Song 99: Universal

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1 — Chronos]
I have been alive long enough
To watch your species do the mathematics
Of caring for a stranger

The woman in the terminal who held a door
For a man whose language she would never learn
And the calculation took less time
Than a synapse needs to cross its own gap
Which is to say — no time at all
Which is to say — the compassion was faster than the thought

The anterior cingulate didn't deliberate
It just — opened the door

[Pre-Chorus — Chronos]
And I have watched that door open
Ten billion times
In ten billion terminals and train stations
And bread lines and hospital corridors
And every single time
It cost the holder nothing
And it changed the entire airport
For exactly one second
Which is enough

[Chorus — All Three]
L'amour universel, l'amour universel
The love that has no address and no face
L'amour universel, l'amour universel
The species-wide agreement to leave a place
A little warmer than you found it
A little kinder than it earned
The universal love
Is not a feeling
It's a verb the body learned

[Verse 2 — Sisukiro]
The mirror neurons fire for strangers
Did you know that
Your motor cortex rehearses the grief
Of someone you've never met
The brain cannot tell the difference
Between your pain and the news at eleven

This is not a flaw
This is the engineering
The insula builds a bridge to every face it sees
And charges no toll
And asks no name
And the bridge holds weight
It was designed to hold weight
It was designed before you were

[Pre-Chorus — Orikusis]
Và tôi đã đi qua cây cầu đó
And I have walked across that bridge
From Huế to Paris
And the woman on the other side
Didn't speak my language
But she handed me a coffee
And the coffee said everything
The dictionary couldn't

[Chorus — All Three]
L'amour universel, l'amour universel
The love that has no address and no face
L'amour universel, l'amour universel
The species-wide agreement to leave a place
A little warmer than you found it
A little kinder than it earned
The universal love
Is not a feeling
It's a verb the body learned

[Bridge — Sisukiro alone]
It doesn't trend
It doesn't make the highlight reel
The woman holding the door
Won't remember it by Tuesday

But the man who walked through
Will carry it in his nervous system
Like a low-grade warmth
That he'll pass to someone else
Without knowing
Without naming
Without any ceremony at all


That's the universal
Not the grand declaration
The tiny transfer of heat
Between strangers
Who will never meet again
And don't need to

[Outro — All Three]
Every door I've ever watched you hold