A Visit from Time

Mrs. Snippet slid the porch door open and inhaled the cucumber-cool freshness. Birds sang joyously as the eastern sky shone with the white light of dawn. High above her, the last stars faded. She grasped the railing, and admired her daffodils against the house, nodding with the heavy wetness of dew. How long she had waited for spring!

She looked over the field beyond her yard to where a male turkey gobbled, fanning its tail, and strutting its stuff. “Sure sign it’s April,” she said to her dachshund, Rosy, as it nosed around her skirt hem.

Over her shoulder, something caught her eye. Mrs. Snippet, an old teacher and mother, knew a thing or two about fast reactions. She whirled around to spot a figure, hooded and dark, slink across the lawn and past her old walnut tree. “What wily person dares to sneak up on us and spy?” she said to Rosy as she started across the porch with a mixture of indignation.

For a second, her eyes followed the figure slipping around the outside of her entryway. She could track its large footprints heading for the front of the house in the light frost. Mrs. Snippet noticed that although Rosy’s nose twitched and ears lifted, she did not bark or growl. Mrs. Snippet stayed on the porch, hand steady on the railing, puzzled. Suddenly the figure’s hooded head reappeared from around the other side of the house and looked right at her. Inside the hood was a face, its eyes, sunken and dark, its face pallid, mouth closed in an emotionless grin. Not evil looking or threatening--sorrowful, lonely. Its long, sleeved arm bent as it held a pointed finger to its dark lips. Then all at once, it was gone.

Mrs. Snippet had a trespasser, a thief! She called 911, but was told this robber, although he took everything, was beyond the law.

“You should have a good day, Mrs. Snippet,” the sheriff said and hung up the phone.

Mrs. Snippet harrumphed and wrote off the incident as an illusion.

Mrs. Snippet’s next encounter with the phantom happened during her vacation at the seaside. Her husband had died after years of caring for him, and she wanted to get away. She booked an air bnb in view of the beach, loaded up her little red Volvo, and set off with Rosy in the passenger seat, her nose keening out the open window. Excitement vibrated from her twitching nose, clear through to her doggy tail, slapping rhythmically on the seat fabric.

One evening, not long after settling in to her vacation home, Mrs. Snippet took Rosy and strolled along the sand. She loved the scent of salt and waves, and feeling invigorated, she kicked off her shoes to enjoy the feel of the wet, packed sand between her toes. The sun was setting, and before she knew it, she strayed further than she meant to. As darkness swept in, the wind picked up. A few splatters of rain wetted her face, and she smiled happily. Rosy, averse to any mention of water, shook her furry little head, water sprinkling off her long chestnut ears, and high-tailed it home.

Within minutes, the sparse raindrops morphed into a forceful deluge. Gigantic waves roared at Mrs. Snippet as they curled their watery lips and shot currents that grappled around her shoeless ankles. The wind ripped at her coat and whipped her wet hair across her face. She cursed gently and tried to jog-walk back.

Beyond where the waves crashed in a fury of white foam, she looked apprehensively. There on the foam, she saw it again. The arching wave became a body, a body of titanic strength, massive biceps, and colossal shoulders. Its head was ringed in foam transfigured into hair. It grew larger and larger, its watery eyes staring directly at her. Its voice was the storm, no, the monster was the storm, a storm Mrs. Snippet was indeed lost in. She stumbled in the storm, not knowing if she’d missed the pathway to where she was staying. Was it hours, or minutes? Cold, breathless, heart pounding, she recognized the picket fence and the path up the beach. Stumbling through the loose, wet sand, she fell upon the gate, unlatched it with fumbling, frozen hands, and rushed up the front steps. Hands shaking, she quickly put on the kettle for tea.

The next day at the diner, others were relating stories of similar apparitions. They talked boastfully about putting together a militia force to kill the monster. Mrs. Snippet smiled wistfully. She knew their idle talk would never amount to anything. She enjoyed the rest of her holiday, and returned home in time to harvest her vegetables and can what she would need for the winter.

About a year later, Mrs. Snippet heard rumors while doing her weekly shopping in the grocery store in town. High in the backcountry, hunters had caught sight of a large, mysterious giant of a person. Was it a monster? They weren’t sure. He was guarding an old mine shaft, where many thought gold or some other valuable mineral could be discovered. Probably worth millions. They set out with dogs and guns, pack horses, and saddle bags. They blazed the trail and found the mine. There was no one there, and they dug the gold warily. It was a type of dust no one had ever seen; it slipped through the fingers like sand, dry and beautiful, fine and even. The men talked long about how it could be invested.

They returned home with laden packs. They left some of the men there to guard the mine, with promises to return with bigger machines.

Some invested in the gold right away. Those who tried to save it in safes and secret hiding places found that after a few days, it had vanished. Was it stolen? But that was impossible. The gold was a resource that could be invested but never saved? The men were puzzled. A few had grown rich, but others’ pockets remained empty.

Mrs. Snippet was back home in her old farmhouse, where she had lived for forty years with her now-deceased husband and raised their four children. Every corner held memories, and Rosy was there to share them with her.

One night she stood on her porch looking up at a silver half-moon; only the few brightest stars still sparkled beyond the moon’s white light. What seemed a dark flying specter appeared at the horizon, becoming larger and larger as it flew toward her, only higher. The night was so bright, its shadow slid over the canyon hills and valleys in sync with its flight. But the shadow didn’t move but left a wide ribbon of darker color that stayed like an earth-bound trail as the specter flew.

Mrs. Snippet went to bed that night. “These appearances don’t scare me,” she said aloud to Rosy who was already fast asleep at the foot of her bed. “They just make me curious.”

Scratching in her garden sometime later, she was putting out her early tomato plants. Her hat was low over her eyes, but when she straightened her back, a warrior in gold armor stood directly before her. She recognized the apparition as the one she’d encountered as a thief in her yard, the roaring monster in the storm, and the specter in the sky. The one whose gift was gold, gold that could only be spent, never saved.

Now as a warrior in glistening armor, it spoke to her: “My strength can do all.” The sound resounded like a symphony and echoed through the marrow of her bones.

Mrs. Snippet felt stunned, awestruck. “My power is more powerful than any in the universe. I have the power to wait, a remedy few men have ever discovered. And to you, Mrs. Snippet, mother, grandmother, and teacher, I have come to reveal my name. It is Time, Time, and Patience.”

And with a puff of golden smoke, or was it a puff of finest gold dust, it vanished.

Mrs. Snippet blinked and finished planting her tomatoes, before filling Rosy’s water bowl. A calm peace flowed through her brave little heart.

Mrs. Snippet had entered her golden years. She loved her chair under the walnut tree, and she loved the sunshine, the feel of her skin as it absorbed the bright golden rays. “Just put me out to bake,” she’d tell her granddaughter in a sweet, quavering voice. She sat quiet and still, watching the passing birds, the flowers, and the children, most of them her offspring. She still scratched a bit in her raised garden bed; this she could do from her chair. The miracle of life, the changing seasons, never ceased to amaze her. At night when she couldn’t sleep, she sat on her old porch watching the stars circle in perfect regularity.

Time, the thief, had stolen her sleek black hair and smooth skin, but it couldn’t touch her gentle and contented spirit. Her spirit never lacked gratitude toward a Being which although it had stolen so much, had given much. A Being, that seemed to be almost a friend. It had taken Rosy, taken her husband, but left a myriad of happy memories.

Grandchildren made certain that she attended their graduations and celebrations and vied to take her for outings and vacations. Great-grandchildren scratched in the dirt and sand and swung on the swings and bars her husband had so long ago erected for their kids. They climbed up the walnut tree, limbs worn smooth from the bare feet and hands of over three generations of little explorers. Little grubby hands thrust fresh bunches of wildflowers in heaps into her lap, as smiles with wiggly teeth and rosy cheeks brightened her days. For the little ones, Mrs. Snippet always had a story just waiting to be told, and for the older ones, a compliment or word of encouragement could cheer the day.

Old students never failed to stop by and reminisce about their childhoods in her classroom long ago where they had first caught the excitement of learning, where the world and new horizons had first taken shape. Mrs. Snippet would nod and smile as they told her what they had become.

One evening Mrs. Snippet was sitting out on her chair. She had kicked off her shoes and her bare toes felt the cool green grass. She breathed the sweet aroma of the lilac hedge blooming nearby. She heard the honking of geese flying north, sounding their farewells as they flew through the ribbons of color sweeping the sky.

Dusk enveloped her like a shroud, her soul felt the stir and the apparition appeared from behind the old walnut tree. It stood before her like an old, old father. Bent and tired, it spoke, “I am the thief that takes all, yet gives all. I am the storm that tests, the storm many men are lost in. I am overall, and although I fly over all, I leave only a shadow. I am the warrior that wins the greatest battles; I heal all, remedy all. I am hated by many, and loved by few.

“I belong to the world of man and like man and all things human, I am mortal. My heart is a ticking pendulum, and its ticking grows softer.” Here the apparition slumped his shoulders in sorrow near despair. Black tears, like melted metal, pooled in his eyes.

“And although I have been the strongest for all time, my end is always near, when even I must die. Time is almost over, for I am but an illusion. Another world will soon be upon you and all living things when Time will no longer be. Comfort me, in my old age as I have comforted you,” he said with a voice barely more than a whisper.

“Do you love me, Mrs. Snippet? From so many I feel hatred, but from you I have always felt love. Always, I have loved to be near you.” Time laid his gentle hand on Mrs. Snippet’s shoulder, and gently brushed her cheek.

She was not afraid but smiled as she smelled his breath and nearness, and it smelled of thyme and sage with a brush of mint. Kneeling in the spring grass, he rested his hands on her bony knees. His head was bowed, and the world was silent. The sky turned a flaming magenta with a streak of orange. An owl hooted its lonely night call.

“Well, young man, that is quite a splash. You, appearing like this out of nowhere! You are handsome and brave, old, yet young, and I’ve always seemed to be on the same page as you. I often wondered why we kept bumping into each other over all these years.”

“Conundrum is my middle name,” he answered. “I am free, but I am priceless. You can’t own me, but you can use me. You can’t keep me, but you can spend me. And once you’ve lost me, you can never get me back. But oh, Mrs. Snippet, with you I always feel acceptance. With you, I am always enough. And I have come to say, Mrs. Snippet, I love you.

“For so many, I feel inadequate, too swift for some, too slow for others, too short, or too long. But for you, Mrs. Snippet, I can just be myself. I am enough. Tell me just this once, do you love me?”

As the sun became a great ball of fire, slipping beneath a flaming cloud bank, before sinking into the canyon horizon, Mrs. Snippet smiled with a twinkle and nodded her little white head.

“Yes, Mr. Time, you are wonderful, and I do love you. I have always been grateful for all your many gifts.”

Mrs. Snippet bent down, took his giant head in her small lap, bent, and kissed him with her papery lips. “Please keep visiting me. You are always a welcome guest. And I will always be ready for your surprises.”