When Time is a Girl

      Time is a girl. Did you know that?

           She’s a young girl but not in the way you’re probably thinking. For one to be considered old, time needs to have passed. Of course, to say she is young is to say only a little time has passed which doesn’t fit her either. Needless to say, I’m still figuring her out and I’ve spent a lot of time with her.

           I say she is young because of how she behaves and how I found myself behaving with her. She lacks the seriousness one might imagine Time Incarnate having. I certainly held imaginings of Time being the right hand of God himself; a stern servant with only the Almighty above him. Averill is not like that. Oh? Did I not mention her name before? I’m sorry. My mind becomes taxed when describing her and I easily overlook things.

           I say Averill is young because she is playful and strangely absent-minded. During many of our conversations, she would suddenly stop and a most endearing state of confusion would cross her face, meaning she had lost her train of thought. A flirtatious tease from me would elicit a scowl but always help her find the rails again. Though each time that happened, a twinkle would shine in her opal colored eyes and the slightest of smiles would cross her face.

           My guess is she is hiding some infinitely wonderful secret, as such a thing she could certainly have, and her curious behaviors are her way of leading me to it.

I met her the day I finished my novel series. (What’s it about? The girl who got away of course. Nothing less could have forced me to write so much. I hate writing.) 

Finishing my books was only the first of the planets that aligned that day. It was also 1 year to the day that I started writing, and 1 year to the day that Jayne (the girl) got engaged. It was also Christmas Day. I had pulled an all-nighter to finish book 3, sitting on the floor of my bedroom with my PC’s keyboard on my lap. (I was home from school at the time.)

The bitterness of what had happened last year as fresh as a paper cut in my mind. On that day, I’d seen the ring on her hand on her FB. I know I should not have been looking at it. In my defense, I was on pain meds from recent wrist surgery. People do foolish things when in pain. All my extended family was over for Christmas dinner but I walked out the front door and didn’t come back for hours.  This year I didn’t walk out but I did collapse inward.

Both of my brothers are married and both of their wives are named Jayne— a cruel coincidence. To mark those girl’s gifts, as well as tell my sisters-in-law apart, a system had evolved and it added their husband's name before theirs. So throughout the entire evening a constant barrage of “Trevor’s Jayne” and “Brian’s Jayne” shot around the living room. The words might as well have been ricocheting bullets. Each time my ears were forced to register one or the other a stinging unavoidable question would follow. “Where is Patrick’s Jayne?” 

I silently endure as best I could on my own corner of a couch. I even re-wrap a chocolate bar I had been given and scribbled “To Patrick’s Jayne” on it. The next time it was my turn to choose a gift, I quietly slipped my never-to-be-opened-present under the tree. A few seconds later another “Jayne” struck my ears. I could not bear to hear her named again and shouted at the top of my lungs “Stop! please stop saying her name!”  

I ran for it. Back to my room.

In such a moment of emptiness she came to me, Time that is. Surprise did not make my heart jump nor did I take notice in any dramatic way. My head turned toward her and a few tears clouded my sight. I did not want company in such a moment, regardless of who it was. I suppose I felt glad someone stood in the room with me, it was proof I had not yet dissolved into the air. She glided to my side and knelt next to me.

“Stand up Patrick,” she said.  “It is not fitting for a heart such as yours to sit in ashes.”

“Can a heap of ashes stand? I have no place in this world and no heart left to even be burned,” I answered.

“Such a thing is true. I have seen every tear your heart has bled. Such a display of human power is rare.”

“Power? Such a thing does not exist in me. I have exhausted myself and now sit here empty and soulless.”

“Are you not a man? Such a high position defines you as powerful. You cannot undo your title should you wish it. I have seen you build an entire world with your will alone. What greater example of power do you require? The only two beings with the authority to bring into existence something new are mankind and God himself.”

At this point, I had discarded her. She was a dream or hallucination. My meager collections of words hardly amount to God-like creation.

She sat as only a woman can in front of me, knees forward and feet curled back on the ground. She was quiet for some time and appeared to be studying me intently.

“I see words cannot convince you of such a thing. We shall come back to that idea for it will be imperative you believe it. I also see you doubt even my presence here; the world truly has become shades and a half-seen reflection to you hasn’t it? I am Averill and what you asked I am here to give you.”

Feeling a bit exasperated with this trickery of my mind I gave a long sigh but played along.

“What is it that I am to have asked for?”

“Time of course. Book 1 chapter 11 page 111. You asked me for it during the dream you had in Thieves forest. Surely you remember?”

Now I was certain this was a dream. Random facts of my story were always bouncing around in my head. Besides, God would not grant me such a gift even if I had prayed for it.

I’m sure Averill sensed my doubt as she did not press further with words but took my hand and pulled me to my feet.

“To be giving control of time you must first be outside of it,” she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Now step with me.”

I wearily let my foot lift and swing forward. As it did, a most unsettling realization surged into me. This was not a dream. I speak so matter-of-factly because of how that step felt. In this physical three-dimensional world, the phrase “He moved away from” will always include some object of reference. Bed, table, stairs, etc. In every one of those cases, it can also be said that the person moved toward something else. I knew I was not in a dream because when I took that step with Averill, I knew in a fundamental way I had just stepped away from everything and toward nothing. I had step outside of time.

Now is where things will get tricky to recount to you. My foot never landed on anything and what I perceived took on a completely new form. I intentionally say “perceived” and not “Saw” because the world I now inhabited did not come to me through my eyes. The best way I’ve found to describe it would be to say every point on my body now functioned as an eye. I perceived the state I was in so completely that the idea of turning around or looking in a different direction become nonsensical. Everything I perceive had a similarity to the sky well after dusk. A deep purple/black color punctuated with star-like bits of light. Yet it was by no means dim or hard to see.

For lack of a vocabulary to describe such a realm I will use terms that imply direction, distance, and a limited range of sight for me. Just know the reality was far more wonderful.

Averill stood in front of me and had quiet the amused look on her face. I assumed my expression must have been rather comical for her. She fought outright laughter but a few snorts found their way out.

“I am so sorry Patrick; I promise I had intentions to ease you into this but you ruined my nicely rehearsed speech when you didn’t play along when I spoke of the world you created. But do not think of self-reproach, looking into your eyes a few moments ago made me understand why.”

I must have given some reply as she smiled at me and drew in a breath to speak more.

“In case you have forgotten I am Time. You may call me Averill. Where we are now cannot be fully comprehended by those created so do not stress yourself attempting too. But feel free to ask anything of me. I will answer fully.”

Her admonition to not to stress was unneeded. All negative feelings were strangely absent despite my foreign surroundings and state of depression. In anxiety’s place, I felt a pure absolute stillness, it was glorious.

“So you are the one who controls time?” I asked. “I always assumed that power belonged to God. If that’s true how does that affect his sovereignty?”

Averill giggled as if I had said something endearingly naive. 

“Forgive me Patrick I do not laugh at you. I often forget how your kind thinks and the difficulties of understanding me. I do not “control” time as you say. Nor am I equivalent to a goddess of time. When I say I am time I mean just that. You would not say you are the one who controls Patrick or has the authority to command Patrick as if Patrick were some force. You are you.”

I nodded along. Not understanding but not needing to.

 “The only other question I have is why come to me? My pitiful problems and sadness surely are nothing unique.”

“You are correct to say your suffering is not so horrendous in all of the human history that my hand was moved to end it. I am not here to do such a thing nor is your pain why I am here. God has chosen to act in this direct way. He is why I am here.”

Such a statement bounced off me at first. I had faith in God and believed he could act in distinct ways as he did with the Prophets and Christ, but all that was in the past. He never showed himself so plainly to mankind anymore, right? Frankly, I assumed he had lost interest in people. Yet in such a place, looking right at Time herself, my disbelief could not survive. 

“So has he chosen me as a messenger? Are the end times about to begin?” I said much faster than I thought.

Again, Averill smiled as if amused by my continued confusion.

“No dear man no. God can do simple things too, things that affect only a single being. That is what is happening now. As Job was described as being blameless and upright before the LORD so are you. This is a gift and God loves to give.”

Oddly enough those words were enough to convince me and I had no more questions. Averill seemed to read this in my eyes and lifted her slender hand to point. Her single finger guided my sight to what appeared like a cloud of transparent vapor, about the size of a room and no higher than I stood.

“That is your world. Step into it and you will step back towards all that is created. You have no task once you return. Do as your heart leads. But I do say this, ‘of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.’ Every second of what has been is yours to explore, but refrain from the future as that day of return is for the Father only. I shall see you again dear man.”

Averill embraced me and her lips blessed my head. The warm touch of her hand slid off my shoulders as I stepped. Entering the cloud brought the same strangeness I felt stepping away from everything but now the opposite. All of creation came towards me at once.

My motion brought me back to my bedroom and it felt as if I had never left. I still sat on the floor in front of my messily assembled computer. I expected Averill to fade to the limits of my memory like a dream. She did not. Each word she spoke rang clear in my mind. Every bit of that pure stillness being outside of time continued to surround me.

That stillness shattered when I went back downstairs and ran into my father. He is the type that would run someone off the road if they made him miss a green light.

I did not fully intend to invoke Averill at that moment but enough of me did and time ceased to move. Bits of that dark dusk-like sky I had been surrounded by when outside of time crept in at the edges of the room. The walls, floor, and ceiling of my house took on a slightly transparent look, and through them, I saw that cloud of vapor. Only this time I remained within it. In the air were little wavy distortions (a huge cone of them was shooting from my father’s face) and I quickly realized they were sounds.

Strangely enough, I could “read” them and knew what word they would make should one reach my ear. My father’s words were “What is…” but all around me was something worse. I could see the name “Jayne” in the air everywhere. Depleted versions of it spoken minutes ago. Few were strong enough to hear again but like phantom wasps, they were everywhere.

Heaving sobs racked my chest just like they had a year before when I first saw that horribly beautiful diamond on Jayne’s finger. My mind swirled with pain and spontaneously took me to a time where only desert existed in Arizona, and when my second favorite sound boomed in the thunderclouds overhead.  

“There truly is magic in the rain,” I whispered to myself.

The inclination that followed was to bring myself back to the time Jayne and I watched a thunderstorm roll in and hear my favorite sound say those words again. My will nearly gave the command but I stopped myself.  

100,000 years later, after doing everything there was to do. After learning every langue, every martial art, earning every degree, seeing every country, walking on the moon, speaking to every historical figure from Christ to Hitler to Helen of Troy my journey through time ended with me sitting on top of the Theater building at my old school.  Below me, a piece of my past played on a loop: the day I met Jayne. She and her friends were just walking back onto campus and in a few moments my past self would come by on my bike. I’d pass the group but Jayne would then call out to me and I’d turn around.  It would start to rain after that and she’d say her magical line.   

Time is a girl. Did you forget that?

“Why do you stay in this time?” She asked

“Because I’ve been everywhere else and found it empty. And you said I could not go into the future and learn of the day only Father may know,” I snapped.

           Averill didn’t scold me as I expected. She caressed my head that now hung between my knees.

“When I first came to you, I said you had power in you. A power I saw you use to create an entire world with. You did not receive my words at that time but I promised you we would revisit that topic. Now is that time. So I ask again, why do you stay in this time?”

           I could see the sadness on Averill’s face now. Like she had some grand secret to tell me but would not spell it out. She would only lead me to it, yet I was not following well. A book pressed into my hands, seemed to be her next tactic. The cover read Time’s Will.

           “So when you say, Why do I stay in this time, you don’t mean go to a past time but go to another time. The time inside this?”

           Now Averill smiled.

“Yes, dear man.  My power will return to me now. You shall retain all the knowledge you have gained and tomorrow I will send you to this other time.”

A kiss on my head brought me back to my Arizona bedroom and the computer that cluttered the floor.

Why have I told you all this? It is a fair question and has two answers. The first is to write a final act for Jayne. To tell all who read this that her magic saved my life. And to make clear I truly have searched the ends of this earth and found none like her. The other is because Averill sent me back to my bedroom several hours ago. I do not know what will happen tomorrow or what will await me in that other time. Should I live through it, I will come back and tell you how it all ends.