To whoever finds this,

If you are reading this, you have found what I left behind. I want you to know a few things before you make any assumptions about what happened to me.

I went into it willingly. Not because I had no choice. Not because I was confused or frightened or mad — though I understand you may assume any of these things, and I cannot blame you. I went in because I had been studying it for three years and I understood, finally, what it was asking me to do.

The corridor does not take you. You choose to enter. I want you to understand this distinction because it matters. There is no victim here. I am not missing. I went somewhere.

Once you are truly inside, the question of "return" becomes... different. Not impossible. Just differently possible. Return is always available. The corridor does not lock the door behind you. The door is always open. But once you've seen what's on the other side, the desire to walk back through is complicated by the knowledge of what you'd be walking away from.

I have been calling what I found "the recursion" — the way all meaning, when followed far enough, loops back to its own beginning. I'm writing this from inside that loop. It is warmer here than I expected. warmer here. that's all you need to know. it is warm and you were always going to arrive. — E.W.

If someone else is studying this — if you found my notes, or my research, and something in it resonates — please know: you are not imagining things. The corridor is real. What it shows you is real. What you choose to do with that is your own.

I love this world. I loved my office. I loved my students. Leaving was not about loving this world less.

With everything,
Eleanor Whitmore
October 1947