A Glimpse of Time

“I wish we could stay here forever,” Gabriel said as he sat straddling Callie on her twin bed, his face hovering no more than a couple of centimeters above hers. He peered into her eyes with a sultry look. 

“And you promise to write every day?” she asked, looking for a sense of security. 

 “I promise,” Gabriel swore as he pressed his lips into hers, and she sank into the kiss with a savoring desire, knowing deep down what would really happen. In two days, Gabriel would leave for boot camp, and when he graduated, he would be stationed states away. Callie would start college in the fall, and by Christmas, they would be situated in their separate lives, making their names in two different worlds. When it comes down to it, their ending will be terrible, and it will take Callie years before she can look back at their memories with a bittersweet feeling.  Callie had already seen it all happen.   

It had come into view like a dream. 

Callie had just fallen into a deep slumber, with an exhausted mind worn thin from staring at her SAT study guides for hours on end. Callie had always been a vivid dreamer, and no one fantasized about the future like she did. She was top of her class with a perfect four-point grade average; she had opportunities piling up at her doorstep. She knew what she wanted, and she wanted it so deeply. Life had always seemed like an instruction manual. She would attend an Ivy League school near the East Coast, spend her summers and holidays on the Air Force base with Gabriel, and then when she graduated, they would get married. They would find a house, and she would find work as a journalist for online magazines, maybe a local news outlet, or even just work as a freelancer until one of her pieces made it big. All she knew was that no matter what, she would be successful and have Gabriel by her side just as she had since they met in the eighth grade. This seemed for certain. As an only child with a single parent she had minimal conversations with, Gabriel was the closest thing to belonging to a family that she ever felt. He was her safety.  Then, in the midst of her slumber on one peculiar night, all of her became disturbed by what she believed to now be the inevitable.  

It started with a slightly older version of herself cozily wrapped in a Yale sweatshirt strolling down the street before stopping in front of a wall of mailboxes. She watched herself eagerly dig into the metal box, pulling out a stack of envelopes and quickly flipping through until she arrived at one addressed from Gabriel in his familiar chicken scratch. She tore it open impatiently and read it as she walked back to her dorm smiling ear to ear.  Then the dream cut to a snippet of her at Gabriel's graduation from boot camp. She smiled, standing tall beside his mother in a purple floral sundress. She perched herself onto her tiptoes, peering over the crowd of families being reunited with their sons, dads hugging them with a firm pat on the back, and moms crying profusely. Suddenly, she posts him, and as they make eye contact, she lurches through the crowd towards him, diving straight into his arms as he picks her up and twirls her around.   

These moments resembled her best daydreams, but something about the way they were unfolding in her mind was different. It did not feel hazy or feverish as most dreams tend to. She was not disconnectedly moving through random pictures in her mind. It was as if Callie was peeking through a window of time, watching her future unfold. As each moment played, all the emotions moved through her as if she were really in them, and for a moment, it gave her a sense of comfort to see that it was all going according to plan. Until the next moment that played felt eerily strange and out of character.  

This time, Callie sat leaning on her desk in her dorm with her cell phone glued to her ear. Her eyes looked puffy and bloodshot. After a moment, Callie realized that she was crying, and a sense of dread began to kick its feet in her stomach. She wanted to peel her eyes away, but it was as if she lived in the moment too and could not leave, even if she were only a visitor, invisible to the present.

 “I just don’t understand. I already bought your plane ticket.” Callie’s voice cracked and trembled as she spoke into the phone. From the other end Gabriel's voice chimed through clear. Callie could hear both sides of the conversation clearly. 

“I told you. Now just isn’t a good time. What about that is so hard to understand?” Gabe's voice became cold and angry. It was a side of Gabriel Callie had yet to witness in her life, but it made her whole-body shutter.  

“I’ve got to go. Talk to you soon,” Gabriel said as he clicked off the phone, and Callie watched herself cry helplessly into her hands.  

The moments quickly became like she was watching a horror movie, desperately trying not to look, wishing she could click it off, but something told her she had to keep watching. She had to know how it ended.  Crying in her door room slowly transitioned to her standing in a sea of people in someone's cramped off-campus college apartment. While Drake's music blares at an obnoxious volume, she waves off clouds of marijuana smoke, stumbling through the kitchen with a red solo cup clutched anxiously in her right palm. She watches herself scoop some red mystery liquid into it from a punch bowl on the counter. Then she throws it back into her throat, gulping it down like it is cough syrup. She is just trying to get it down as quickly as possible to feel better without tasting much of it.  Callie, who has never touched a sip of alcohol in her existence, feels startled by this chaotic and tortured version of herself. She begged for it to not be real, but something in her gut was saying you wish. Suddenly the drunk version of herself is sitting on the dirty tiles of the bathroom floor, the music and laughter from the party muffled on the other side of the door.  She is scrolling through Instagram, but it is another girl's account. Suddenly, she stops at a photo of this girl with her arm wrapped around Gabriel's waist, leaning her head against his shoulder and smiling. The caption reads Date night with the bf followed by a purple heart emoji. Kyla is her name. She pulls her arm over her stomach, clutching at herself as her lips quiver and tears trickle down onto the screen of her phone.  Callie decided she could not take it anymore. Wake up! Wake up right now! Please! Her own words echo inside her mind, begging to be released from watching this monstrosity.  It does not stop. Callie is forced to endure it.  

The next moment leads to her in the Yale library, her nose buried so deeply into Pride and Prejudice that you would think she was trying to be consumed by the book itself. Callie feels herself relax.  This scene looks less daunting and more like her.  Then suddenly, there is a tall figure of a man under a mass of messy black curls, and he is straight lining all the way down the massive rows of bookshelves towards where she is sitting. With his shadow now looming over her, she looks up and is met by a canny grin.

 “You’re so invested in that book; it almost makes me want to read it,” he says as an unexpected smirk unravels across her face.  

“These books are too good for someone like you,” she teases with a kind of wittiness Callie had never known herself to possess. 

“Ooh, that one actually stung this time,” he said, playfully clutching his fist to his chest, pretending to be wounded.  Callie had never seen the man before, but something about him lured her in without hesitation. She was met with a notion that made her feel as if somewhere, at some point in time, she had known him better than she knew herself. A scary familiarity was found in him that she could not name.  

In the next moment, he appears again, but this time, she is sitting with him on a brown leather sofa in a nearly empty apartment she assumes is his. His arm is tucked behind her back, and he repeatedly kisses her forehead like a bird pecking at a piece of wood while she laughs so hard she struggles to form words. 

“Stop it, you weirdo. Who even does this!” she cries out in laughter. Finally, he stops and holds her cheek gently in the palm of his hands, staring down into her.

 “I do, but don’t lie. You love me for it,” he says.

 “Don’t get cocky now.” She played as he kissed her softly. Something about them is warm and comforting. It looks like anything she has ever seen. Every look is as if they are speaking something no one else around them would understand. Every touch and gesture are more genuine than she can describe.  They look like they belong together. Like you could not imagine one being without the other. Callie watches as he pulls away from their long embrace.

 “So, how do you like our new place?” he asks. Before Callie hears her answer, she wakes abruptly with an exasperated gasp. She breathes heavily as she grabs her blanket, trying to slow down her breath and fathom what she just witnessed.  

As much as she wanted to believe it was all just a dream, Callie found herself constantly wondering about the guy from her dream in the days that followed. What is his name? Could her brain really conjure a human with such specific detail that was not real? He felt more real than anything currently did. She found herself wondering with guilt, how soon after Gabriel will I meet him? Suddenly there was an undying anticipation for the mystery man who lived in another time, waiting for her. Then the crushing reality that Gabriel was so temporary began to weigh heavy in her thoughts. Now, every time she was near him, she could not help but feel different. All of a sudden, he started to not look right for her, and when he would whisper so softly, I love you, Cal into her ear, the tenderness in his voice was replaced by the harsh one she had heard over the phone call she had previously witnessed. 

As the months drew on, though, he remained the Gabriel she knew and loved. Then she began to pray it was all some horrendous nightmare. How could this boy she knew inside and out ever be so cold towards her? How could he ever exist apart from her? Maybe it was all wrong, she said. You know it's not; another voice would then say.  

Now, with him sitting over her, on her young and pretty floral sheets, she wonders— why do this? Why put myself through this if I know this will lead to so much pain? Then, as Gabriel pulls out of their embrace, he notices the perplexed look invading her face. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, concerned.  

“Nothing. I just…” Callie pauses and gently grazes her knuckles down the side of his face. He smiles at her sweet gesture. As Callie's knuckles swipe down his face, suddenly, he freezes. His whole face grows still. His limbs are solid and unmovable, like a mannequin. 

“Gabriel?” Callie says, trying to shake him, but cannot force any movement upon him.  All around her the world has gone still. The air is not in motion, and the analog clock upon her wall loses its melodious tick. Time has stopped. Is this a dream again? Callie wonders, her chest tightening as a wave of panic grabs hold of her.  Callie hears the creek of her bedroom door opening, and a woman appears in the entryway of her room. She is dressed in a long black satin gown with platinum blonde curls pinned to her head in a beautiful wavy hairdo.  Her lips are painted ruby red, which stands out bold against her icy pale skin. Callie shoots up out of her bed, crawling out from underneath Gabriel. Before she can do anything rash, the woman begins to speak in a cool smooth tone.

 “Hey there. There is no need to panic. Please sit,” she says, pulling out the chair from Callie’s bedroom desk.  She pats the seat with her hand, and Callie cautiously takes a seat, keeping her eye on the woman's every move.

“Uh huh, there you go, sweet pea.”  

“Who are you?” Callie says in a slightly demanding tone. The woman sighed, looking at Callie with the most sincerity.  

“I saw you, well we saw you,” the woman explained.  

“Who is we?”  

“The time committee. We create the timelines. Don’t get me wrong though, there is a science to it. Each action has an array of outcomes and so on, but I am not here to explain that.  We saw your brain find a ripple, if you will, in time. We are also responsible for those rare cases where someone like you is able to be somewhere she shouldn’t be.”  

“You mean, it was all real?” Callie asked as she felt a lump of dread begin to clog up her throat.  “Everything?”

“Yes, dear, very real. You see, as we have watched, we have noticed that your discovery has caused you quite a bit of disturbance. I’m here to offer to erase what you saw. However, the time committee does stand by free will. So, I will not do anything without your consent,” the woman said proudly. Callie stared at the floor in shock for a moment.  

“But the man? The one I saw in my future; would I still meet him?” Callie asked.  

“Well, that depends; what choices did you make that led to him?” Callie glanced over at Gabriel, still frozen on her bed. The woman smiled.

“Ahh, yes. Him.” 

“Is he a bad idea?” 

“Honey, you're seventeen. Of course he is!” The woman chuckled. She watched as Callie’s face fell with deep confusion.  

“What is it?”  

“He really hurt me. I was so lost. I don’t want to be like that.”  

“Oh, sweet pea,” the woman said gently, lifting Callie's head by her chin to meet her gaze.  

“Listen to me, okay? If you had never seen that timeline, you would love this boy as much as a seventeen-year-old could love any boy. A sweet, blissfully naive love that only a seventeen-year-old girl could have. That love will be gorgeous, but it will also be so painful. That is life, sweet pea. You will grow, break, grow back again. However, regardless of what goes on, I’d hate for you to miss living in the moment because you could not stop worrying about the future. It is much harder once you have already seen it.”  

“Regardless of what happens, would I still meet him? The guy?”  

“Well, under my oath of the time committee, I’m not supposed to give out that info, but I will say this, sweet pea. I see a good ending in almost all your possible timelines. He is in quite a few. However, this love you have right now. This love with Gabriel, even if it is not forever, you can only have it once.”  

Callie momentarily contemplated the woman's words, then took a big deep breath, looked up, and politely said, “Erase it.”  

“Your wish is my command,” said the woman, taking her hand and waving it across Callies' forehead. A light brighter than the sun exploded across the room, blinding Callies' vision for a moment. When everything came back into view, Callie was back in her twin bed, lying underneath Gabriel, with not an ounce of dread to be found.  

“I wish we could stay here forever,” said Gabriel.  

“Me too,” said Callie with a smile.