The Tears of Time

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Time sighed as she looked at Elanor, her only child, one she’d left alone to face the world. Who yielded immense power and didn’t know it. This stubborn, yet fragile, young girl, who Time only wished to pull into a crushing embrace, was the channel for such a flood of chaos the world had never seen before. And never would see again.

Ella peered up at her mother, wondering vaguely who exactly this woman that she shared blood with was. She had yet to discover her father, who seemed even more of a mystery.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Before, you fell through Lucifer. It was crude, and I can’t imagine you discovered much in your short contact with him. I need to show you everything, so you’ll have to stay with me for a while. I suggest stepping into my shoes,” Time said, smiling.

“Into you?”

“Yes,” Time replied, “You need to be in contact with my soul, which is currently housed in my body. Therefore, you’ll share my body for a minute. I shouldn’t worry, you’ve done it before.”

“Before?” Ella asked, confused.

“When you were only a tiny cluster of cells, your soul shared my blood.”

“Oh.”

“You may want to step from behind me, though I doubt it will make a difference, it may feel disorientating to step from the front.”

“Ok,” Elanor smiled slightly, in reply to her mother’s smile. The familiarity they seemed to share was comforting, and Time’s ability to provide the right answers enabled Ella to see that she was sincere.

Ella walked behind Time, taking a deep breath of unnecessary air, before stepping into the space Time occupied. Again, there was a faint resistance, though lessened through practise. Then colour flooded into Elanor’s eyes, and she suddenly saw through Time’s eyes.

It was like looking into a crystal, with infinite corners and showering colours, a rainbow with an entirely new spectrum. Ahead of her, Ella watched as the oak trees flickered, from grown tree to tiny sapling, though without moving. For in each gaze she could see every time that had been, was, and would be. Finally she understood the far away gaze that had been present when Time had first looked at her.

Tiny things were drawn to her attention in endless detail, the miniscule grooves of far away bark amplified to giant crevasses, crumbling walls of plant matter crawling with mites and lichen. Then the grass, which waved around their feet, each individual fibre and cell a living structure to be studied. Finally the ground, which flickered more than any other particle, revealing a different thousand shades of soil, composting carcasses and wandering mini-beasts. It was as if she has been blind her entire life, and only now was able to see.

But when was now?

Startled, Elanor realised that she didn’t stand in any time. She and Time gazed at the world from a separate point, as if they alone stood on steadfast land, and around them time flooded past like the raging river flooded with melt water.

“So you See, as I have for eternity,” Time whispered in thought, her thinking melding quietly with Ella’s, “So you Feel, as I have for eternity.”

Time’s thoughts were tainted, the clarity of sight blighted by the ability to see every last drop of torment that mortals faced. Intolerable sadness seemed to pervade every particle of her being, a sadness only countered by an iron-hard need to survive. Melancholic though her thoughts were, there rested within them a firm sense of necessity. The ability to See everything meant that Time knew exactly what was necessary and was able to understand the need for the drastic measures which left her heart in tatters.

“Come,” Time said out loud, and the meadow they had met in faded away as they crossed into the mortal realm. Earth spun below them for a second, and once again Elanor marvelled at her ability to See everything. Then Time chose a moment and the rest of them faded, until they were dancing images just out of the corner of the eye.

“You have seen this, have you not?” she asked, as they came to a garden ringed with a towering wall.

“Yes,” Elanor nodded, “The beginning of time.”

“Some say this is where I was born, but time, sadly, is constant. I have no beginning or end, unlike this world.”

“Why show me this?” Elanor asked, as they walked through the beautiful winding trees, some bent and twisted, others tall and proud, each bearing delicious fruit in a cacophony of colours.

“To understand the end, you must first understand the beginning,” Time waved her hand, and the garden began to shrink, the roots and trees growing back into the ground which shrivelled and died, leaving only innumerable grains of sand. The sand under their feet and the sky above them suddenly collapsed, the stars hurtling towards them with deadly speed, every atom of the universe spiralling inwards until their was only a single speck floating in front of Time, and everything else was darkness. The speck glowed with a bright light, which dimmed slowly as they watched, getting smaller and smaller until it was the merest flicker of tiny yellow.

“This is the very start of the beginning,” Time explained, motioning around, “I cannot show you before, for that is forbidden to me. Only you will travel beyond the End and into the nothing that surrounds us.”

“I think I begin to understand,” Elanor said, as she looked into Time’s thoughts, and saw what nestled inside them, the picture her mother had long painted around her.

“What do you understand?”

“I understand who my father was,” Elanor started, marvelling at Time’s thought picture of Fate, as the strong young man she always preferred to see in him.

“I’ve always loved him,” Time said, blushing, “Even when he was a small child, though then my love was different.”

“I understand why I See,” Elanor continued, marking the combination of Time’s ability to see everything, and Fate’s ability to see the End which mixed in her, “Why I see the End.”

“Your father’s ability to see death, amplified by mine; to see any moment in time.”

“I understand why everyone seeks to control me.”

“No one will ever control you unless you allow them to.”

“And I understand why I can never pick a side,” Elanor finished.

“Then you are almost ready,” Time said, their shared eyes watching as the world unravelled again before them, the universe exploding away from them in a burst of life.

“There is something else?” Elanor asked.

“Yes,” Time nodded, as they came back to rest in the meadow surrounded by oak trees. Elanor moved away from Time, separating their thoughts, and calling back her body. She sat down in the tall grass, brushing across the stalks with her fingers, revelling in the sensation of being alone in her own body.

“Before you can begin the end, though in some ways it has already begun, you must understand Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing is the only thing that will exist when this world ends, so you must understand it. Otherwise the world will be left half in tumult when you first release the void, remaining in continuous torture. You must understand it so that you can survive it.”

“How can you understand Nothing?” Elanor asked.

“I already do, though it is not something you can teach. You must experience it,” Time replied, an edge of fear in her voice.

“How?”

“You have realised you are dreaming?”

“Yes, though it is true dreaming, like my visions?”

“Indeed. When you wake up, fall.”

“Fall? What do you mean?”

“Just fall. Raphael will try to save you, but that cannot happen.”

“But what will he think?”

“He will think he has lost you,” Time replied.

“But-”

“Raphael already thinks he is in love with you,” Time commented, pausing to observe her daughter, “You are not one to be fallen in love with.”

“Fall,” Elanor said, as if confirming the command to herself.

“Fall.”