[Disclaimer - don't own anything.]
"Sometimes, the silence of God is really only the shouting of our own hearts."
Elizabeth Hemp
:::
I'm forgetting Narnia. It's all slipping away as steadily as wet sand dripping through my fingers, and nothing I do can stop it. Oh Aslan! Memories are all I have left! Must they also be taken away?
:::
But I do not answer.
:::
I forgot, today, the words to the Dryad song that was the favourite of my sisters. And I was ashamed to tell them; but when I did, they could not help me remember. We are all forgetting. And I am the protector here, but I can do nothing to stop this. Aslan, why would you do this to us?
:::
And still, I do not answer.
:::
When I close my eyes and picture Narnia, I see the colours of the flag and feel the coolness of a metal crown on my head and hear the birds singing outside the window - but I cannot see any faces anymore. All that is left is general ideas of things, vague impressions and not many details. Aslan, what wrong did we do that you would bring this upon us? What grave offence must we repent from to regain the memories? For surely you would not take them from us without cause.
:::
I am yet silent.
:::
Aslan, O Aslan, it is dark. You have sent us away from the light back into the darkness of what was supposed to be home - and it is so easy to be lost here, among the logic and rationality and facts. I used to be Someone, I used to matter; but here the darkness covers everything I used to be and declares it to be fantasy. So I want to hold on to what I remember of there, hold on to memories of the light if I cannot have the real thing. But all the years are melting away and I feel younger and smaller and lesser somehow. The only strong feeling I can recall now is that of feeling important, useful, needed. I used to matter. Aslan, who am I here?
:::
I hear, but offer no response. And they are lost in the darkness, and they cannot see that I have died for them there just as I died for the traitor here. They cannot see that my love bled through nails just as real as the knife they saw here.
They cannot see the light of hope I have prepared for them in the future; they cannot see the world they want so badly to remember shriveling up and moving fast through the years of the future, as I can.
They cannot see the pain it will cost them to hold the memories of a lifetime in a child's body; they cannot understand the gift I am giving, because it is shadowed by the gift I am taking away.
They cannot hear my words in their world now, because their ears are too full with a Lion's roar and the sound of the Old Language. I must clear away the old to help them see the truth of their own world - and one day they will thank me for it.
That is the end of the matter.