Time Travel

“Do you believe in time travel?” Marty cradled his wake-up cup of coffee across from her at the kitchen counter.

Forty-five years together had fused them into a sounding board as familiar and as comfortable as their own consciences. Louise was comfortable and familiar as well in her silk robe and loosely tied hair, half undone and trailing across slim shoulders. Her features had aged, but her soul remained that of the girl he fell in love with.

“Time travel. You mean like a time machine?”

“No. More subtle. I don’t normally remember dreams. But lately, every few days, I wake up remembering a vivid memory. They don’t seem to have a particular meaning, but they leave me feeling raw and emotional.”

“You, Marty? The manly man?” she kidded. But a look of concern accompanied her laugh.

“Yeah. I guess I need a testosterone transplant.” In his morning attire of baggy boxer shorts and old T shirt defining a beer gut, manliness was a timely subject. “But, really, it’s disturbing and beautiful at the same time. And it takes me awhile after I wake up to remember where I am and how old I am now, as though I’m still the me in the dream.  I don’t know what it all means.”

“What sort of dreams have you had?”

He considered for a moment. The first one that came to mind was about making love on a blanket under the stars with a girl he’d met hitchhiking. He decided to skip that one, even though it was a time before he met his wife.

“Sometimes I’m still a kid,” he said. “My brother and I are riding bikes, or I’m helping build a tower in Boy Scouts. Other times, I’m a father already.

“Today’s was one of the most intense,” he said. “I was with my mom at the lake house, and she was holding Deena when she was a baby. Mom didn’t say anything, but had a smile like the Madonna in a painting. It must have been only days before Mom died.

“I woke up crying. I’m a sentimental goof.”

Taking a sip of coffee, he paused a moment to shake off the memory of the memory. He looked up at Louise to find her peering into his eyes, connecting to his heart and mind. Feeling calmed, he went on.

“Sunday, I think it was, I woke up in the middle of a fishing trip with my dad. Just me and him. I was maybe 15, begging a sip of Schlitz now and then from the Old Man as we fished with minnows off a rockpile on the far side of the lake. Suddenly the tip of my rod bent almost to the water. Must’ve been hit by a big Northern Pike, and the fish took off running like a purple-assed baboon.

“ ‘Don’t horse him,’ Dad yelled. I didn’t want to disappoint him. I set the hook and started reeling evenly, keeping the tip of the rod up, bringing that fish closer to the boat. I glanced at Dad. His face was as clear to me as when he was alive. His expression said, ‘I’m proud of you son.’ That was another one that left me emotional. I tend to focus more on the times he chewed me out and forget moments like those.”

Louise looked at Marty with empathy and worry. It wasn’t like her husband to wallow in nostalgia. He was one to live in the moment. He was always level-headed, a good provider, a loyal and loving husband. He was her rock. His vulnerability now surprised her.

He picked up on her concern.

“The dreams aren’t all sad. Some leave me smiling,” he said. “In one, I’m in my early 30s. Deena was maybe 5, and sitting on the back of the couch next to me. She was putting my hair in pink barrettes and singing something about an elephant. Terry was laying on his back on the other side of me, legs up the back of the couch. He had his catcher’s mitt and was peppering me with questions about how to oil and cure the glove. It was a whole lot of nothing and a whole lot of everything at the same time.”

“That’s sweet,” Louise said.

“But what does it all mean? Do you get dreams like that?”

“No. Not really. Some have people I love, but they don’t seem to be specific events. I can’t make sense of any of them.”

“The time travel aspect leaves me wondering if I’m not living in several moments at once, time being relative and all,” Marty said. “Maybe there are alternate universes where I exist in different ages. I’m 70 years old here, but I might be starting kindergarten somewhere else. And I wonder sometimes if all this has something to do with death.

“I’m getting pretty long in the tooth and think a lot about the trail’s end these days,” he said, mixing metaphors shamelessly. “If your life flashes before your eyes when you are about to die, maybe the flashes are all relative, and can dribble out over months before the big event. Maybe it’s a prompt to get my affairs in order, tie up loose ends. Maybe it’s a preview of what’s to come, that we continue to live in snippets of life instead of a continuum.”

“Stop talking about death, Marty. You have a lot of good years left. We have more memories to make.” She paused a moment and offered: “Maybe your dreams are a way to stay grateful for what you have, and for what has made you happy. Am I in any of your dreams?”

“Oh yeah. A lot. I had one the other day about our first kiss. We were so young. So alive. So open to discovery, to the untraveled path, to the promise of tomorrow. Life was such an adventure. You were so beautiful. We had all the time in the world.

“We were hiking a trail in the Green Mountains with friends,” he recalled. “You and I weren’t a We yet, naturally. You sat down on a log. I sat next to you, resting while the others passed by. You pointed out a plant you said was a wild orchid. You’ve always loved plants. Without thinking, I leaned over and kissed you, sort of a mini-kiss. You looked at me, puzzled, amused. You leaned back to me for a longer version, a meeting of the lips that felt like a fit from eternity.”

“Yeah. I remember that. I had been wondering when you might get around to making your move.”

“I’ve been replaying that ever since. What’s the meaning of it? Was that some sort of turning point in life? Was it, in fact, an eternal moment of some sort, not conforming to the progression of time? A defiance of death as the end of it all? Or was it just a kiss?”

“Maybe you’re overthinking all this,” she said. “Just enjoy the memories.” She put down her coffee cup, rose from her stool and walked to his side of the counter.

“Show me again that eternal kiss,” she said. “We have all the time in the world.”