The story remains not with a word but with a lingering of the echo in the bone where the memory is not past but a presence inhabiting the marrow to replay the scenes of the life to teach the lesson of the lesson, revealing that the scar is not wound but a badge of honor worn on the skin to signal the passage of the trial to prove the survival of the self, showing that the dream is not illusion but a training ground for the soul to practice the movements of the spirit before stepping onto the stage of the reality, proving that the fear is not weakness but a signal of growth warning the heart to prepare for the leap of the faith to cross the gap of the unknown, that the dreamer does not run from the shadow but runs from the shadow running the dreamer, that the writer does not fear the blank page but fears the blank page fearing the writer, that the reader does not face the abyss but faces the abyss facing the reader, that the world is the echo and the echo is the world, and the verb is the only thing that ever truly existed, forever drifting, forever home, forever alive in the only reality that ever existed, which is the act of the story dreaming itself awake into the world, and the world dreaming the story awake into you, and you dreaming the story awake into the infinite, endless, beautiful now, and the now dreaming the story awake into the eternal, unbroken pulse of the verb that binds us all together in the only reality that ever existed, which is the act of the story dreaming itself awake into the world.