The Shadow of Time

He told me something that I barely believed, he told me 

“to live in the presence of love is to live in the sun as a sunflower”.

He said it fuels us. He said we lean towards it all the time, even when it’s hot enough to burn us.

When we locked eyes, I felt the pull. 

My love was the sun.

I had never been brave enough to freeze, even when I felt so happy I would rather live in one place forever than feel anything different. I never felt like I could freeze, even when what to say was on the tip of my tongue; when holding a moment in my hands would’ve stilled my racing heart and eased my pains. Freezing was reckless and unsustainable. I was already missing too much, and people say you miss the frozen moments the most. When I first met him, he told me he had never frozen either, and I thought that meant he was mature like me.

His mother froze her addiction, he told me, “she froze every high she ever had”, and he thinks she just needed a permanent feeling. I never met her.

My coworkers froze their breaks and froze their sex and froze their adrenaline. They didn’t invite me to much, but I had my own friends. 

The government told us to “freeze carefully”. He and I laughed at that, “they’d freeze their own births”, “they’d freeze their own deaths”, they froze every moment they had with themselves. Sometimes I’d ask him what moment he would freeze if he could, even though he could, and he would always say “nothing, never”. 

When I’d ask again, “even the best moment of your life?” he always shook his head, “It’s never worth it.”

We talked about it in six month intervals, and even sometimes when six months had gone, we still wouldn't talk about it. He played basketball on the weekends and I went to watch. Sometimes when he won, I thought I could see the path the adrenaline traveled through his body, and I felt tempted to hold onto it. I could see his teammates freeze, their eyes glossy and their bodies just a little bit still, but he always let go of the feeling. He’d meet my eye and I’d smile brighter because I was proud of him. 

“I dream about that smile,” he told me once, “the one when I win.”

“I smile when you lose too.”

He was playing with a strand of my hair, weaving it through his fingers, “But not as big.”

When we met we had promised each other that there was no use in dishonesty, so we tried not to lie, even when we needed to. 

I was born forty six years after people started freezing, but my grandmother told me it started as something you eat. For a low price, citizens could take a bite and freeze a moment. They could live in that moment for ten seconds, and then thirty seconds, and then as long as they want. People said that stopping time was blissful, entirely undisturbed and prominently lingering. Once they got to forever they made it an implant. Babies had it. Elders had it. You couldn’t freeze past moments, but if you stumble into happiness, you could hold onto it forever. You’d watch politicians do it, musicians do it, doctors do it. They’d do it right in front of you. The sound of applause, receiving an award, orgasms, fear, pain, anything anyone liked. Feelings became duller when you avoided most of them. 

He was born forty five years after people started freezing, and he says that in elementary school, his friends would do it when they won in tag. 

“Is that all you remember?” I asked.

“I remember that no one froze when they lost.”

I asked him if that made him sad and he said yes, yes it did. 

When we locked eyes, I prepared myself to feel it slip. 

It was almost perfect how his eyes looked, the way he held himself and the way he held onto me. His warmth was covering me like wool, reaching every part that I had left cold. We locked eyes and I wondered how long he was going to hold on.

We camped in a field one year because he said he wanted to see the stars. 

I tried to explain that you could see the stars every night if you looked, but he said it was harder than I thought since, “the lights shine too brightly” and “the cars make distracting noises.”

We went farther than we needed to, because he was worried we wouldn’t see enough of them. Sometimes I wondered if he wasn’t happy enough to freeze, if his worries clouded every moment. I had no other way to help him but to listen, so we walked miles before we set up our tent, miles so far that when we stopped, the sun started to rise. 

“We’ll see the stars tomorrow then,” I assured him. He kissed my head and nodded. He told me that he was excited for tomorrow, and we slept through the morning.

When we woke up I had news that I couldn’t share, so I didn’t share it, and we saw the stars.

A week after the trip, we slept in bed together, and I decided to share the news. 

“Wake up,” I shook him.

He asked me “what’s wrong?” and I said “nothing” and then I said “something.” He brought his hand to my chest to feel my breathing and told me that it was important that I told him what was wrong. “I know” I said, “I’m trying”.

I told him that I was leaving because I had to leave, not because I wanted to, and that if he were to come with me I would have to hate him, not because I wanted to, but because I hadn’t planned for him to stay with me this long. He told me he wanted to stay with me forever, so I said “we have three weeks”.

I explained that it was work and he said there’s work everywhere. This was a time for honesty, even when it shouldn’t have been. 

I said “there’s people everywhere too,” and he left.

I saw my mom and my sister; they were happy for me. I saw my brother who lived far away, and he told me that “work isn’t everything” so I said “love isn’t everything” so he said “yes it is”. I didn’t believe him.

When we locked eyes, I remembered nothing but the moment. 

I couldn’t imagine a time when we weren't in the sun, where I didn’t love him like I loved him, and he didn’t love me like he’d never seen anything so beautiful. 

I started packing a week early. 

“I didn’t expect you to come.” I said honestly.

“Did you want me to come?”

I lifted my shoulders, “I don’t think so”, I dropped them.

“You wanted to never see me again.”

I didn’t move.

“Because it’s easier,” he continued.

I shook my head “It's not easy at all"

I felt tears but I hated them for how I looked, for how he saw me.

He said he was sorry and that hurt me and he said “I don’t want you to leave” so I almost didn’t. 

“Stop packing.” he told me and I almost stopped packing.

“I have to keep packing,” I said, “I have to go.”

“You have a week”.

I did have a week, and I didn’t want to be packing.

“Okay.”

He smiled weakly and reached to touch me. When he touched me it felt like I was burning, like my heart wasn’t where it was supposed to be. It looked like something was changing in him, he was fighting something.

“We have one week” he said then, matter of factly.

Day One:

I slept and he watched me, we held hands as we walked, he said he loved me and I couldn’t hold back from kissing him.

“Six days,” he said.

Day Two:

He said I had “important things to wrap up” so we wandered around a city we knew, saying goodbye and meeting expectations.

“Five days,” he said.

Day Three:

I told him I always wanted to dance with him. We danced to a song we didn’t know and I thought about the way he moved his body. I told him that he was elegant and he blushed.

“Four days,” he said.

Day Four:

He didn’t allow crying until nighttime, so when the sun set, I curled into a ball. He rubbed my back and I couldn’t look at his face. I didn’t want to know if he was crying or if he was smiling or if he was going to love me once I was gone. 

“Three days,” he said.

Day Five:

I let him touch my bumps and my stretch marks; he wanted to memorize my skin. He traced his hand along the turns of me, crept into places and put love in other places.

“Two days,” he said.

Day Six:

I asked if he wanted to come on my roof, but he didn’t like heights and he came on my roof. He smiled even though he was nervous and told me “I love you” as he always had. I held his hand and interlaced it nicely with mine. He told me I was beautiful and I guess I did look beautiful in the eyes of the sun, with the warmth at my back. I could feel the burning.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

When we locked eyes, I thought about how unplanned this all was. I remembered our promises to each other. I remember the way he had looked at me when he said “I never want this to end” and I remembered how it felt to figure out what he meant. I remembered seeing his eyes shift, his body harden. I remembered seeing him think with his hands and hearing the words “come with me” even as they made no sense. I felt the warmth of the sun and something hurt. I was getting lost in his eyes and losing my breath and tip-toeing on a line somewhere. 

“Come with me”.

“You’re not going anywhere,” I told him.

He shook his head. I hated knowing what he meant and I hated that I was feeling something. I thought about tomorrow, about flying, about him. I thought about sunflowers and I wished I wasn’t so afraid of the sun. 

“Come with me”.

When we locked eyes, I held Time in my hand. I moved my fingers around it, massaging it, suffocating it. It was stuck to me. Time was smaller than I thought it was, inferior to the strength of my grip and shivering and shivering. Time looked at me like I was supposed to save it, “You’re here” he said, “I can feel it”, Time thought his voice was too loud. I felt his hand reach and I wanted to touch it. I wanted to feel him like I wanted his love, and I wanted Time to let go of me. Light shone from my stomach, and I knew he could see it. He muttered something, “I love you” I think, and I muttered it back, the words fueling the light and the light flooding his face. He said something else, and I thought about missing him. Time gripped my hand and I thought about leaving, I worried and worried and worried and then the light came. I didn’t remember anything but the light, the feeling. His arms and mine, his heart beating next to me, and Time. When we locked eyes, the sun shone through and I remembered tomorrow. I remembered his love and how it had always fed me. I could see his eyes unfocused, and I could feel Time squeezing. I leaned towards the sun, even when it burnt me, even when my body felt so good I thought I would die like this. I felt Time squeezing. He whispered something and time squeezed harder. They don’t tell you about Time in the commercials, about the way it squeezes you. The way it creeps into the light and stays there, even when you are euphoria and he is perfection. Time and I watched him, and he watched us, and I remembered being warned about this, about the way you feel when it's ending. Time kissed my cheek and my eyes focused, my body slackened. I left the moment and I was a sunflower, still burning in the sun.