Time

The kitchen was lit by a single bulb underneath the range hood. The clock on the stove below displayed the time in a lonely, green liquid crystal font. It was 2:37 a.m. The open kitchen window let in a cool breeze and the summery song of crickets chirping while the tick of the clock above the doorway gently kept time.

Pamela sat at her kitchen table with an untouched cup of peppermint tea sitting in front of her. She wished she had taken her mother’s offer to stay at her house for the night. “Thank you but I just want to be at home.” Pamela had said. 

“OK but if you change your mind just call and I’ll come get you. I love you.” her mother responded. It was then that they hugged and her mother began to cry with her head resting on Pam’s shoulder. Tears welled in Pamela’s eyes but she had felt too numb to cry. 

Pam stared at the phone hanging on the kitchen wall and contemplated calling her mother to come and get her but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. Her mother was 58 and already didn’t like to drive, especially at night. Having just survived a fatal car accident, Pamela wasn’t exactly looking forward to riding in a car any time soon.

The day's events played torturously over and over in her mind’s eye. When she went to get into bed, she couldn’t even pull back the covers; she couldn’t bear to without Deb there. When she laid down on the couch and closed her eyes, it was like she was there, reliving every horrifying moment again and again.

The day had started normally enough. Pam and Deb woke up and ate breakfast. They planned on going to the beach but decided to go shopping when they saw the rain. They were on the bypass on their way to the mall when the semi in front of them hydroplaned and lost control. The accident involved two other cars, a young couple in one and a middle-aged man in the other. All three were dead. Deb had been driving their small sedan and was killed instantly. Pamela walked away unscathed, a fact the doctors reluctantly agreed with after a battery of tests.

It was surreal to be sitting at her kitchen table in silence after a day like that. It was like the first time encountering eerie quiet after a loud concert. She couldn’t think of anything to do so it seemed her fate for the night was to sit at the kitchen table in that silence, hoping that the rising sun would bring comfort.

Pamela knew deep down, however, that it would not. It would only bring more grief and heartache. There were phone calls to make and a funeral to plan. What really worried her though, was that the start of a new day would solidify the knowledge that Deb wasn’t there. Pam couldn’t shake the feeling that Deb would come walking through the door at any moment and they would embrace and the whole thing would seem like a cruel joke. 

She realized she was listening for the twist of the door knob and the creak of the front door and that realization made her eyes well and her throat burn. She turned her attention back to the phone. I can’t sit here all night. she thought. She looked at the clock on the stove again. 2:37. She was confused. Surely some time had passed. It was then she noticed that the clock had stopped ticking too, the hands stuck at 2:37. The crickets were no longer singing and not even the breeze blew through the window. Am I dreaming? she wondered. 

She got up from the table and stood under a vast, starry night sky. The depth of the space above her was astonishing. It looked like those photos you saw in nature magazines that photographers would travel to the remote corners of the earth to capture, but it was somehow more vivid. 

She realized her feet were wet. She looked down and was surprised to find herself in a long, white dressing gown, standing ankle deep in perfectly still water. It reflected the sky above her like a flawless mirror. She stared into the horizon and it seemed to stretch on forever in every direction. 

As she stared in wonderment at the beauty around her, a calm came over her. “Where am I?” she said out loud. The sound of her own voice seemed startlingly loud against the silence.

On the periphery of her version she noticed a dark figure like a living shadow standing a small distance away from her. “Hey!” she said, turning to confront it. It was gone. She stood puzzled for a moment before she noticed it again on the edge of her vision. She turned again. Nothing. “I have to be dreaming.” she said. Somehow she knew she was not.

“Hello Pamela.” a voice said. It sounded like millions of voices speaking in unison. 

“Who are you?” she asked. She could feel that the shadow was standing close behind her.

“I have gone by many names throughout the history of all of the universes in the cosmos. On Earth, I have been called Kronos, Kala, Death, the Grim Reaper. However, I am merely Time. Some have called me Father Time which I find amusing since I have no sex, no gender. I am just Time.” the voice(s) replied.

“I don’t understand.” Pam answered, trying again to see the figure.

“I am one of two cosmic beings, the other being Space. Together, we make up the fabric of the infinite universes. Space provides places for a being like yourself to reside and I provide time for you to move through that space.” Time replied.

“Being?” Pam asked. 

“Some on Earth might refer to beings as souls. When a being’s time in a realm is complete, I usher them into the next realm.” Time said.

“So you are just the Grim Reaper.” Pam said. “When we die, you come and fetch our souls and take us to the afterlife. Heaven or Hell.”

“Heaven and Hell are Christian concepts,” Time responded. “although, there are realms resembling those hypothetical places. It is my responsibility to usher you from one of the infinite realms to another. There are infinite beings existing in infinite universes and when their time in that universe is up, I provide them passage to the next.” 

Pam thought of Deb. “So how do you decide when it is somebody’s time to move on to another realm?” Pam asked, her voice shaking slightly.

“There is no decision.” Time replied. “At any given moment, it is either the end of a being’s time in a particular realm, or it is not.”

“So Hinduism is the true religion. Like reincarnation and infinite universes.” Pam said.

“There is some truth in all human religion. Humans are amusingly concerned with finding the answers to the questions of the cosmos.” Time replied. “Once your time in a realm is complete, you are brought to another. However, nothing you do in a realm changes where you go next, what shape you take or how long you will exist there before you move on.”

Pam felt insignificant. She felt as if her life didn’t matter, or Deb’s life, or her mother’s or anyone’s. She felt like her sadness meant nothing. That feeling made Deb’s death and the grief Pam felt for her even worse.

 “So what you’re saying,” Pam said with rising anger, “is that nothing matters. A person’s actions mean nothing. Love means nothing. We can be as kind or cruel as we want and it doesn’t matter.” She turned again to face Time but found she couldn’t. The shadowy figure continued to live in her peripheral vision. 

“Your actions in a realm matter a great deal.” Time replied. “Every feeling a being can experience exists on a scale of pleasure and pain. A being’s purpose is to explore this scale an infinite number of times in an infinite number of realms forever. Your actions between one another informs the experience of other beings and yours while existing in a particular realm. Every seemingly small moment in time colours a being’s experience in some way.”

“So what about fate? Are some people destined to suffer with health issues or poverty? What about people that live beautiful, long lives with their loved ones, or people who are gifted with talent regular people dream of? How is that decided?” Pam asked, the coals of anger still glowing in her chest.

“Nothing is decided. There is but one fate; you will cease to exist in your current realm and begin to exist in another. A being experiences pleasure and pain in a realm and that is it. Someone who suffers a great deal in your universe may experience immense pleasure in the next. The poor, sick, hungry and oppressed in one realm may be revered as Gods once they enter another realm.” 

“What do these other realms look like?” Pam asked.

“As a human, you cannot understand what a vastly different realm might be like. Some resemble this realm a great deal and some do not. The only way for you to see a realm is to live a life in one.” Time said.

Pam thought she understood. “So what do you want with me? Why are you telling me all of this? Why am I here?” She asked.

“You are a unique case, Pamela. I have ushered countless beings into countless realms but for some reason neither I nor Space can figure out, you seem to be stuck. Some might call you immortal.” Time replied.

“So I was supposed to die a long time ago but I can’t?” Pam asked.

“Exactly.” Time replied.

“Well what the fuck does that mean?” Pam asked.

“You were supposed to pass into the next realm when you were nine. You were drowning and I came for you. But I could not take you and it was no longer your time. So you continued to live. But I ‘kept an eye on you’ as a human might say.” Time said. Pam remembered her near drowning like it was yesterday. An undercurrent had begun to sweep her way. Her uncle dove in after her and somehow managed to pull her to shore. Pam’s father performed CPR on her and brought her back. The memory chilled her and the thought of her and Deb never really being meant to meet settled heavily in her chest.

“When else?” Pam asked.

“Other times have not been so dramatic as that.” Time replied. "Whenever it was your time to move on and I came to get you, I could not.”

“My stroke?” Pam asked. She had suffered a freak stroke at the age of 20 (also before she had ever even met Deb) but managed to make a full recovery. She still, even at 35, made a biannual trip to her Doctor to ensure she wouldn’t suffer another.

“Yes. And I found that I could not take you even then.” Time replied.

Pam looked at her feet. “What about yesterday? What about Deb?” she asked. 

“Yes, you were supposed to die yesterday. And when I came for you I found I again could not take you.

Pam thought that she might burst. “So you took Deb instead? Fuck you! I want her back! Give her back to me!” she cried with a shaky voice. She felt hot tears rolling down her cheek. 

“I did not take Deborah in your place.” Time said. “It was her time to move onto another realm.” 

Pam sighed and her breath shuddered. She wiped the tears from her face. “What do you want from me?” she asked.

“I have come to offer you a choice.” Time said. “Since I cannot take you, I give you the option to leave this realm for the next.” 

“Couldn’t I just end my own life?” Pam whispered.

“If you attempted suicide, it is likely that I still could not take you; and successful or not, it would cause you and your loved ones great pain. If you choose to go with me, you will simply begin to exist in another realm.” Time said.

“What happens to my body?” Pam asked.

“Your body would be found in your bed. There are a great number of reasons that would explain why you died in the night.” Time replied.

“Why do I get a choice?” Pam asked, trying again to view the shadow head on.

“You get a choice because I do not know what would happen if I could never bring you to the next realm. You are human and therefore must die. If you never die, you will grow older and older and older. It is unlikely but possible that your immortality in this realm could unravel the fabric of this universe. Space nor I know what the implications could be.” Time said.

Pam thought for a moment. “Hang on. Something doesn’t add up. If you can’t take me, how can you offer me the choice to go? What if I say yes and I still can’t go?” She asked.

“Truthfully, We do not know if this will work.” Time replied. Pam could almost sense defeat in the normally toneless voice. “The only way to find out if it will work is to try.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Pam asked. “Then what? Are you going to drop me here and leave me for eternity?”

“You are the first being to ever travel to this void. We took a risk even bringing you here. Time does not pass here and it does not occupy any real space. Leaving you here could cause exponentially worse problems than letting you live forever on Earth. We do not know.”

Pam sensed their desperation. The two beings with absolute cosmic power are at a loss because they don’t know what to do with her. It made her blood run cold. Why her?

 “I have one more question. What about soulmates? Are there beings that are meant to be together?” Pam asked. She tried to hide the hopefulness in her voice.

“No.” Time said. Pam sucked in a small, shuddery breath and held it. “But in a lifetime, beings can have a profound effect on each other. And it is possible for them to meet in another realm many millions or trillions of lifetimes later and that bond remains even though neither has any memory of it. It is rare but it happens, like two aces in a deck of cards reuniting after countless shuffles.”

Pam’s eyes welled. Maybe her and Deb had spent a thousand lifetimes together and maybe they could be reunited in a sense.

“If I say yes, can you send me to the realm that Deb went to?” She asked, fighting tears.

“Normally a being goes to a random realm, there is no decision or plan. But for you, Pamela, I would make an exception. I can send you to the same realm but I cannot guarantee that you would be reunited. I have no control over what happens in a realm, I only provide time and passage.”

Pam began to cry softly. She would never know if she found Deb in another life, but the thought of their souls (beings) having a chance to be reunited brought her comfort.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and got her breath under control. “Do I have to leave right now?” she asked in a choked whisper.

She thought she could hear a smile in Time’s voice. “Of course not. If you wish to move on right now, I will guide you to the next realm. However, if you choose to think about it, I will send you back to Earth. You will wake up in your bed and on your nightstand there will be an hourglass. Once you, and only you, flip the hourglass and a single grain of sand falls, I will bring you back here to hear your decision.” Pam studied the reflection of the vast sky in the water. “This offer has no expiration. You can remain on Earth as long as you like. Pamela, we are at your mercy.” Time said. 

Pam thought about Deb, and her mother and her friends and her life on Earth. She couldn’t just leave. “I would like some time to think about it.” She said.

“As you wish.” Time replied. Pam felt the shadow envelope her. It was unknowably cold. Absolute zero.

*  *  *

Pam was pulled gently from sleep when she felt the warmth of the sun streaming through the window. She was facing Deb’s side of the bed. Empty. She felt tears in her eyes and sucked in a shuddery breath. Deb really was gone. While her eyes were closed, she hoped that the last 24 hours had been a horrific nightmare— a scary dream to tell Deb so that she would pull Pam close and tell her it was over and that it was just a dream. But the sun only shone on the empty space where Deb used to sleep.

She rolled over to face her nightstand. Her alarm clock read 8:23 a.m. Then she saw it. Her eyes widened and she sat bolt upright. There on the nightstand was a beautiful hourglass with a dark wooden frame. She swung her legs out of bed and grabbed the hourglass, inspecting it closely, careful not to disturb the sand. For the first time ever, a being truly held their fate in their hand.

**If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact your local mental health center or hotline**