The Way Back Home
The most important thing Jowd had forsaken, right before his journey to the future swallowed him, was his inclination to reminiscence.
Second chances never last long without good purposes. To this day, the idea anchors him to the last vows of his other self. He had felt compelled to fill his part, the final tribute to his fate, and so he had chosen – whatever wrongs done in that life put to waste, he would leave behind for the waves of time to erase.
No wonder the habit to dwell on the past had been the first one to go. He is quite sure it was never good to him. He can no longer tell, not for certain, and yet – no, he won't.
He has sworn not to remember. The suspect lingers anyway. If he just stopped to look back on that now – on bleak afternoons and walls painted in regrets, nights spent thinking, playing around with the details – he would find out to what extent memories can hurt.
He sort of still knows, in any case. He is not eager to bear the full weight of his suffering again. What counts is that he has gotten good enough at swallowing it back.
No, it isn't remembrance that startles Jowd from time to time, when his eyes spread open to his heavy breaths and fear and concern, hey, what's wrong, what's wrong with you. It is no longer a self-inflicted punishment, as diligent as it was useless. It is betrayal – the choice of those years that never were to return by themselves, and catch him by surprise.
It is not his fault, his heaving chest yells, not his fault anymore – or is it? He can't help it either way, never mind – he cannot stop reality from tearing itself apart, from showing gashes of something else, half memory half nightmare. He cannot keep the mementos from coming to him.
They arrive with the flow, small and insignificant to anyone else. Words or signs or gestures like small buttons to be pressed. And what is a trapdoor to him, another sudden fall to the downward abyss, is meaningless to them.
If nothing else, they wait. There is much patience in this redeemed existence. They tell him not to worry, it's okay – and if they ask what all this is about, they have the sensitivity to do so in silence, so he doesn't have to answer. Not yet. When?
Someday, life explains. Let the truth catch up with you in time. And Jowd drifts back to the present day, his present day – the one he has earned, a part of him reminds him. He is returned to loving faces, to the smell of lunch and freshly baked donuts. A hand in his, two hands in his, an embrace.
With gratitude, his arms surround that small universe of love.
Look closely, the same voice whispers, from somewhere within him. What you fear is sealed in the past. If you pay mind to it, all around you, you'll see the world is new.