The Timeless Man

There is a man, a timeless man. He has walked upon every forest and hill, crossed every ocean and sea, traversed through every constellation in the sky, drank the holy water from the rivers of the goddesses, and done so millions of times, for he is timeless. Millions, trillions of leaves had been swept up by the wind to meet him, but he paid them no mind. For the forests with their leaves and the hills and the oceans and the seas, even the stars would forever be there, as they had always been before. His footsteps are forever pressed upon the seafloor, the soft soil, the surface of space, and the roots of the trees. He has tracked the same path since the beginning of time, and time had told that he would forever do so. But time does not always tell. Not correctly, at least. Not long ago, in a land uncomfortably close, the timeless man walked his path. He had never truly encountered, truly understood any other being he had come across in his travels. In fact, he never understood, watching them from afar, how they could be so curious and joyful. For him, there was no novelty. He had traveled the same path since the beginning of time. 

What was there for him to see? He thought. 

Because there was no novelty for him, he couldn’t imagine the feeling of yearning to learn. 

He already knew everything there was to know! He said to himself. 

All of a sudden, in his path across the stars, something unexpected happened, the first unexpected thing to happen to the timeless man, since the beginning of time. 

His path had always been the same, he thought. But today, it felt much longer. 

He crossed the Great Bear and asked her, “Dear mother, I travel the same path forever but today it seems to have changed. Can you tell me why that is?” 

The Great Bear, with the brilliance and wisdom of her ancient seven stars, replied, “Dear son, time has stretched the sky. Much has changed since you last came to visit us.”

The timeless man was perplexed, for he traveled this path through every day and every night. He did not visit, so much as he lived in the skies with The Great Bear. 

“But mother of the sky, I come by you each night. What do you mean?”

The seven glittering stars did not reply. 

So the timeless man continued on his journey and as he traversed the towering glaciers, another wondrous thing happened. The timeless man felt his journey through the poles had become shorter. “Dear sister,” He said to the glacier. “I have traveled the same path since the beginning of the world. Why does it change today?” 

In reply, the wall of ice and snow shifted slightly. “Dear brother, time has melted us away. Much has changed since you last came to visit us.”

Now, the man was even more confused. “But sister, I come and greet you at every dawn. What do you mean?”

She only kept sliding slowly in reply. 

So the timeless man continued his journey through the world until he met his usual path through the forests. Yet another monumental shock was expecting him. On this day, his path felt still shorter. 

“Dear brothers, my sisters and kin, I have traveled this path for my whole life, yet today things seem to change. Please tell me why it has changed today.” 

The trees swayed in reply, shaking their empty branches. “Oh, dear one. Time has burned us down and torn us apart. Our ashes fill the ground you walk on. Much has changed since you last came to visit us.” 

Now, the timeless man was angry. “Friends, oh my loved ones, you have been destroyed. But when? How? I have traveled this path for millennia and it has always been the same!” His tears wet the earth, and the ground was grateful for even the smallest bit of water, as it had been reduced to ash. For the timeless man had never experienced such change before. But for something so drastic to happen, it must have been happening throughout his travels. Did he never notice? Did he never feel stars growing farther apart, or the ice melting or the forests dying? 

“There are no more leaves left to turn over, my friend. But time will heal us. Spring will come again and the fires which pierced us will matter no more.” They sang, their voices brushing against each other's bare branches. 

The timeless man kneeled in the ground and his tears kept on falling, wetting the earth. He felt his sisters, the glaciers. The light of the stars, the great sun, he felt warmly on his back. As he kept on crying, his legs began to feel numb and he looked down. He saw that his torso was slowly hardening and browning, creasing together like bark. As this patterning encased his body, he smiled. Months went by, but as always, they felt like seconds to him. He had become a tree and joined his kin, but he was the only truly living thing to be seen. 

And as his first Spring came, on the young ground fell a new leaf. 

As it fell, the timeless man had finally understood that nothing could truly escape time. Not even himself. The sun and the moon and the forests and the trees smiled down at him, his little bright tree slightly awkward in the midst of tall, thick, and old trees. 

As the years went by his tree began to decay, he grew old, and time began to eat away at him.

He saw the world as it was for possibly the first time, as it changed, as time let it flourish and let it die. 

But he still had time before it was all gone. 

As he grew older, he went on, leaving the trees, and traveled his path, doing everything as he did before. 

But, when a stray leaf was blown his way, when a new star was born, when ecosystems collapsed and regrew, and when the buildings became taller, he noticed, and he felt them alter his path. He let time shape him, and he grew. He let every new thing, every minuscule leaf, make him even more whole. 

And so begins the story of the so-called ‘timeless’ man, who had many chances, many new leaves, but never saw them. But then, one day, when his indifference began to destroy him, he finally saw what he had missed for so long. Instead of letting lost time blind him even more, he let it awaken him. 

Thus goes the story of the timeless man.