The Parachute of Time

Nine hundred and ninety years had elapsed. When everyone thought that everything was nearly done, things were only just barely beginning – but from where they had left off – but more on that later.

What had transpired was, in effect, a straight continuation off the current timeline. Everything was as it had been extrapolated. The natural course of events when nothing 'good' was shaken. There had been losses, predictable, but the stress level had been set as high as it was agreed was safe. The safeguards were adequate, but things were not swayed in favour of the good. Provisions were reactionary, built up to a climax that had been at once glorious, stark and almost arbitrary. Things were broken down, but not attitudes. A rosier disposition and a filing off of rough edges. Good things happened, the obviously broken was obviously fixed, the missing were found. Promises made were promises kept. But beyond that it was a Hollywood Western town. It could have gone on forever, without complaint, but deep down it there was a puzzle piece missing.

The way back was not quite as simple as waking up. Yet it was as simple as going to sleep. Though so many years on, at night, things reverted to the darkness of the before. It was as if they were still anchored there, because, in fact, they were.

Soon it became apparent there was a riddle underneath the obvious. Some twinge that things left behind weren't quite solved. The explanations were satisfactory, but nothing much more than that. Naturally some felt this was the test. Doubt now and you would fail. It was the test, but entirely the wrong understanding of it. To do nothing was the failing, to reach back was the succeeding. Could things have been done differently? If we knew then what we knew now, would the course of everything be a different angle?

There was one person who seemed to take all of this in stride. Answering all that was asked in a straightforward way, not overly deferential to the common understanding, but not disrespectful either. In some of the oddest times, he seemed not himself, but more himself than the almost hollow version that had been distractedly continuing the prescribed tasks. He would mention odd songs, belonging to the world that had been gone so long, but were oddly enough, found, remembered, or re-imagined in some notable ways soon after.

When asked to comment on a particular event, feeling, or situation, a song always seemed to come up. Something that fit the question, but still leaving a paradoxical feeling. A happy song rang hollow, an angry song stirred the blood to righteous action, the oddest songs twinged and came into focus making an almost absurd amount of sense.

Almost without fail, people would have a dream of the songs being played, and get a better sense of it. They could ask questions then that didn't always have a response during the day that really answered the question. It was then that the old them interacted with the present him. It wasn't always something that made sense in the old, but 'present' him was never nonplussed.

As the thread were tugged, things 'present' were starting to unravel, but he navigated them nonetheless. He had, after all, a foundation on the nothingness, and anything that happened would not shake him.

“The way you're talking, all I hear is blah-blah-blah”. The shock was palatable.