The Tears of Time

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Darkness swallowed the world.

Elanor stood on the hilltop, watching as the great wave of nothing came crashing down around her, obliterating the trees and cliffs, devouring stone and soil. Like a raging beast it reared in front of her, before absorbing her in its gaping maw.

The darkness was peaceful after the chaos of the last minutes. It lapped at her bones, freeing her soul from the ache of solid form, eradicating her sense of reality, erasing thought and words. Leaving only emotion; a rich bath of feeling. Joy, pleasure, peace, yearning, lust, contentment, sadness, pain, grief, anger, jealousy… Elanor wallowed in the sixth sense.

Then life erupted around her.

The sudden shock of reality hit her hard. Momentarily dazed, she wondered at the sudden expanse of the cosmos which stretched out around her. A thousand stars bursting into flame, explosions of rock crashing together into planets, swirls of gas billowing into the ethos. A tiny insignificant planet caught her eye, and she realised ironically, that this unremarkable lump was her Earth. It circled around a smaller twin, with a collection of smaller meteors.

Gas collected around the planet, clouds storming around volcanic eruptions. The earth grew cold, and the clouds nursed the soil, drawing from it greenery and shrubs, microscopic life forms which swirled in the seas. In an explosion of movement, the twin planet crashed into earth, the resulting shockwave eliminating part of the life that had begun to establish. The planet absorbed its smaller neighbour, and began to rewrite its history, small changes establishing in the new environment. The meteors in the sky collected slowly to form a smaller mass, white rock which reflected the sun at night.

She swept down to the Earth, marvelling at the new life. Birds flew raucously through the trees, rodents burrowed through the undergrowth, and gazelle bounded across the open plains unblemished by human contact.

Unthinking, Elanor seized a handful of dust and blew it into the air, where it stopped and established a form, a child growing from the ground. Still as a statue he stood, the clay and dust changing subtly to skin and bone, though the flesh was dead. She blew on his eyelids softly, breathing into him her own life, watching as he blinked, the blood suddenly surging through his veins.

Again she caught up a fist of dirt, throwing it into the wind with a flourish. The boy watched her curiously as the dust grew into solid clay taking the form and shape of a second child, subtly different, skin, bone, flesh, and blood. The motion sapped her of her strength, and she fell to the ground, dark threatening to overcome the corners of her vision.

The girl stood, statuesque, waiting to be given life. Adam instinctively reached out to take her hand, but it was stiff and unyielding. Elanor stood uneasily, breathing life into Eve, into her daughter. Eve smiled as she saw the world, smiled up at her mother, who sank slowly to her knees, overcome with exhaustion.

Her children disappeared, playing happily in the distance until they were no longer there. Elanor lay unmoving, letting the earth reclaim her. Death spread through her limbs and she gave herself up to its peace.

Raphael leant forward as Ella’s eyes fluttered, gently taking her hand in his. For the briefest moment her eyes were jet-black, but then the colour faded, replaced by deep hazel. Raphael smiled in relief, and Ella smiled curiously back.

“Should’ve woken me up before,” he grumbled softly.

“You looked tired,” Ella said, trying to make the excuse sound plausible.

“Well I guess I was, but still.”

He leant forward to kiss her, only to be stopped by her cold fingers on his lips.

“I’m not sure…” she began, then stopped frowning, “I’m not sure we did the right thing.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, fear creeping into his heart.

“Isn’t there… should we have…” Ella struggled for the words.

“Shouldn’t we have waited to make sure we were in love, and then been married properly?” Raphael asked, tilting an eyebrow at her.

“Yeah,” she said, grasping the excuse thankfully.

“We only have a month,” he replied, “No, two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” Ella’s eyes widened, “How?”

“You’ve been out for a while. Scared me half to death.”

“O god… I just wasted two weeks,” she moaned softly.

“Then let’s make the most of the next two,” Raphael replied, abandoning his chair and sitting cross-legged next to her. Ella squinted at him, for a moment, the look so funny that he laughed hard.

“What?” she asked, frowning.

“You looked so… your nose!”

“I can’t help the way my nose looks.”

“No.”

“No,” Ella repeated, staring him down.

“What were you doing?” he asked.

“Watching you,” she admitted, stirring uncomfortably.

“Well, yes I gathered that…”

“No, I mean… actually Seeing you.”

“You mean, like Time, your mother does?”

“Yes, how do you know how she Sees?”

“I’ve talked to her, she always intrigued me.”

“Now no one can say I don’t know you well,” Ella stated.

“Ella, you’ve known me practically two days.”

“No,” she said, “I’ve known you your whole life.”

“That’s not fair,” Raphael said, glaring at her.

“I think it’s perfectly fair.”

“Well, I ought to be able to See you then.”

“Ok,” Ella said, after a brief pause.

“Ok? But I can’t See,” he puzzled.

“Yes, you can, if I show you. Remember when I fell through Lucifer?” she asked.

“Yes?” Raphael answered.

“Well… I guess I’ll just show you,” she said, turning around so that she faced him on the bed, “Ready?”

“Ready for what?” Raphael asked, mock panic in his voice.

“For this.”

Ella shimmered in the air, her physical form disappearing, replaced by the familiar misty figure of her soul. She reached up slowly, her hand hovering on one side of his face, as if for permission. Raphael wondered at her for a moment, then nodded slowly. Ella smiled a little apprehensively, and pressed her hand to his temple, soul and flesh mingling.

Raphael gasped, his vision sudden duplicating. He was looking at himself, only… through Ella’s eyes. He blinked, and she blinked too. He tried to move a hand, but came up against a mental block and couldn’t. Something gentle brushed against his mind, a soft feeling of confusion. He flinched unconsciously, but then realised it was simply Ella, asking permission again.

He welcomed the sensation the second time, and suddenly felt an entirely different person. The feeling was disorientating, as if he himself didn’t exist anymore, packed away in the back of his head. Everything appeared slightly different, even the colour of the room seemed subtly changed. As if he looked at everything through an Ella-coloured sheet of glass.

“O,” he sighed, as a wave of past and present emotions settled into him. Then something else, hit him, and he realised that Ella lived as much in the future as the past. He laughed at the new perspective, its beauty and many complex aspects.

Do you like it? Ella whispered in his head.

Yes, he replied. It’s beautiful…

It’s me, she laughed, a beautiful lilting sound which flowed gently through his head.

Is this what it feels like when you Saw me? he asked.

No, you’re different. she replied her voice a little sad, you’re you, quite obviously.

Raphael didn’t realise that she was hiding part of her feelings, the part which doubted him, the part which had discovered where his love for her had stemmed. The part which identified most with the urge to end everything.