Tick. Tick. Tick.
Are these endless reminders of time supposed to be something endearing? How blatantly thoughtful of it to always give notice of the places to be and things to do. All while the minutes slip like water through one’s unsuspecting fingers.
Her days became measured by color-coded calendars and little ticked boxes. A cruel and endless cycle, much like that of Sisyphus, as another task made itself known once something had been accomplished. She had come to think that, in a world moving a million miles per hour, quiet had become an anomaly and rest now stood as a luxury, rather than the basic human need it had always been made out to be.
On the train ride home, she decided that it was unfair for Atlas to be forced to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. Imagine trying to carry all of that while desperately fanning the dying flame of a rather stubborn candle. Perhaps life’s greatest sin is how easily it blurs the fine line between living and surviving.
She found it difficult to recall the last time she had done something entirely of her own accord, without a looming deadline. As the passing landscapes faded into a greenish blur, she realized that something about the way the sunlight streamed through the window tugged at a certain familiarity within her, though its name lay still at the tip of her tongue.
It tugged at her core the whole way back to her apartment. It persisted when she changed into her pajamas and sat on the edge of her bed. By some miracle, no e-mails demanded her attention and every task on her to-do list had been dutifully crossed out. Was this some kind of divine intervention? For the first time in a while, the quiet greeted her like an old friend.
In that moment, everything fell into place, as if the stars were trying to reconnect two long-lost lovers.
Her attention was drawn toward the bookshelf at the end of the room. One that contained the sacred stories of her childhood and teenage years. A part of her mind wandered to how disappointed her younger self would be if she were ever to learn that there would come a day when her time was robbed of the simple pleasures.
She ran a gentle finger over the time-faded spine, then, as if in a daze, picked it up and settled back on the serene pillows. She turned page after page, stringing together the past and the present, this world and the next.
In a flutter of an eye, there it all was.
The castle stood proudly before her, its meadows spreading infinitely toward the horizon. Magic coursed like electricity through her veins, years of the adulting burden melting away from her shoulders.
She walked in without much of a second thought, still knowing all its passages and shortcuts like the back of her hand. Maybe time is a fickle thing here, because the people she had come to love — in between those pages — greeted her as if she had never left. She never fathomed that, after all this time, there is still something that could feel so liberating.
A voice spoke to her, soft and comforting. Welcome home, my dear.
- Toni Gabrielle L. Eusores
(Photo by Rian Balagtas/FEU Advocate)