The Time-Lost Darlings
Mara found a spot at the ragged bistro table, her fingers following the edge of her espresso mug, daydreaming. The world external hurried by suddenly of individuals and sounds, yet she felt suspended in time. Her look flicked to the entryway as it opened up, and he was right there.
Elliot.
His presence generally felt like a reverberation of something more profound, similar to a memory that wasn’t hers. He grabbed her attention, and a recognizable pull pulled at her chest. Without a word, he strolled over, his means slow yet conscious.
“Mind in the event that I go along with you?” he asked, his voice warm however touched with the heaviness of implicit things.
She gestured, her heart hustling.
“Odd, isn’t it?” Elliot said, sitting down, his eyes examining her face like attempting to put her. “I feel like I know you, however I don’t.”
Mara’s breath hitched, and she turned her look down to her cup, attempting to consistent herself. This wasn’t whenever this first had occurred. She had met him previously, in an alternate city, under various skies. They’d traded chuckling, shared stories, but, each time, they were pulled separated, the association between them cut off like a string being cut.
“You’re not from around here,” Mara said, her voice shaking regardless of her endeavor to sound relaxed.
Elliot’s lips bended into a grin, yet his eyes stayed disturbed. “I move a ton. Haven’t found a spot that feels like home.”
Mara’s heart curved. She knew why. She’d felt it as well — the unshakeable sense that regardless of how enthusiastically they attempted, they were dependably outsiders, continuously starting once again.
“At any point do you feel like we’ve met previously?” she asked delicately, her voice very nearly a murmur.
He solidified, his eyes augmenting marginally. “I do indeed. However, it’s incomprehensible.”
Mara’s heartbeat animated. The words she had long smothered taken steps to break free. “It’s certainly feasible, Elliot. I — ”
The bistro around them obscured as though time itself had started to extend. An unexpected glimmer of memory hit her, the fragrance of old books, the sound of wind against stone, a road in an alternate city. It was them, in another life. She saw them remaining at a junction, both so close, yet so far separated.
“I recollect that,” she said, short of breath. “We were… together once.”
Elliot’s look solidified, his temple wrinkling. “In another lifetime. In some other time. Continuously… yet, never in a similar one.”
Mara squinted, attempting to shake off the heaviness of the memory, yet it stuck to her like a shadow.
“For what reason do we continue to meet, then?” she asked, her voice thick with feeling. “For what reason does it generally feel like we should be together, but we never are?”
Elliot’s hand arrived at across the table, his fingers brushing hers. The contact sent a rush of warmth through her, yet it was transient, very much like all the other things. He pulled his hand away very quickly.
“It’s the scourge of time,” he said delicately, his eyes loaded up with distress. “We’re attached to one another, across hundreds of years and lifetimes. In any case, each time we see as one another, we’re pulled separated by powers we can’t comprehend. We can never be together — not in the manner we need.”
The words slice through Mara like a blade, every one a reality she had known however never completely recognized. Her psyche glimmered to different minutes they had shared: the brief look at him across a packed road in Paris, the sneaked kiss under a 12 PM sky in Prague, the manner in which he had grinned at her like they had no worries at all. However, time had never been their ally.
“Once more, will we meet?” she murmured, scarcely ready to hold the inquiry in.
Elliot’s face relaxed, the trouble in his eyes developing. “Perhaps. Yet, not in this lifetime. Not in this one.”
The quietness between them developed weighty, the heaviness of their unfulfilled love pushing down on their souls. Their general surroundings kept on turning, yet they were frozen in a second neither could get away.
“I’ll recall you,” Mara said, her voice shaking. “Regardless of whether it takes another lifetime.”
Elliot grinned, a miserable, knowing grin. “What’s more, I’ll recall you. Continuously.”
He stood up, his seat scratching against the floor, and briefly, he waited, as though he needed to say more. However, he didn’t. He turned, left, and disappeared into the city.
Mara sat alone, her hand laying on the table where his had quite recently been. She shut her eyes and felt the years pass, the lives they’d shared, and the ones they’d never live. There was a profound throb in her chest, yet in addition a bizarre solace. They were bound together by time — always and never.
Also, in this lifetime, in any event, she would recall.
Until the end of time.
Add Comment