Entertaining Yesterday Now

“What’s the point?”

“The point is: resolve to make a change in your life,” said Beatrice with soy-firm resiliency as she sliced her toast with a butter knife.

“For the better?”

“If you’re so inclined, I supposed that’d help.”

Beatrice shrugged, her jade moon-faced necklace glittering in the morning light from the kitchen window. “Just do it.”

What was she promoting: his need to craft a New Year’s resolution or a Nike ad for new cross-trainers?

Jericho shook his head and began toying with the copper-colored button on his denim Levi’s jacket, stone-washed, torn and frayed in the collar and sleeves, looked to have been attacked by an angry seamstress at a Men’s Wearhouse before he bought it.

“Maybe you should eat something. That’ll help you get started. We are on vacation, love. A little protein’ll help wake up your brain. You need to think ahead. And don’t look back.”

Beatrice finished off her last bite of scrambled egg atop a slice of gluten-free toast with boysenberry jam; she nibbled on a mint leaf to cleanse her palette and stepped to the sink with her back to her husband.

A tiny voice whispered in Jericho’s ear: “Your time’s comin’. Whether or not you make any resolution will be very telling. For you, my love. Don’t worry, though, it’ll all end very soon. Everyone does it. It’s just a matter of time. Don’t believe the hype. Dying’s great.”  

“Penelope?” whispered Jericho, with one eye on Beatrice, now getting a second cup of Jasmine tea. “Who’s dying?”

“Everyone dies sometime. So…you gonna make that resolution? Up to you.”

He wondered what Penelope was getting at, but decided not to press the point. She always had a playful banter about her. “You’re in on this resolution charade, too?”

Penelope took a seat at the kitchen table, dressed in a plaid miniskirt and green blouse. She crossed her long slender legs, smooth as moonbeams. Her hair was the color of cooling molten lava. Just like he remembered her. Eyes the color of a midnight sky, flecked in God-like gold.

“Tell you what,” said Beatrice from the kitchen counter, “I’ll let you use one of my nice pens and you can write your resolution in my tablet.” She disappeared down the hall and up the winding staircase, possibly in search of her famed leather-bound tome with a silk bookmark glued to the spine, something she used for journaling and whatnot. She took it everywhere she went.

He stared at Penelope, a good long moment. Sometimes just watching her soothed him. “Why am I the only one who can see you?”

“Listen, love, we had it all. And we can have it again,” Penelope said. “You really don’t need to make that New Year’s resolution. We didn’t do that kind of poppycock when we were together.”

He smiled as Penelope’s physical form shifted; she became transparent. He could see right through her. She was, for all intents and purposes, a spectating specter from the Land Beyond, as he liked to call it. At least that was what she proclaimed. And he believed her.

“Yeah, but that was, according to you, a marriage in a past-life. Now I’m trying to live out this one, with Beatrice. I do love her, you know.”

“’Course you do, love. But we’ve had many past lives together. You’ve just forgotten. The most recent past-life we were married. For forty-nine years. A lovely dance indeed.”

“Boo,” he said, crafting a crooked crescent with his lips. Anytime he spoke with her, it eased his racing thoughts. Being a school teacher at a local high school was lathered in both stress and moments of joy. But the stress, at times, went on and on. And the joy came in mirror-reflected sunlight in the eye. There and gone in a blink.

She raised her hands, as if signaling touchdown, grinning with childish enthusiasm. “That’s the spirit. I’m here to remind you: today’s the big day, a day of true change. Not to get too dramatic or anything but your loved one, myself included, are preparing for your departure.”

Later that afternoon, Jericho sat in an antique Victorian chair of plush red velvet and began penning his thoughts. Beatrice rested a hand on the railing of the second floor hallway overlooking the living room decorated in oil paintings, a fire crackling within an old stone mantel. The seashore of Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo could be seen, and heard, through the bay window.

“Nice to see your penning your resolution. Excited to hear what you write. I know you’ll feel better. When you’re done, let’s take a walk on the beach.”

He nodded to her and smiled as Penelope brushed past his wife, taking graceful strides down the staircase, her molten hair flowing down her back.

He wrote: Today’s a new day, for all of us. I’m here to write my plans. And this is not a New Year’s resolution. Nothing of the sort. Today I spoke to my wife, from a past-life. She informed me that I’d be leaving soon. I presume she was referring to this: it was (is) my time to move on. You know: die. 

How will I go?

No idea.

When?

Doesn’t really matter.

But I do know this: I love my life; I love my wife; I love my time here on Earth. But it’s time to move on….for those of you reading this, those close to me, those who think I’m penning a suicide note. You’re wrong. Dead wrong.

I’m writing to tell you that life’s eternal and I’ve been offered a glimpse into my past. One of my past-lives anyway. I was married to a beautiful woman, oh, about two centuries ago. And I’m married today. Happily. And when I visualize my past-life I am actually seeing into my future.

In the bigger scheme of things—yes, the physical realm is one plotted scheme after another—there is no past, there is no future. There is one omnipotent NOW.

If you spell now backwards, you get: WON. Yes. You have won. I have won. WE all are ONE.