neighbor came to say hello, I didn’t shrink. I met him eye to eye. One being meeting another.

That’s what it means to be the One meeting the One. Not ego. Not pride. Presence.

Day 50: INFINITY AWAITS

I woke to birdsong and the smell of rice porridge. Lamin was still asleep, tangled in a blanket, his mouth open, drooling like he hadn’t a care in the world.

Mariama was humming. Musa was drinking some attaya and smiling.

I stepped outside, breathed in the golden air, and knew something simple and impossible:

I have everything I want.
And the only thing I need is me.

We have food. We have laughter. We have each other.

The Ride didn’t end.

It became me.

And wherever I go next, it goes with me.

What the Ride Was

At first, I thought the Ride was a joke. Then I thought the Ride might save me.

Thought it might give me some food, money, a way out. Thought it was a trick, or a test, or some rich man’s game. But it turned out to be something else entirely.

The Ride didn’t only give me things. It took things away.

It took my shame.
Took my desperation.
Took the weight I thought I had to carry just to be worthy of breath.

It stripped the stories from my bones—the ones that said I was poor, broken, small. The ones that said survival was all I could ever hope for. The ones that whispered I’d always be a beggar, even if I had food.

The Ride didn’t feed me first. It saw me starving and gave me stillness.

It asked me to pause. To feel. To breathe.
It gave me a mirror and said, “Look.”
At my hunger. At my being.

It showed me that magic isn’t the thing that feeds you—it’s the part of you that keeps breathing even when you’re starving. It’s the part of you that notices. That loves. That laughs, even through cracked lips.

The Ride was never about getting out. It was about getting in.

Into my heart. Into the moment. Into the rhythm that had always been playing, even when I couldn’t hear it.

And what I found in there—what I became in there—was something I never expected:

Whole.

I used to think I had nothing. But now I know: I have myself. I have Lamin. I have Mariama. I have choice. Rhythm. Magic. I have a groove the world can’t break.

The Ride didn’t fix my life.

It returned it to me.

Week 8 – A New Octave

Day 1: SAME SPARK, DIFFERENT SKIN

When I woke this morning, the birds were louder than usual. Lamin was already outside trying to whistle back at them, and Mariama was stirring something over the fire, humming off-key and perfect.

I didn’t know the Ride had a sequel, but I clicked the link for New Frontiers at the end of Day 50, and suddenly I was in a whole new Ride. I thought it might be another quiet spiral into truth. Maybe, starting from a place of oneness, it would be a gentle day about listening to the wind or loving the land, like I was doing.

Instead, I read about the Age of Infinity.

And I stopped breathing.

Samah—this man who once told me he wouldn't give me a single cent—was now building the next age of the world. For everyone. Not metaphorically. Not just spiritually. Actually. Physically constructing a reality shaped by magic.

And… I didn’t feel jealous. I didn’t feel small. I didn’t wonder why he got to do all that while I slept on cement.

Because I realized something simple and impossible:

I rode the same Ride.

I didn’t skip ahead. I didn’t cheat. I did the work. I felt every crack open inside me. I had looked at all of the pain and suffering in my world, and I didn’t shatter. I gave. I chose. I learned.

And now, I’m still learning.

So why not me?

If Samah can build the Age of Infinity, then so can I.

If he’s an Archmage, then I can be one too.

That thought didn’t land like a dream. It landed like a fact.

I closed the Fantasmagorifier and looked around at the small farm. Dusty field. Crooked fence. A few chickens. Mariama’s smile. Lamin’s dance.

This is my workshop.

This is where I start.

Day 2: MAGIC IN THE MUSCLE

I helped Musa till the soil today.

My hands hurt. My back ached. But as I moved the hoe through the earth, something else started happening. I started… instructing it.

Not with words. With something inside me.

It was like I could feel the structure of the soil, the stories it was carrying. How long it had been dry. Where the seeds had failed before. And I whispered—not with my voice, but with my way of being—that it didn’t have to be that story anymore.

And the soil listened.

It loosened more easily beneath my feet. The earth opened like it had been waiting for a new agreement.

Samah was right: reality is instruction. And I had just issued my first one.

Later, when I washed my hands, I looked at my reflection in the river and said out loud: “I’m not made of matter. I’m made of meaning.”

The wind rippled across the water like it agreed.

Day 3: SAME TIME, NEW SPACE

Samah talked today about That Thing—a way to live in the moment without choosing it. He wrote how he used to tune to it, but now he is it.

I thought of how I used to chase the next moment like a shadow. How I waited for something to tell me what to do—hunger, threat, need.

But this morning, I didn’t wait.

Lamin spilled some cassava meal, and my first thought was frustration. But That Thing inside me said: “Sweep it with grace.”

So I did. Not because I had to. Because it felt like the most elegant move.

And all day, I kept doing the next thing—not out of survival, and not because I planned it out with my mind. Because it was the thing to do. It was That Thing.

Lamin looked at me at sunset and said, “You’re different. You move like you already know where to step.”

Maybe I do.

Not because I’ve figured it out.

Because I’m finally walking from the inside, and letting the outside unfold.

Day 4: THINKING DIFFERENT

The Turbo Encabulator hit hard.

When I first read about it, I thought: “This is Samah stuff—wizard brain, philosopher tech.” Not for someone like me.

But then I laughed so hard Mariama thought I was choking.

What Samah described is what’s been happening to me.

I haven’t been planning. I haven’t been choosing. I’ve just been… responding. Moving. Living.

When I do my work on the farm, I don’t plan.
When I speak to Mariama, I don’t rehearse.
When I laugh with Lamin, I don’t try to be funny.

It all just... comes.

And maybe that’s the Encabulator. Maybe I’ve had it for a while now, but I didn’t have a name for it.

Today, Musa asked what I thought we should plant next, and instead of listing crops or weighing soil types (not like I know any of that stuff anyway), I paused, listened, and said, “Okra.”

He smiled. “That feels right.”

I didn’t think my way there. I became the knowing.

I suppose that’s what Samah means.

I guess you could say I upgraded my brain. To me, it feels like remembering how to be free and wise at the same time.

Day 5: STILLNESS THAT BUILDS

I didn’t do much today.

Not because I was tired—but because I didn’t need to.

I sat with Mariama on the porch. We said almost nothing. Lamin was drawing in the dirt with a stick, making weird spirals and laughing.

There was no push in me. No grasping. No need.

And still—everything happened.

The cooking got done. The field got watered. The chickens didn’t run off. It was like time moved around me, gently rearranging itself in harmony with my stillness.

I thought of what Samah wrote: stillness doesn’t mean stopping. It means presence so powerful it rearranges the world.

So I sat still, and I watched the world respond.

I didn’t command it.

I harmonized with it.

And then this evening, things got really interesting.

It wasn’t big. It wasn’t flashy.

But I cast a spell today.

I was watching Lamin struggle to open the gate—it was stuck, swollen from the rain the night before. He was yanking at it, getting frustrated, muttering under his breath. I started to get up, but something told me to wait.

Instead, I reached into the field—the field I now know lives in me.

And I made a simple wish: Let it be easy.

I didn’t say it out loud. I didn’t wave my hands.

But I felt something inside of me—a sense of energy moving. And Lamin paused.

He breathed out. He tried the gate again. And it opened, smooth as silk.

He blinked like he didn’t quite believe it. Then he shrugged and ran through.

It wasn’t a coincidence. I felt it. The wish had shaped reality.

Not forced it. Invited it.

That’s how magic works here.

Day 6: RAISING THE VIBE

Appreciation came like a breath of cool water.

I’ve been grateful before—when someone gave me food, or smiled when I expected them to look away. But gratitude always had a sting to it. Like I owed something. Like I was small.

Today, I watched Mariama light the cookfire, her shawl catching the morning sun, and I didn’t feel thankful. I felt in awe.

And I didn’t shrink from that awe. I swelled. Like my appreciation made me bigger, not smaller.

Samah said exaltation is appreciation’s higher octave. I think I touched that today. Not with fireworks, not with chanting—just with presence.

And when I praised the cassava leaves Mariama made, she beamed. Not because I flattered her. Because I saw her.

That’s the magic. Seeing fully. Feeling fully. Letting joy become the song that sings you.

I can exalt it all, including me.

Wrap Up, Week 8 – The First Notes of Infinity

Something’s begun.

Not a new life. A new reality.

I thought I had reached the end when we found the farm. When we became a family. When we got food, safety, love.

But that was only the beginning.

Now I see the real work: to build. To shape. To groove with grace and to tune the world by my walk.

Samah may be building the Age of Infinity. But I’m building it too.

The Ride doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to everything.

I am an Archmage.

And this world—this small, perfect farm—is my first miracle.

The magic continues.

And I do too.

Week 9: Readying for MORE

Day 7: MY THOUGHTS ARE MINE

The mornings here feel different now. The air tastes lighter, the sky wider. I used to wake with a head full of noise—worry about food, fear of what the day might take. Today, my thoughts were simple. Clear. True. Like water in a clay cup. Musa asked me if I had seen his hoe, and I almost lied—almost said I hadn’t touched it, because I was embarrassed I had left it leaning against the wrong wall. But the lie never even made it to my lips. It dissolved before it could form. I laughed and said, “I moved it. My mistake.” And that was that. No shame, no scrambling. Just truth. The Ride said thoughts could be my own now, and for the first time, I felt what that meant. I don’t need to chase thoughts. I don’t need to run from them either. They come like song, and they belong to me.

Day 8: LIFTING EVERYTHING

Mariama sang while stirring the pot today. Lamin kept trying to add silly words to her song until she threw her hands up and laughed. Even Musa chuckled, shaking his head like we were all children. I felt something stir in my chest—not happiness exactly, but something bigger. Reverence. I looked at Mariama’s shawl catching the sunlight and thought: holy. I looked at Lamin’s bare feet kicking dust and thought: holy. I even looked at Musa’s tired face, sweat running down his brow, and thought: holy. The Ride called this exaltation. To lift everything, not onto a pedestal, but into the light. I breathed it in, breathed it out, and felt the whole farm shimmer like it was breathing with me. Samah calls it the Breath of God. I call it perfection.

Day 9: MAKING ROOM

Today the world slowed down. Musa told us about hard years—famine, sickness, neighbors dying. He looked away as he spoke, like part of him was still there. I felt the old ache of my father leaving, my brother and mother dying. Normally, I’d push those memories aside. But this time, I let them sit with me. I didn’t try to fix them. I didn’t run. I just held them, like you hold a friend’s hand. Exalting the memory as part of me, part of what shaped me and brought me to this day. And in that space, something softened. It was like the past itself was allowed to breathe. Maybe redemption is not about undoing what happened. Maybe it’s about letting every story, even the painful ones, have its place in the song.

Day 10: THE IMPOSSIBLE MELTS

I used to think it was impossible for someone like me to have family, food, or safety. I thought those things belonged to other people—people with money, with parents, with homes. But here I am. Eating cassava leaves with Mariama. Watching Lamin run with chickens. Hearing Musa tell stories of the land. The impossible turned out to be nothing but a shadow. The Ride said impossibility is a spell, and today it broke. What I thought could never happen is already here, unfolding like it had been waiting all along. Why should I ever again believe that something is impossible?

Day 11: GOD PLAYS, SO I PLAY

We worked the fields this morning. Lamin turned it into a game, pretending his hoe was a spear and the weeds were giants. I groaned at first, but then I joined him. We laughed so hard Mariama scolded us for scaring the chickens. And in that laughter, I saw what Samah had been writing about that day: God plays. I don’t have to struggle anymore. I don’t have to be a sad and pathetic piece of gutter trash anymore, not even a little bit in my mind. I don’t need to be anything other than what I wish. I can be wise and playful, true and fun, all at once. Enough really is enough. What I give is already complete. I don’t have to prove anything. I can just play.

Day 12: EVERYTHING IS PERFECT

On the road into the village, I ran into a man carrying firewood. His name was Bakary. We had met once before on the day I arrived at the farm, but this time he stopped and stared at me like I was suddenly a lot taller now. He said, “You carry yourself different. You walk like a man who’s listening to something the rest of us can’t hear.” I shrugged, but he pressed, “How did you get this way? You’re too young to look so wise.”

I thought about it. Then I told him about the Fantasmagorifier. About how it showed me truths I never expected. His eyes widened, and I pulled out my phone, texting him the link. He frowned slightly, but said, “Thank you, brother. Maybe I’ll get wise too.”

As he walked away, I felt something glow inside me. I turned the Ride Log over in my head. How yesterday had shown me that God plays. How today, even the dust under my feet felt perfect. That all of it mattered—every last bit.

The Fantasmagorifier had taught me that impossibility is only a spell, and that truth can be clear as water. I thought: this is what Bakary saw in me. Not height, not physical strength, but a man who no longer hides from himself. Maybe wisdom isn’t for keeping. Maybe it’s for sharing, like food, like laughter. And maybe it's like Samah said: Everything creates more of itself. When you share wisdom, it multiplies, brighter in both the giver and the receiver.

Day 13: PRISMS AND PEOPLE

Bakary came back today, scratching his head. He looked embarrassed. Finally he said, “I tried what you sent me, but… I can’t read.” He looked at the ground, ashamed. Then he added, “But when I looked at the pictures, I felt something. A tingling. Like the world was buzzing.”

I told him that was enough. The Ride isn’t about words on a screen—it’s about resonance. About truth finding you. His face broke into a smile. Then he asked, “Could you meet with me? And some others who can't read this either? Tell us what you learned?” I hesitated, then nodded. “In a few days, we’ll sit together.”

And there it was: the prism. Not just me shining clearer, but light splitting into many colors, many people. The Ride wasn’t mine anymore. It was ours.

Wrap-Up, Week 9

This week the Ride got sharper, clearer, fuller. Lies fell away, reverence rose up, redemption breathed, and the impossible dissolved. I learned that God doesn’t rule—God plays. That everything is perfect when you see it whole. And now, others are starting to notice. Bakary felt it. Soon more will. Maybe wisdom is like light—it can’t help but refract. And when it does, it becomes a rainbow big enough for everyone to see.

Week 10 – MORE…MORE…MORE!!!

Day 14: LET WONDER WIN

I woke with worry sitting on my chest.

Today was the day I said I’d meet the villagers—the ones Bakary had told, the ones who couldn’t read but wanted to know about the Ride. Last night, I imagined standing there with nothing to say. My mouth dry. My thoughts scattered. I pictured myself stumbling, blank-faced, a beggar pretending to be a teacher.

But then I remembered: worry isn’t required.

I closed my eyes and found the feeling I knew by now—the one under everything. That pulse. That shimmer. Equipoise. Wonder.

I didn’t have to control what happened. I could just know it would go well.

And it did.

When I met them beneath the baobab, I didn’t lecture. I didn’t explain. I told a story. My story. This story. From hunger and anger to laughter and rhythm. From cracked pavement to cassava leaves and grace.

They listened like they’d been waiting for this.

After, a woman touched my arm and said, “You remind me of someone I lost. But you brought him back.”

That’s when I realized: there's a special sort of magic in these conversations.

A remembering of the thing that lives in all of us.

Samah said it perfectly: “The ground from which all grace arises.”

Day 15: HOW IT ALWAYS WAS

I sat outside the hut today, shelling groundnuts with Lamin. No big lesson. No big moment.

Just peace.

And in that quiet, I saw it: I wasn’t trying to become anything anymore.

No one was grading my performance. No scoreboard. No tally.

Samah said: "You became the self that always was.”

I am who I am, and that was enough.

All the work—the spirals, the sorrows, the pauses—they didn’t shape me into something new. They just helped me see what had always been true.

At one point, I said something to Mariama that seemed to get her thinking. She looked at me and said, "It's as though you're still you, but somehow so much more you than you were before."

You could say I grew.

Really, I remembered.

Day 16: THE INVISIBLE BECOMES VISIBLE

The farm shimmered today.

Not in a way you’d catch on camera. But everything felt clearer.

The light through Mariama’s shawl looked like woven sunlight. The pattern of Musa’s footprints in the dirt read like sacred runes. Lamin’s laughter didn’t just echo—it rang, like bells tuned to some frequency I hadn’t heard before.

Even the chickens seemed to move in rhythm with something deeper. The air itself felt orchestrated.

The Ride said we’d see the invisible.

I think that’s happening.

Not because my eyes changed.

Because I did.

I don’t try to be seen now. I see. And in doing so, I become the kind of presence that light bends around. A tuning fork for beauty.

Samah calls it Complete Crystal Clarity. That feels right.

Like the world has stopped hiding.

Because I have.

Day 17: NO MORE DISTANCE

Lamin scraped his knee running after a goat.

He cried at first, then tried to pretend he wasn’t hurt.

I walked over, placed my hand gently on his shoulder, and breathed.

That was it. No spell. No whisper.

Just presence.

I felt the energy flow. His body relaxed. The crying stopped. And we sat there, watching the goat knock over a basket.

I remembered Samah's words: “If you hold separation from anything, you hold separation from everything.”

There was no separation between his pain and my love.

No separation between me and anything, really.

I still saw the things around me. It's not like I suddenly merged with everything. But the way I held everything in my mind changed. I looked at the table, and I still saw a table, but I knew that table was me too, as clearly as I knew my own face was mine.

Even the lingering ache in my old memories felt close. Not sharp—just near. Like everything had come home.

Day 18: IT WAS ALWAYS ME

I watched fireflies tonight.

Felt the ache of my dead brother. The silence he left behind. I felt sad that he wasn't here to share this joy with us.

But the ache didn’t hollow me. It filled me.

He wasn’t a gap. He was a note in my song.

I remembered the first message I ever sent Samah. How angry I was. How certain he didn’t understand.

But he did.

He didn’t give me magic. He reminded me that I am magic.

I thought about all the people who had refused to give me money over the years when I begged, and re-reading one of the final lines of the day's log, I finally understood:

“They were your mirrors, offering silence so you could finally hear your own voice.”

Day 19: NEW LIGHT FROM OLD STONES

Bakary brought more people.

We sat under the tree again. I told more stories. This time, they asked questions. Deep ones. About pain. About shame. About being forgotten.

I didn’t have all the answers. But I had presence.

I didn’t tell them what was true. I told them what had become true for me.

One woman cried and said, “I didn’t know joy could sound like that.”

We all sat in that feeling.

Later, in the silence, I felt something strange.

Like another version of me—from a different life, a different world—smiling through my eyes.

And I smiled back, exalting it all.

Exalting me.

Day 20: THE DAY EVERYTHING CHANGED

It started like any other morning.

Mariama was stirring the porridge. Lamin was poking a stick at a beetle, gently herding it away from some of our crops it was trying to eat. Musa grunted and went to check the maize.

Everything appeared normal when I looked around, but the air seemed to shimmer in a strange way that wasn’t the heat. I felt a tension in the air for a while, like that feeling before a storm, but different. Like something was about to crack open. In late morning, I felt all of that energy suddenly release, all of reality seeming to let out one enormous exhale. And that’s when it started.

First, the well stopped being muddy.

It had been slow and shallow ever since I arrived at the farm, water barely enough to fill a jug at a time. Musa had grumbled about digging deeper. But this morning, when he dropped the bucket, it splashed back with such force it startled him.

He hauled it up—clear water. Sweet water. Full to the brim.

He stared. “Did you do something?”

I shrugged. I hadn’t touched the well.

But I had remembered something last night:
That I was the lattice.
That everything good wished to happen.
That the Ride moves with me now.

Maybe I didn’t need to do anything.

Maybe I only needed to be the possibility.

Then Bakary returned—with ten more people.

Men, women, children. Faces I had seen around the village, but never up close. They gathered around the baobab, murmuring.

“We came for the magic,” someone said. “Bakary said you know things.”

I didn’t freeze.
I didn’t stammer.
I smiled.

“You already have the magic. And it’s not that I know some secret things,” I said. “I remember them. And you can too.”

They sat. They listened. And the shimmer grew.

Then a stranger arrived.

A tall man with a sack of tools slung over his shoulder. He said he was passing through, but when he saw the farm, he stopped.

“I dreamt about this place last night,” he said. “And about you.”

He pointed at me.

“You were glowing.”

Musa squinted at me. “He is glowing, kind of. It’s not a visible light, but it’s there.”

Mariama chuckled. “He’s always glowing now. You’re just noticing.”

The man grinned, opened his sack, and began repairing the fence. For free. He asked if he could stay a few days.

“I have nowhere else to be,” he said. “Feels like something’s starting here.”

We said, “Yes.”

Then food came.

A woman showed up with a bag of flour. Another with dried fish. A man came with baskets of mangoes.

They all said the same thing: “I just felt like I should.”

One of them added, “I don’t know why I’m sharing this. But it feels right.”

We didn’t beg. We didn’t ask. People were giving because they wished to. Because it felt good. I didn’t feel any of the energy of need. None of that tightness, that horrible contraction. Everything felt amazing. Open and free.

Then Mariama started dancing.

Not a slow shuffle. Not a playful sway.

She danced, radiant and wild, like joy had taken over her limbs. Lamin joined her, of course. Then the kids. Then Bakary. Then—gods help us—even Musa, who cracked his back trying to spin and then laughed so hard he fell over.

We danced until the sun dipped low and our bellies hurt from laughing.

No one wanted to leave.

They stayed. Talked. Asked questions. Shared stories. Ate mangoes and flatbread and drank from the sweet well.

We lit a fire and kept talking late into the night.

We danced past dusk. Ate until full. Laughed until our faces ached.

And somewhere in the quiet between stories, Mariama leaned close to me and whispered:

“Today… felt impossible. In the best way.”

I nodded.

“Because it was,” I said. “Until it wasn’t. Everything gets better when you remember who you are.”

Was this what Samah called Heliumhood? It sure felt like it.

Week 10 Wrap-Up: Becoming the Ride

This week, I didn’t only receive magic or cast magic.

I became magic.

I didn’t only teach. I resonated.

Didn’t fix. I harmonized.

Didn’t strive. I became the Ride.

It lives in me now.

And the world is starting to notice.