A Fable

A Fable of Love and Time


A long, long time ago; well, perhaps not so very long ago there was a young girl.
She was around 7 or so, in to her schooling years.
This young girl did not have many friends though. The other girls who would play near her would always whisper when she was by, or laugh and point. The boys ran away most times she tried to approach them.
So, the young girl spent a lot of time alone. Well, perhaps not so very alone.

This young girl learned to read very early on. She devoured the words in books, learned the names of all the characters, began to explore authors and scholars. She used larger and larger dictionaries as her choice in books grew and the complexity of the words and phrases she read. She would read at the dinner table if she could get away with it. In the car, and in the bathroom. She would read while walking, which sometimes became a problem with trees, or telephone poles, or light-posts.
Soon, it became hard for her to go anywhere without bringing along at least one book.

Books became the constant she did not have. Characters became friends. Familiar stories became comforts when real life was filled with taunting or occasional bouts of physical pain children who are not always well liked feel.

As she grew books were still her constant, though more scholarly than recreational as she aged.
Often she would spend as much time as she could in her room with a book, under a shade tree with a novel, or at the local library- her own personal castle filled with treasures. Priceless and worth all of the knowledge and history of Humanity.

One day, when she was feeling particularly sad and in need of the companionship of her favourite books, she left to go spend some time at the library. After reading a bit, she went and did her last walk through of the stacks, checking to see what was new, or what would call out to her, "Read me next!"
But it was not a book that called her name; but a woman.
An older woman, not as aged as her mother, but much older than her brother who was high school aged.
She looked so familiar to the young girl, but she was certain they had never met before.
The woman came closer slowly and then said a few sentences the young girl never forgot, and never told another living person.
It was a most amazing secret, and yet so profoundly sad there were days from then on the young girl was unable to smile and unable to say why.
The young girl after a while decided it had all been a dream. Fantastical dreams that had to be fiction. A distant memory of not her past/dream that slowly faded, but never truly left her.
The most realistic dream she ever had. But it had to have been a dream, the girl thought. Nothing like that could ever happen in Real Life.

The young girl grew even more. Older and older. Books were still her constant, though no longer her only companions or friends. She always had more books than friends, and did her entire life.
She fell in love, and out.

One day, only perhaps a long time ago, the girl had grown to become a woman.
She had fallen in love again, but this time, with the person who held a soul to match her own.
The person who shared the same beat in his heart as the one in hers.
Things seemed so happy, so close to perfect, and so full of hope.

Alas, Real Life stories have sad moments too.
Her Love became ill. He was to die, and that fact could not be changed; not by doctors, nor even the endless wishing The Woman did.
They had almost 3 years together. Living as best they could, always knowing each day could be the last they see each other. Knowing each night might be the last time they said, "I love you."

But, as this story is not over; there is more.

When her Love first became ill, he was very, very sick.
His brain had been changed; a tumor, pressure, surgeries, and many medical drugs.
His brain changed, but not his personality, heart, or soul.
The Woman spent many nights holding him in the hospital bed, arms wrapped around her Love, telling him it would all turn out ok, it had to. Wishing with all her heart that it would be, knowing it would not. The hardest lie; Death is coming, but do not fear.

One dark night in the hospital, during a quiet interlude without nurses coming in, her Love suddenly woke.
He said he had had a dream most realistic. In it there was a young girl in a large library like none he had seen before; to him the Stacks went on forever. The little girl was approached by a woman. The woman spoke to this girl. As the woman was walking away, she looked right at him.
When her Love woke to tell her this, he said it was an odd dream, but realistic as the woman in his dream was his Love; the very woman who was holding him in that hospital bed.

In that moment, neither the Woman nor her Love knew what was real and what was a dream. They only knew they were together, touching, holding each other. Sharing a heart-beat of worry for the unknown future.

The woman had never told her Love about that moment of her history. To her, it had faded into a dream.
The first she had thought of it in years was when he recounted his same vision to her.

Is it possible to send a message back in time? Is it possible to send a person to another time?
Could one meet their future selves?

If you had one chance, one minute to go back and tell your younger self something, what would it be? Would you even try?

Do you believe it possible for people who love each other, who perhaps share what some would deem a "soul" can share more; memories, visions, dreams, pain?



Or, perhaps this was not a long, long time ago; but rather, a long, long time in the future.
Do you believe Love is bound to a specific time, or can it stretch indefinitely; a Möbius band connecting all humans who Love?