Looking Through Time

A Little Background

    I thought a reader’s response to this story would be befitting instead of my lead in. Plus, I’ll end up doing a longer blog about this. 

    Wow! I’m still processing this because I didn’t expect it to be so powerful, so evocative. This took me to a different place than I was expecting….grief. It had so many of the qualities of grief-dreams that I’ve had (even recently):  chasing the elusive, shadows, light, unsatisfying brevity of interactions, gut-wrenching crying (until you can almost taste blood), anger, humor, awareness of the inevitable outcome (still gone).

    It’s so brave to write from this space, Buddy. That place is deep and scary to explore and it takes remarkable talent and bravery to choose to explore that space. This is really well done and I thank you for sharing it with me.     

    I need chocolate now to get over this lump in my throat.

Looking Through Time

Part I

    I’m not proud of how I woke up, but I was happy I woke. I opened my eyes, looked past the frozen mess just beyond my nose, and at the beautiful, light-blue walls. I blinked a few times to clear the blur from earlier. 

    “Wow,” I whispered. 

    The ringing in my ears was gone and I welcomed the return of my magic. I followed the echo of my whisper as it carried on for nearly a minute through the long tunnel I could see and the branches of tunnels I couldn’t. 

    Carefully, I avoided the mess I made and got to my feet. 

    “Wow,” I repeated. 

    The ice walls were so incredibly smooth. I hadn’t even seen bodies of water this smooth on the calmest of days. Yet the ice was also bumpy. I ran my fingers along the wall and I could barely feel anything except the cold. It was just that smooth. 

    I looked behind me and a twenty foot wide and ten foot tall ice wall loomed over me. It wasn’t the same light blue as the rest of the ice. Instead its midnight blue stared down as a frightening reminder of what it held back. It looked almost as thin as my tunic yet I couldn’t see or hear anything beyond. 

    A chill born from magic rose up from my legs to the back of my neck. The hairs stood as if I was readying for a fight. I spun around, almost falling down from the smooth ice under my feet, and stared down the single tunnel. Almost at the end of the tunnel, along the right wall, a faint beam of light flickered. I took another step and the flickering stopped. 

    Another wave of chills rose and fell over my body. 

    I took another step and the beam of light disappeared. The spot on the icy wall where it landed was now rapidly darkening. It reminded me of how mud spreads in water after a clump of dirt falls in. Soon the spot became a figure and, despite being stuck behind the ice, the figure moved along the tunnel. It ran away from me towards the end of the tunnel. 

    Intrigue moved my feet forward as there was something oddly familiar about the figure that seemed to be only made of shadows. Then the figure leapt out of the ice, across the tunnel and entered into the other ice wall. There wasn’t an aura or a lock of hair or a mischievous smile, but I knew it had to be her. Somehow, some way, it was her. I had no ill will, no anger, no sadness. I craved her attention. 

    Abruptly the figure darted down the tunnel to the left. 

    I gave chase. 

—

    Sometimes I slipped and knew that a broken finger or swollen joint was imminent. Yet whenever I was about to hit the ice, my ice aura met it like kin and no pain came. 

    The figure led me down different tunnels, always playfully evading me before I could get a look at the face. Each tunnel was different, too. Some were wet as if I’d entered a warm winter and I could fall into the surrounding ocean by stepping too hard. I never did, but I did watch my step. The ice in these tunnels was clear like warm waters off the southeast shores of my homeland. In fact, the ice was so clear it seemed like the ice stretched out for miles. Then I’d dash around another corner to catch up to the figure and my feet would crunch on frozen snow. The walls looked like they’d frozen an old giant’s fluffy white beard. This tunnel wasn’t forgiving like the other tunnels as the fluffy ice was sharper than a blade and harder than rock. If hope hadn’t been pushing my body, the jabs of the ice slicing through my tunic and skin would have slowed me down. 

    Some tunnels greeted me with the finality of entering the mouth of a predator. Larger than me, the jagged ice shards filled the tunnels like rows of deadly teeth. They were dark in the middle and bright at the top and bottom. The coloring made it appear as if they were growing towards each other.

    An eerie silence blanketed the tunnels. I could see and feel the dripping water from the ceilings yet no sound came from any of it. When I swatted away the ice from stumbling, it hit the floor without a peep. The only time sound carried anywhere was when I grunted in pain or gasped a “Wait!” at the running figure. Although I couldn’t follow the sounds around any corners for very long. They faded a few seconds after the figure rounded into the next tunnel.

    The figure would occasionally jump across from out of the wall to a couple ice pillars then into the other wall. A brief thought flitted by that maybe she couldn’t stay out of the ice for too long. Just as quick as that thought came, it left as she disappeared around another icy corner.

    I didn’t try to piece together any reason behind the different seasons of this place. Hope filled me, drove me to push through the exhausting burn in my legs and chest. I’d run through tunnels for a century just to see her up close again.

—

    The piercing pain of breathing from racing without any rest lessened as I slowed to a jog to round the corner. Like the dozen tunnels before, I recognized the darkness of the narrowing exit. Each tunnel’s terrain may have been different from the last, but the end and beginning of each tunnel were identical.

    Just ten feet ahead of me, the figure running within the ice walls also slowed. The figure’s muddy colors shifted to a light brown as the tunnel shifted from white ice to dark purple ice. It was at these moments when the figure would leap out of the ice wall toward the opposing one. Midair, she’d glance back ever so briefly. I’d see a flicker of emerald through the shroud of shadowy hair. 

    “Annie!” I shouted. 

    Every other time, the figure would look away, land on the other side of the wall and dart around the corner. This time the figure landed just shy of the other wall. The ice underneath cracked slightly under the weight. Briefly, I could see through the figure to the ice wall beyond then the figure would solidify.

    Was she really here? I asked myself. She had to be because I could see her in front of me. Or was this another dream spawning from my fleeing of the truth? 

    The figure extended her arms in front of her, intentionally rotating her hands as if surprised to see them. 

    “Annie?” I said softer. 

    My words echoed down the narrowing tunnel and made the figure turn into mist like my words were wind blowing across sand. The lightest giggle bounced down the tunnel as the figure became solid again then leapt into the ice, darting out of sight. 

    “Annie!” I shouted again and pursued. I was aware that the corner would be slippery and the ceiling shorter than normal and the walls like jagged teeth, but I cared even less than before for my health.

    This corner was more slippery than the others. I pushed magic into my feet, trying to make them heavy as stone. It helped immensely until the ceiling dropped to half of my height. Instincts took over and my magic pushed the rest of my body into the ground. The ice aura that had protected me through the entire chase continued its charge and took the impact of Tree Maker magic pounding into the ice floor. What no magic could protect or predict was how the force shot me spinning uncontrollably around the corner. 

    I put my hands down to slow the spin, but it didn’t work. I tried pulling the magic back within, but it poured out of me with the power of the ocean current that brought me here. A power that I had no chance of stopping. So I shifted to my sight, but that didn’t last long either. The room was a glacial rainbow of dark purple to bright blue to blinding white that left me dizzy. All that remained was the gift I’d honed the best and the one that I’d turned away from: my hearing.

    Instantly, I heard a group of broken whispers. I couldn’t stitch the sounds together as they were scattered like someone gasping for air before being pulled back under water. But I did hear it and I hadn’t heard barely anything for the last hour of racing through the tunnels. That had to mean something. 

    The whispers echoed around like the long hiss of a Ceguur and for a moment I thought maybe I’d come across one hiding in this place. Then I listened harder, pushing away all other senses, and found my way through the fog of noises to put it together. 

    Cassius.

Part II

I finally slowed to a gentle stop somewhere outside the tunnels. I was able to see the different parts of the cave. Little details pushed their way through the blur. At first only colors painted the scene, colors of the different tunnels I raced through. Then the edges of shapes jutted out from the colors. But I only had eyes for the figure directly in front of me. 

    No matter what scene was passing through my eyes, the figure remained in the center. Sometimes I could see the edges of the hood and the cloak. Other times those were a blur and only the hands were visible. The face, however, always remained hidden.    

    “Gods…how?” I whispered in reverence as I took it all in. I strained my neck to the left and then to the right, there was no end in sight either way. Then I craned my neck up until the pinching pain forced me to look forward. I was a speck off the smallest pebble in front of a frozen waterfall more vast than the sky. 

    Stretching into a dark purple oblivion to my left and an endless sky-blue horizon to my right, the frozen waterfall reminded me of winter days and nights. Directly in front of me, however, the waterfall was not frozen. Yet no sounds of water rushed over me as I watched the water spill over an edge down into a hole I couldn’t see. Spreading from the center, the water gradually froze as it moved outward. The farther it spread the more it darkened or lightened, depending on the direction.

    “Time,” a disembodied voice announced. 

    The rushing water in front of me parted to reveal a younger, healthier me. Like me, he sat staring straight ahead, legs crossed and arms comfortably at his side. Unlike me, his ice aura was the exact sky-blue of the waterfall to my right. 

    When I stood, he stood. When I stepped forward, however, he remained still. I continued walking toward him, but he never appeared any closer. 

    “Time,” he repeated. “The only way it would make sense to me. To us.”

    A light giggle filled the air and I looked up to my left to see the figure I chased through the tunnels running along a ledge behind the running water and behind the ice. The fading echo of her giggle dispersed the falling water in all directions. The droplets gradually froze into sharp shards as they spread along both sides of the waterfall. I expected the crashing of the shards all around me, but they hung in the air. 

    Another giggle pulled me away from the time magic. I scanned the waterfall for the source. I ran left and dodged the near-black droplets then turned around to dash down the light side of the waterfall. The frozen shards were a mesmerizing blue like someone had chipped them away from a midday summer sky. Yet they couldn’t distract me from finding her. 

    “Brim, she’s here,” the younger me said. He sounded defeated and disappointed, but I didn’t care. 

    I raced back to the center of the vast waterfall. He stood there like before. He seemed to be a mere ten feet away, but each step I took still didn’t close the distance between us. In fact, no part of the waterfall seemed any closer when I advanced. It was like nothing moved except me. 

    Other than the faint shimmers of the dark purple and sky blue frozen shards around me, the ice wall between us was completely clear. Young Brim now had his hood on, hiding all by the faint outline of his jaw. The vibrant aura had faded to a pathetic and dying blue. 

    My calf tattoo flared in warning, but I ignored it. “Where is she?” I demanded.

    His sigh pushed past the ice between us and pierced my ears worse than what I imagined the ice shards hanging in the air would. “I warned you.”

    He stepped aside a few feet until he was behind the half-frozen water falling from unseen heights. 

    My heart leapt as emerald colors filled my vision. Then she appeared. At first, she was tiny, obscured by distance. Before I could smile, however, she was right at the edge of the ice wall. She removed her hood and the one I loved more than anything in the world smiled back at me. That lock of hair moving carelessly back and forth on her forehead. The emerald eyes purged all my pain and anguish. I admired her nose, her lips, her chin, even her ears. She was my everything. 

    Tears filled my eyes as a lump rose in my throat. With a cracked voice, I finally said, “I miss you.”

    A smile filled her face as her eyes consumed me. She started talking, but her words never made it through the ice. She looked over to Young Brim then back at me. 

    “I warned you,” he repeated from behind the falling water and ice. 

    Typical Annie, she switched from curious to furious instantly. She pounded against the ice with her fists. She threw green balls of fire and lightning at the ice. She made her aura completely emerald, blocking out her body, and moved it toward the ice. Yet no matter what she did, nothing happened. Eventually, she dropped her aura, revealing the reddened cheeks and furious eyes. 

    My heart picked up pace. “Tell me what’s happening,” I demanded. “I want to talk to her. I want to touch her.” I gulped. “Just one more time.” 

    Without warning, Annie started shrinking like she was being dragged away from me. 

    “No! Stay! Please!” I bellowed and more water dispersed into the air only to freeze like before. Some shards collided with others, the collision echoing painfully. 

    The farther she was from me, the more the pain returned. Just before she was pulled completely out of sight, she blew me a kiss as she did before the shattered boulders hastened the plummeting death months earlier.

    A sheet of ice the size of a small boat broke off from the darker waterfall to my left. In a daze, I watched it fall as I knew what was coming. I’d grieved, but it had been controlled because I did not know what would happen if I let myself feel without constraint. 

    Trying to shut away all the pain, I closed my eyes until stars popped in the black. Then I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Annie looked so alive. She was so close to me. Now she was gone again. I opened my eyes and screamed so loud and hard that I tasted blood. I watched as the waterfall cracked down the middle, slow at first then picking up momentum. Soon, the cracks spread throughout the entire waterfall. I didn’t hear the cracking ice. I didn’t hear the island-size chunks fall from the waterfall and crash around me. All I heard was the echoes of my repeated, angry screams at a life with Annie that I had missed out on. 

    By the time all the screams had left me and all I had was strained whispers, the waterfall was a vast, crumpled ruin from my magic. That’s when I fell to my knees, my hands trembling, and everything inside  me shattered. 

    I cried as memories of Annie raced through my mind. I cried at all the times we’d saved each other’s lives, made each other laugh, frustrated each other, and walked in silent appreciation for another. I cried as I allowed the ideas of joining together, of being able to call her my maki. Tears ran over my longing smile when I thought of her carrying our child. Tears continued as I chuckled at making fun of her being so big with the child in her belly. I cried as I imagined us with a beautiful baby girl in her arms, the same lock of untamable hair already starting to grow. 

    By the time all the tears had left me and all I had was an exhausted, shaking body, with my ears painfully ringing, the waterfall had nearly returned to its vast majesty. As vast as the distance between what I had and could have had.

Part III

    A giggle tickled my ears, a drop of salve to force me to open my eyes and look up. I scanned for Annie behind the ice of the waterfall. It took a moment, but I found her at the edge of my sight, running up another unseen path. Looking upon her now, reveling in that giggle, it didn’t hurt me as it did. I longed to touch her, I always would, but I knew she was out of reach. It still took effort to look away from her, but I needed answers. 

    A crack split the silence of this massive cave. Worry briefly filled his eyes at the sound. I looked over his shoulder at the crack forming in the otherwise perfectly solid sky-blue ice. 

    “We cannot help who we love. And we are fated to love Annie.” He paused as a knowing smirk curled. “Even when we want to kill her for all those little annoyances.” 

    Another giggle spread around the cave the light can bounce off and through ice. 

    “She knows it, too,” I said as I watched her leap down to another level and disappear behind a streak of falling midnight-purple water. 

    Young Brim laughed. “Yes, she does.”

    We shared a brief laugh. Then we walked in silence for awhile. The waterfall continued its slow melt as Young Brim radiated the same color as the ice falling down. I let my thoughts drift as I put one foot lazily in front of the other. Occasionally, Annie’s giggle would interrupt the peaceful dripping of the melting ice to my left. I’d look around for a moment before finding her doing some acrobatic move some ways in the distance beyond the ice wall. 

    I looked up as Young Brim pulled away from me. He stepped onto the small gap of water between the ice I was on and the ice waterfall. 

    “We must go now,” he said. Then he stepped through the ice just as Annie jumped down from far above. She landed gracefully beside him. She hooked his arm in hers and kissed him on the cheek. Her emerald aura met his sky-blue aura. At first they split evenly then she looked menacingly at him and forced her aura into his until they were enveloped in emerald. He laughed and so did I. 

    Young Brim unhooked his arm, turned around, took a few steps then disappeared. His words echoed around the cave as he said, “Make it quick.”

    Annie looked at me, her eyes full of such happiness and joy. She was without pain, without longing. She was with the one she was supposed to be with. As always, Annie got what she wanted. 

    My chin started quivering as the finality of this moment struck me. The lie that I’d already told myself was wiped clean as I knew I’d never be able to return here. I knew she wasn’t my Annie, but my feelings didn’t understand that. Not really. 

    She opened her mouth to talk and I hung my head as I expected the words to stay within the magical waterfall. Except they didn’t. 

    “You big baby,” she said. 

    I looked up, wide-eyed and hungry for her to be right in front of me. She hadn’t moved, but the ice had disappeared so I could see her as clearly as ever. She even smelled like the berry bushes she frequented in The Shaws. The scent tickled my nose, lighting up my face and energizing me. 

    Sniffling through the tears, I said, “Am not.”

    Her aura filled with white daggers and she pushed it toward me. Then the daggers turned to raindrops that penetrated through my tunic to land on my arms. Each drop felt like a kiss from her. 

    “Thank you for loving me,” she said. 

    Tears blurred my vision. “I should have told you,” I said, regret filling the space between us. 

    She brushed away the lock of hair and this time it actually stayed behind her ear. She had finally tamed herself.  “You did, Cassius. Every day,” she replied. 

    All I could do was nod as my chin and hands shook from the rising wave of emotions. Annie continued peppering my skin with the raindrops from her aura. With a soft exhale, Annie pulled back her aura and started walking backwards. She paused to look toward Young Brim, he gave a painful smile, a sheen on his cheeks from the tears. Annie looked back at me, gave me her best smile, blew me a kiss then vanished.