Love

Everyone thought Love was an extrovert. She would not blame them, nor push to correct this misconception, especially considering that as an introvert, she would prefer not to have to make unnecessary conversation when possible. After all, what they thought she was did little to change the reality of her identity, and so what did their beliefs really matter in the grand scheme of things?

If they thought they were most likely to find her in the strobing lights and pulsing music of the clubs downtown or the crowded newly opened museums of the upper east side, they would be wrong. But that was a lesson that would be theirs to learn with Time, a man Love did not particularly get along well with despite centuries spent together. 

It was not that Love was never found there, but those were certainly not the places she preferred to frequent or often stayed long at. In fact, the chances of her being there on her own were slim to none. But every once in a while, lively Fate dragged her along, and Love let her. Fate danced between the sea of bodies grinning, always everywhere, while Love mostly waited for a moment to slip away to the less deafening corners of the room. Retreated to the threads of conversation occurring between heads tilted together or to the haven that materialized between eyes that could not seem to part from each other. It was always more peaceful there. But most of the time Love found herself gazing at her hidden reflection in the paintings or the melodies, having spent most of her days with creatives in amicable solitude. 

Without her bubbly friends, however, and left to her own devices, Love preferred the silence. Found that spending too much time with large groups of people exhausted her. Made her feel worn to the bone. 

After all, Love craved the comfort of the quiet. The hushed sound of a heartbeat fluttering against the soft skin of a palm. Breathes syncing into delicate harmonies, no louder than a whisper. The gentle exhale of grief when fingers intertwined. The stillness of the night when people were content to hold each other’s souls and make no promises that would shatter the silence when they broke. The soundless hope of forever in an iris as it glittered in the sunset, a spark that had not been there when dawn first arrived. 

Sure, Love was a people person...sort of, she thought as she drifted through the early morning streets, making her way to the hospital. She was wearing a beige sweater and white skirt that reached just above her ankles, where the breeze kissed her skin. Most were often surprised at Love’s choice in wardrobe, but over the years she had gotten mostly used to it. She never meant to shock others and yet nearly always inevitably did. It came with the whole extrovert image she supposed, being expected to adorn bright colours and patterns. But Love preferred to be comfortable and did her best to blend in. In this way, she was mostly quiet. Love was not unaware of her tendencies and inclinations though. She knew she was gentle, but she was also confident in her ability to be fierce when she needed to be. All of this together often led to people being taken aback when they first noticed her, even if she had been there for a while. Though she had stopped minding a very long time ago.

Love smiled at an older couple, taking their time crossing the nearly empty street and they grinned warmly in reply. After nearly 50 years, they recognized her quicker than most, the man raising a wrinkled hand in greeting. She let out a small sigh of relief that Time was not following them. Not today, she exhaled. Not today. Turning the corner she trailed her fingers over a mural that hadn't been there last week and promised herself she would come back to look at it a little longer later. Right now, she had somewhere to be. 

Ahead of her, the hospital complex rose, and she shielded her gaze from the bright sun crawling into the sky from behind it as she strolled. Love didn’t particularly enjoy the hospital, for Time always seemed to be around every hallway, standing over every bed, constant and foreboding. Many might think that their shared sense of silence would make Time and Love a perfect match, but after too long by his side, Love had learnt Time could be cruel even when he didn’t need to be. Selfish accidentally. Disappear when you needed him most. He collected minutes and memories but sometimes couldn’t bring himself to stop. He was often insatiable. And if Love was being completely honest, Time made her sad and scared all at the same time. He hadn’t seemed to cope with immortality well, always seeing every end before its beginning. If anyone knew about being both desired and feared, it was Love, but she had never let what others expected her to be change her. But Time had. She didn’t think he’d meant to let it get to him, but it was hard sometimes when you had a job to do that could bring so much joy, but so much more ache. And the way others hated Love, was much different than the way they despised Time. Love would never try to refute this.

But none of that mattered for now, she convinced herself darting across the street looking both ways and making her way across the parking lot. She lingered near the front of the main building, where tiered nurses, family members and newly released patients often retreated to make phone calls. Love soaked into about a dozen conversations before finally pushing through the wide revolving doors. 

...

I pause when I notice him, heart sinking. His salt and pepper hair undeniable when coupled with his stance. Tall but never proud, hands braced behind his back, unnaturally still. I glance at the clock confused, then clear my throat.

“Love,” he says without turning. 

“Time,” I reply warily. “You’re early.”

His laugh in response is dry and choked, as though he has forgotten how to hold joy on his tongue. Humour always dying on his lips before it meets the ether. “You just missed Fate,” is all he offers. 

The heart monitor tracking both sets of pulses is the only thing that punctuates the silence, coupled with the occasional groan or whimper. The woman is alone. And I move towards her. 

“Oh,” I breathe, hands fluttering over hers as she clutches at her stomach, and I try to soothe her. A particularly bad contraction hits and she chokes back a scream clenching her teeth and letting out a strangled sound. I wince. 

“I told Fate it would be best if you heard it from her,” he cuts himself off abruptly. “Well in any case I’ll take it you haven’t heard then.” 

I look up to find his gaze intent and full of things I long ago stopped trying to discern. 

“Heard about what?” I try and keep my voice steady by my heart is already seizing, dread dripping into my voice. 

Time swallows and glances at the monitor, avoiding my gaze. “Life will be here soon,” he pauses, and the woman lets out a sob. I murmur gently smoothing back the sweaty hair sticking to her forehead, but she shows no sign that she feels my presence but I know she does. That she feels it where it matters.  

“Well I suppose that is to be expected,” I force out a smile looking back to him but I quiet when I see his expression. 

“She won’t be staying long,” he states quietly but clearly. 

I can’t breathe. I know where this is leading. I’ve been at this too long to not have seen this before but it never fails to catch me off guard. Always the last to know. 

“But–,” I search for words and fail. “She was doing so well. The baby is– I–” 

“Love, please calm down.”

I stare at him. “How long have you known? Why does no one ever tell me until–” My voice hitches, “Until it’s too late?”

“You know how this works.” He says matter of factly. And of course, I do. 

Another scream bounces off the walls of the small room and a nurse pokes his head into the room. 

“All okay in here?” He asks too cheerily. 

The woman lets out a string of curse words. 

“You just hang tight and we’ll get the doctor in here to check your dilation. You’ll have that epidural in no time at all, sweetie. Just hold on tight, alright?”

The woman only lets out a hissed breath in reply and the nurse leaves. 

I move from the bedside. 

“How long?” I whisper. 

His fingers slip into his coat pocket caressing the pocket watch there, though he does not need to flip it open to reply, “Within a quarter of an hour, she’ll be ready. He’ll be here for about 5 minutes and 12 seconds before Life leaves and Death arrives.”

I can do nothing but blink numbly. 

“It’ll be quick. Fate says it’ll be–”

I cut him off. “I don’t want to know.” I let out a shuddering breath. “Please,” I add.

He nods and I clasp the woman’s hand in mine, holding her as long as Time will permit.

…

​​

The room is too crowded. I can’t count how many doctors and nurses are flooding into the room shouting. Time is watching the clock knowingly and moves toward Life nodding at her solemnly. She moves back to the door sending me a sympathetic smile that is lost in shadow as she passes Death. They are nothing more than patches of darkness in most places and the room grows chilled. They fade in and out of solid form. 

I squeeze my eyes shut trying to block out the increasingly overwhelming noise. Grief will arrive soon, and everything will smell heavy. I try not to think too much about having another person in the room. I don’t know when Fear got here but when I peel open my eyes suddenly he’s on the opposite side of the bed and something in me seizes. The monitors are blaring and despite the yells being thrown back and forth between sobs, I can hear Time and Death are sharing hushed words that ripple the air around them. 

Helpless, I crawl into the small bed beside the woman and hold her. I slip beneath her skin and skid over her fingertips, grasping at her erratic heartbeat. I feel through him too. His blueing skin and failing cries. I feel Death creep in beside me too, wrapping around his heart until it stills, clasping his final breath within a cloud of writhing black. But I linger, stretching out gently I let myself fill every crevice of the child. I retreat from his limbs into the flicker of his soul reaching it before Death. I feel them shift silently but pay them no mind. Some part of me stitches a bridge between his fading light and his mother’s and for a momentary eternity, I am everywhere.

My eyes fly open and I shiver, still feeling Death’s clawing shadows against my skin. The room is silent. The kind that is too heavy. Fear’s place has been replaced with Greif, kneeling at the woman’s bedside, and there are only a few remaining medical staff in the room. The woman is holding the cold child in her arms, tears streaming down her face and I look around. Death has slipped away though some of him clings to the doorway and the sheets. The shadows will be here for a while. Time stands by the window gripping his silver pocket watch, and for a moment I don’t quite know why he stays, but then I realize the child will have to be taken. Eventually. Soon.

For now, I look away and embrace the two bodies in the bed competing with Greif for dominance, though I know it is not a battle I will win for a while. In some realm, the bridge between the two souls still exists, and I focus on that until the tiny vessel is gone and long after.

…

I trickle back into my human form slowly. I know it could not have been long here by the state of the sun outside, but a cosmic amount of moments have passed where I have been. 

The woman beside me is asleep and Grief nowhere to be found for the moment. I sigh crawling out of the tangled sheets. I kiss the woman’s forehead making sure to leave enough of myself behind for when she awakens. I brush off one of Death’s shadows that clings to my skirt and step out of the room into the simultaneously too bright and yet dim hallway. 

Somehow I slip from quiet gaze to gaze, infusing them with silent tenderness until I am in front of a large window in front of the hospital’s tiny courtyard. I find myself moving with the pen strokes of a young man as he sketches the scene. I make sure to fill every petal a little more before materializing soundlessly on the bench beside him, though of course, he does not notice me. Too inexperienced and too focused on what is right in front of him. I swallow hard taking in his bald head peeking out from beneath a beanie and IV tubes, wondering if he will ever live to know what I can be. I run my fingers across the intricate and rough lines of his page before glancing away my thoughts turning back to the moment I just departed. 

“Does it ever– Will she–” I can’t bear to look at him though I know he is there. 

Time sighs. “Love, you know I can’t–”

“No,” I mean to scoff but it comes out mirthless. “Of course not.”

I feel a hand on my shoulder. 

“You have to trust Fate.”

His words are met with silence and a beat or two passes before he continues. 

“With us, she will get better.”

With Time and Love, as they claim. She will heal. But how fast? Even that is not up to Time, only to her. I exhale deeply and lay my face in my hands, letting my shoulders sag, exhausted. I’ve only been here a while but have had more than my share of interacting with a crowd. There is still so much of today left. And tomorrow. And the endlessness that remains after that. 

Warm and heavy fingers lightly trail through my hair and I bite back tears.  

“Come, Love,” Time murmurs. “You are needed elsewhere.” I look up at him slowly. “She will need some time with Grief, alone, and you will remain with her where it matters. Always.” 

I search his gaze trying to sift through all the truth and unintentionally broken promises that lay there. 

“Always,” I agree.

Time extends an ageless palm and we sit there, this offer between us, for a moment, before I take it and stand. He does not let go and neither do I. Gently I lay my forehead against his chest and he pauses. The moments seem to turn to molasses, dripping by thickly and leisurely. An arm wraps around me and I inhale the scent of the past and new beginnings and eternity and possibility. 

“There are still good things, Love. You are the good things. Do not let yourself forget.”

An echo of advice I had whispered to him all those years ago before he had retreated into himself too far to be reached.

“I know,” I promise, pulling away. 

He nods stiffly as I place distance between us. The seconds turn less viscous once again. 

“I will see you soon,” He says, and I do not think I could doubt him if I wanted to. 

“I’m sure you will,” I relent, watching him go. He does not turn back. Time never does. So I breathe deep and make my way down the opposite hall dissipating into my shapeless form.

I make sure to linger a little longer in all the softer places, seeking solace in the quiet spaces between palms clasped together, and the hush of falling of tears. I slip in between the where worn lips meet flush pink skin for the first time and thread myself through more embraces than I can count. 

It will be a while before I piece myself into something tangible again, but for now I let myself rest in the soundless moments that bring will soon bring me back to life.