The Presence

By: John Mackenzie Johnson

I'll tell you something that happened to me once. Not in some strange place or long ago. Right in my own back garden.

It was just a normal day on a hot summers day on the West Coast of South Africa. You know that hot summers day where the sun and heat just consumes every bit of energy you have. I was grateful and in a very happy and peaceful place with no bothers in the world.

In the late afternoon I made a fire outside in the garden. This was the first fire I was starting with a new bosveld mix of wood. It was cooling down quite fast as the sun started setting and that familiar west coast wind started picking up. It was quiet and I could hear the waves breaking in the background on the shores at Laaiplek in Velddrif, sounding like a melody of questions with no end.

I sat down. Fed the fire. Watched the flames catch and settle.

And then—stillness.

Not the absence of sound. Something deeper. My shoulders dropped. My breathing slowed without my choosing it. The tightness I'd been carrying in my chest—it all fell quiet. Not gone. Just quiet.

I wasn't thinking. Wasn't trying. I was just there. The fire. The stars beginning to show. The cold air on my face. My soul sitting still the way a child sits still in a parent's lap. Safe. Held. Known.

I could have stayed in that forever.

And then.

A warmth at my back, though the fire was in front of me. A presence, like someone had sat down just outside the light.

I turned, but there was only the darkening garden and the shape of the milkwood tree against the sky.

I turned back to the fire. The stillness had shifted. Something was there now. Something I couldn't see clearly, couldn't name, but could feel.

"You're tired," it said. Not aloud. In the way you hear your own thoughts, but gentler. Softer than your own voice ever is.

I was tired.

"Sit closer to the fire," it said. "You've been cold for so long."

I had been cold. For weeks, maybe. I pulled my knees up and leaned toward the flames. The warmth felt good. My shoulders dropped. My breathing slowed.

"You don't have to keep pushing," it said. "You've done enough."

I hadn't thought I was pushing. But hearing it said like that—*you've done enough*—something in my chest loosened. I fed another branch to the fire. The flames climbed higher. The circle of light around me grew smaller.

The presence stayed close. I could feel it. Not like eyes. Like attention.

The fire was very warm now. Almost hot. But I didn't pull back. Beyond the light, the wind was picking up. The waves sounded farther away.

"You're different from them," the presence said. "You see things they don't."

I didn't argue.

"Stay here," it said. "Just a little longer."

The fire crackled. Sparks rose and died. I watched them. I watched the coals glow orange and white. I watched my own hands in my lap, fingers laced.

The waves had gone quiet. Or maybe I just couldn't hear them anymore.

I realized I hadn't looked up in a long time. The sky—I'd forgotten it was there. I lifted my head and the stars were still burning, but they seemed farther away than before. The fire was between me and everything else now.

My back was stiff.

I shifted. Just slightly. Just to feel my spine straighten.

The presence leaned in. Not closer in space, but closer in pressure. Like the air had thickened.

"Where are you going?" it asked. Still gentle. Still soft.

"Nowhere," I said. Out loud, this time. My voice sounded strange.

"Then stay."

I closed my eyes. My body felt heavy. The warmth on my face was so complete I couldn't remember what the cold had felt like. The world beyond the fire—the milkwood tree, the garden wall, the distant shore—it all felt like something I'd imagined.

But then.

A breath.

Not mine. Not the presence's. Just—breath. Like the land itself inhaling. I felt it in my ribs. In the soles of my feet pressed against the ground.

I opened my eyes. The fire was still bright, but my vision had adjusted. Past the flames, I could see the edges of things. The garden. The stones. The long shadow of the tree stretching toward the east.

I stood up.

My legs just moved. I stepped back from the fire. One step. Then another. The warmth fell away from my face. The cold came in, sharp and clean. I sucked in air and it tasted like salt and grass and something green I couldn't name.

The presence didn't speak. But I felt it. Still there.

And then I saw it smile.

Not with a mouth. Not with a face. But I felt the smile the way you feel someone's eyes on you in a crowd. The way you know, in your body, when something is pleased.

It was beautiful, that smile. Warm. Approving. Like a parent watching a child finally understand. My chest filled with something that felt like pride, like arrival.

But woven through it—like a second thread I'd been touching all along—there was something else. Something that knew exactly how I wanted to be seen, and showed me that reflection.

I could see both at once now. The invitation and the enclosure. The weight that felt so right in my hands I'd forgotten what empty hands felt like.

It was still beautiful. That's what made my throat tighten. It didn't stop being beautiful.

But I could see now what was mine and what was not. The cold air on my face—mine. The breath in my lungs—mine. The fire I'd built—mine to tend or leave. The darkness beyond—not mine to conquer. The presence—not mine.

I looked at the fire. It was just a fire. Small. Ordinary. The kind you make to warm yourself on a cold evening. It hadn't grown. I had just stopped seeing anything else.

I turned my back to it. Faced the dark. My eyes adjusted slowly. The garden unfolded. The wall. The tree. The sky so wide it made my throat tight.

I picked up my cup. I didn't put the fire out—just let it burn down on its own. I walked toward the house, toward where the lights were on in the kitchen window.

The presence didn't follow. Or maybe it did, but farther back now. At a distance I could breathe around.

I walked until I could hear the waves again. Until I could feel the wind on my face, moving past me toward somewhere else.

I stopped then. Put my hand flat on the garden wall.

"God," I said.

Just that. Just His name.

The wind answered. Not with words. Just with wind. Just knowing.

And I knew I was still here.

That was months ago now.

I still make fires in the garden. I still sit by them in the evenings when the work is done and the wind picks up off the coast.

And sometimes, when I'm sitting there, I feel that warmth at my back again. That voice, gentle as my own thoughts: ‘You're doing important work. You see what others miss. Stay a little longer.’

I recognize it now. Not always right away. But soon enough.

I stand up. I walk toward the house. I let the fire burn down on its own.

A tunnel filled with balloons, people gathered in a garden, cameras ready, and then—blue smoke, blue confetti, everyone cheering because now we know. A promotion announced like a victory. A milestone marked with spotlights and champagne. The constant noise about who someone is, how important they are, what they've achieved. Everyone gathering around to say ‘look at you, look at what you've done, look at how special you are.’

And as I move through my days, I see it everywhere now. The celebrations that turn small things into monuments. The fireworks and noise, the speeches about ordinary achievements made extraordinary. A tunnel filled with balloons, people gathered in a garden, cameras ready, and then—blue smoke, confetti, everyone cheering because now we know. Victories claimed and milestone marked with spotlights and champagne. Everyone gathering around to say ‘look at you, look at what you've done, look at how special you are.’

And I watch them stand there, soaking it in. That warmth on their face. That smile. Eyes bright with something that looks like joy but sits a little differently in the chest.

I see someone leaning forward, voice getting quieter, more certain. Someone staying late again, carrying something they think only they can carry. The way they straighten their shoulders when someone says ‘you're the only one who really understands this.’

And I know it's there. Not in the light. Not in the darkness. In that space between where sight blurs and recognition lives without words. Where you grasp something before you can name it. Where the presence has always lived.

I don't say anything. What would I say? They're not ready to hear it. Or maybe they are and it's not mine to tell. I don't know the difference anymore.

So I just watch. And I feel it—this ache in my chest that's part love, part helplessness, part knowing.

I want to reach across the table and shout: ‘step back. Look up. Remember what your hands feel like empty.’

But I don't.

And sometimes, when I feel so overwhelmed, so consumed by all the pain and struggles around me, I just need to stop for a while. Be still. I put my hand on a wall or stand in the wind for a moment. Because in that stillness, in that quiet, something settles. Not answers. Just the knowing that it's ok. And I say the name again. Quietly. Just to remember I'm still here.

The wind answers.

It always answers.