The Letter I Wish I Didn't Have to Write

Dear Raulf Aldersgate,

Here I am, writing on a ripped page (maybe pages, I’m not sure how much I’m going to write) of my notebook. I’m pretty sure you’ve never seen pages like these nor a pen with which I’m writing this letter. I should be studying history for my final exams, but I have to finish this letter and give it to you before I get on with my academic life. Technically, I’ve already had a personal tour through the medieval era. Now before I start talking about things that you’ve never heard of before (hopefully you’ll be able to understand my English), I’m going to go straight to the purpose of this letter.

Oh, how I still remember how we met. I’ll commence from the time I was starting my second year of college and was studying until late for history. Up until now, this all seems irrelevant. And it actually is, because you probably don’t have a single idea about what I’m talking about. So anyway, I fell asleep and guess where I woke up? No, it sure wasn’t in the comfort of my dark green cotton sheets. I woke up in a dark and dirty alley. It’s not exactly the most pleasant place or way to wake up and finding out you aren’t in fact having a hangover (being drunk is always a good excuse for when things like that happen).

I left the alley and was still incredibly sleepy when my jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe my eyes! The streets were narrow, incredibly noisy and polluted. People kept throwing filthy water out of their windows but screaming a warning in a language I had never heard of before dumping the whole load out. Pigs, dogs and other little creatures were roaming the streets, probably spreading disease and fleas. Men, women and children were wearing really, really, and when I say really, I mean really, old fashioned outfits. The whole thing seemed surreal. It looked more like a picture from one of my history books but animated. That’s when it hit me: I was in the middle of a medieval city in my evening gown!

I started to panic. Luckily my evening gown was somewhat similar to the white cotton dress ladies wore underneath their dresses. Or so I thought. People kept glaring at me and talking about me in an unfamiliar language. I was guessing it was Latin, but I knew some Latin expressions and it wasn’t Latin. I also thought of Spanish, but it wasn’t much like it either. I stopped focusing on the language and focused on finding a dress that wouldn’t get much attention.

I know I should’ve been more worried about how I got there, but a woman has to keep her dignity intact. I didn’t have money on me and even if I did it wouldn’t be accepted. I didn’t have a shelter either. I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t even speak your language! Great, just great!

I walked looking for no place in special, though a dress would come in handy, and I came across this small place with tapestry. The lady managing it was an old, wise, woman, who seemed friendly and kind. Most people selling items there were men, so I decided to go to the lady and ask if she knew anywhere where I could get a dress. I walked towards her and asked her if she spoke English, only to see her turning her back on me and yelling to the door behind her in the same language everyone else was speaking in. Then she turned back to me and gazed with her big blue eyes in repulsion.

And then you---you came out and I was instantly mesmerized by your light blue eyes. Sure I’ve seen lots of boys with blue eyes, but ever since I was little I had always fallen under the spell whenever I saw a boy with blue eyes. But your posture was completely different from most guys in my college and high school. You had this elegance that is rare to see in guys these days.

You looked at me shocked as the lady told you something. You turned to me and asked me (in English) in a polite, British accent if I didn’t speak Portuguese. Well it was kind of obvious but I answered affirmatively. Your English was very formal and your accent looked like those of the knights in the history movies we watched in high school, all that was missing was the armor, the sword and the beautiful, majestic horse.

I tried to copy the way you spoke, and asked, in the most polite manner I could manage, in what year I was in. You answered casually as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Well I probably would’ve done the same if some weird person from the future visited me and asked the same question. But your answer kind of shocked me. Not only was I in Portugal, a land I had never visited in my life (though I knew I had some relatives from there), but I was also in the year 1498 (I’m going to show my pride about my history knowledge for a moment and say that this year was actually a good year for Portugal, because they did in fact discover the route to India through sea).

Well, I guess I probably sounded like some crazy witch to you at that moment. I mean, come on, there I was, a girl from the year 2008, wearing nothing but my pajamas in the middle of a medieval city, about four centuries before I was born and asking you in my American accent, in what year was I in. If the inquisition heard or saw me, I would probably have the unfortunate sentence of being burned alive in public. Actually didn’t the inquisition exist in the 15th century? I had the feeling it did, so I started to think about my questions and answers carefully before I spoke.

I didn’t know why, but I felt like I could trust you, so I asked you if I could have a word with you in private, not that it mattered, because no one understood me anyway. It was all pure instinct or maybe desperation. You were intrigued but said something to the old lady before you led me through the door behind you. In a few moments, I found myself in a small closed space with very little furniture. It was probably your house. I braced myself to explain to you something that would deem me an extremely mentally ill person.

I told you in a very direct manner that I had come from the future, from the year 2008. I still remember you reaction clearly. I’m laughing now as I write this, because it was indeed funny and I’m sure that if you would’ve seen it now, you’d find it quite amusing too. So your jaw dropped. Then you closed your mouth and shook your head in astonishment and disbelief. Then your jaw dropped again. And you asked me if I was a witch. Well, sure I’m not the most devoted Christian you cold meet, but I sure am not a witch!

You asked me to calmly explain to you what exactly happened. And that’s how we met (I’m not in the mood to write about the rest of the dialogue we had in the room, because you know it as well as I do and having to write again all those explanations for terms you’ve never heard of before will kill a lot of trees). You eventually found a way to trust in me and threw me some clothing pieces. I put them on top of my evening gown and you led me out of your house. You explained to me that you were going to take me to a place out of the city, were we could speak freely about things.

Before we left, you went to this stable and talked to a man there. This man brought you this lovely brown horse. You helped me up and then went up in front of me. You grabbed hold of the reins and we crossed the outer walls and left the noisy city (apparently you were some sort of knight, because people respected you). We galloped towards a forest. I have never been a nature friendly person, but after being in the city, I felt kind of relieved to go out.

You only stopped when we could no longer see the city walls. You wrapped the horse reins around a tree and helped me down. When we were finally comfortable sitting on some rocks, your eyes began shinning with curiosity about the future. Questions about the world, discoveries, life and other things about the future that I, at the time, thought were childish questions. I answered each one patiently. You were as fascinated with the simplest of answers like finding out I came from North America, which in your time hasn’t probably even been discovered or that we could fly in things called airplanes.

You had so many questions, but my favorite still remains: “How is love in your time?” It left me startled. I hadn’t had much experience in loving someone, but from the little experience I had, love was something so hard to explain. Like some people say “it’s the closest thing to magic”. I remember telling you “It’s like a drug, you feel dependent on one person, whether physically, whether mentally, and this person feels the same about you”. I after had to explain what a drug was and what being dependent was. That was the biggest problem with having a conversation with you: I always had to have in mind that language has had some evolution since the Middle Ages.

Our love didn’t bloom so fast, like most love stories, where it’s love at first sight. I guess we had some chemistry though, because we spent hours under the sun and eventually under the moon, talking about the future and about the Medieval Era (yes, I also was curious). But we also talked about something I was almost clueless about: poetry.

The only poems I knew were either from 18th, 19th, 20th or 21st century poets. And only English poets. The only poet I could remember from around your time was Shakespeare. Yet you told me that you were a poet. You weren’t a knight like I had thought. You explained to me that you usually wrote in Portuguese, but since you had studied in England, you also wrote in English. You explained to me that your mother’s side of the family was Portuguese, but your father’s side was English, and that you were actually in Portugal because your friend had just returned from one of his journeys to the East and you were interested to know things about that part of the world that you had never visited before. No wonder your English pronunciation and accent were just perfect. You had also told me that you always thought about one day going on a ship to another continent. You were definitely very ambitious.

I asked you to read me one of your poems. You thought about it for a minute, and told me they were mostly love poems. I didn’t mind, so you grabbed a paper from one of your pockets and unfolded it. I was deeply moved by your poem. You could tell that I was and you handed me the paper telling me that I could keep it. That was when I fell in love. I still have your poem with me and I shall never lose it.

But night had fallen and it was soon time for us to sleep. You brought me back to the city and told me I could stay with you until I figured out how to go back to my time. I was silently happy because even though I was worried about not being able to go back to my time (let’s face it, I would definitely never blend in with the crowd in your city), I wanted to spend more time with you. We didn’t sleep on the same bed though. You let me sleep on your bed and you slept on the floor. I offered to sleep on the floor, but you told me ladies never slept on the floor. I took off the dress you had given me to wear and laid in bed in my pajamas. I eventually fell asleep, but as soon as I was asleep I regretted it, because I woke up in the comfort of my dark green cotton sheets.

It was all a dream after all, an incredibly realistic dream, but a dream nonetheless. That day, I went to school normally, took my test, went home and did my daily routine. I kept thinking about the dream I had. It was so hard to forget the city, the noisy streets, but it was so hard to remember your face. Then, for some reason, I decided to make my bed, something I rarely do, and in between the sheets I found a piece of paper: the poem. It hadn’t been a dream after all!

I looked at the watch, it was too early, but I wanted to find out if my theory was correct (that I time traveled in my sleep). I went on the internet and decided to investigate on Portuguese medieval cities. So basically I had been in an area called “arrabalde” (at least it fit the descriptions: the terrible hygienic conditions of the streets to be more specific). I won’t occupy more lines in this letter on the other things I learned about medieval cities, because you probably know more than the internet.

I also investigated on the possibility of time travel in someone’s sleep. I first went on Google and typed on the search: time travel. One of the first results was a hyperlink that lead to Wikipedia.I looked through the contents table, until I found what I was looking for – experiments carried out – but found myself bored by reading just the first paragraph. Then I saw another topic bellow it – non-physics based experiments. That seemed better, so I read it. I felt disappointed as I read the last line: “it is impossible to travel back to before the time machine was actually made.” I decided to search for “sleep timetravel” on Google. Maybe I would find something that could help me understand how the hell I went back more than four centuries back in time. But before I had time to correct my spelling mistake, I found a result that interested me. It was something about a time travel institute. I went on it and found this link that said “Theories and Concepts”. I clicked on it and read the four theories, but none of them applied to me. I won’t bore you anymore with the rest of the searches I made and things I learned about sleep, REM and time travel. I’ll just tell you this: I was in bed ready to sleep, listening to my iPod, and I fell asleep, only to wake up in your bed in the morning, once again in another century.

I saw you sleeping on the floor, snoring loudly. I could watch the sun rising, filling the dark sky in tones of red and orange. The music I had been listening to when I fell asleep was still playing in my ears. I had brought my iPod along with me to the past. Even with my iPod on, I could hear you snoring, which was particularly funny. I wish I had had my camera phone with me to film that, all of that. I had been there once before already, but it still seemed so surreal.

You woke up and saw me with my iPod headphones still on my ears. You greeted me good morning, but then you noticed the futuristic piece of technology in front of you and jumped onto the bed to have a closer look. To you, I had spent the entire night in your bedroom, though I knew it wasn’t true, so you wondered how I got that. I told you what happened and how I time traveled whenever I was asleep and you were skeptical at first, but there was no other explanation for what happened. I showed you some songs and laughed at your reactions. I have to admit that for a person who never heard punk before, you actually surprised me, because you got into it a few minutes after I showed you one of my favorite songs.

I wish I had the time to narrate all the events, the moments that we lived together during these past few months. You taught me how to ride a horse, though it isn’t exactly necessary for a girl like me who lives in a big city, and I showed you music and my mobile phone and some modern poetry. You treated me like a woman deserves to be treated and I looked up to you for that. I taught you some expressions we use in our vocabulary in the future and you taught me the art of writing a love poem. But above all you taught me the most important lesson: how to love. And for that all I can ever offer in return was my love for you.

You taught me that love doesn’t always have to be carnal, physical; it can also be a spiritual need. Spiritual in the way that you thrive for that special person and she becomes the reason of your existence. You become that person’s captive (yes, I’ve been looking into Portuguese poetry, especially Camões. Oh, wait! Sorry, Camões wasn’t even famous in your time).

I was madly in love with you. I was at that point where I didn’t want to return to my cozy apartment, where I was willing to give up my life in the future to live with you in the past. It might sound cliché and all, but you have to admit only a person who is crazy in love with another person would give up her precious iPod and internet to spend her life in a place where technology and good hygiene doesn’t exist! No offense though, I love leaving the city walls and being in the forest breathing fresh air (something I can’t do in a big city much).
Oh, that’s another thing I started to like after I met you: the outdoors. You should’ve seen me before I met you. You could even drag me by my legs to a camping trip in the great outdoors and I’d still resist.

When we finally kissed for the first time, it was like no other kiss. It felt right and amazing and there are absolutely no words that can describe the feeling. I remember the way you brushed my hair off my face and looked into my eyes, the way your eyes were just centimeters away from mine, the way your warm breath felt over my skin, the way you leaned in and your lips touched mine. It’s one of the things I remember very clearly, without the need of my camera phone (no, I didn’t delete any of the pictures or videos yet, nor did I show to anyone). It’s also one of those things that makes what I’m about to do so hard. That and the three words you whispered to me after: I love you.

Sometimes I wonder what time has against us. Surely if he didn’t have anything against us, he wouldn’t come between us. He’s envious of what we have, I tell you, very envious. Yes, that was my terrible attempt at joking with reality. I think I’m just going to tell you why I wrote all of this and why I’m in such a hurry to give it to you.

These past months, I haven’t been able to time travel every night like I used to. Instead of every night, it has become three times a week, then twice a week, then only once. I have lived days in a row without seeing you, speaking to you. It has also been hard on you, because one day I’m sleeping in your bed, the next I’m gone for days in a row.

The thing is, I love you, I always will. I love you so much, that just living my daily routine has become almost impossible. I can’t focus in college. I can’t focus in anything other than you. And only to see you 8 hours per day, if we are lucky. It’s hard! I wish it didn’t have to be that way, I wish I could stay with you in past or future, but the thing is, I’m not ready for the past, nor are you ready for the future. We just can’t be together like this. I can’t live like this. I love you so much, that I’m going to have to let you go.

I have the feeling this will be the last time I will time travel. It’s just a feeling I have in my gut that is usually right. When I sleep and see you for the last time, I will appreciate every second I spend with you, and before I fall asleep, I’ll give you this letter. It’s very hard to write these words and you probably will notice some smudges on some words. I will forever keep everything you gave me, taught me. I shall never forget you, I promise. But promise me that you will love again. Don’t give up on love. I won’t give up either, but I will never love the same way I loved you. Amar-te-ei para sempre, Raulf*.

Erin Kepler

Ps: Don’t give up on your dream. Travel the world and bewitch people with your poetry, like you have bewitched me.