Flashes of my life dance across my mind as I sit beneath an unfamiliar sky. One I’ll never understand no matter the amount of time, compared to the one I once dreamed of touching. Now I sit here transformed from who I once was when I was found beneath this very ash tree all those years ago. In a place that has once existed as well as never existing. A place of importance back then in my life, the only actual place I felt comfort. Now a husk of what it once was and meant. The ash tree is one of the only remains in this eternal hell of the puzzle of who I once was.
I call out to my only companions that I have left over the passage of time.
“Are you there Techne? Flos? Can you hear me?”
“We can hear you. How many times have we said we will always be with you”, spoke Flos poking her tentacle out from within my stomach.
“Damn right, you Brat! I’ve been around for far longer than you, but you're still the most annoying entity I’ve ever met,” stated Techne. A screen appeared in front of my eyes with words, “How can we not hear you?”
“Thank you, Flos, Techne you're humorous as ever”
“Why thank you. Aren’t I a killer? My jokes are transparent”
“Haha! Your jokes are getting worse Techne. Transparent, really? That’s the best you can do”, complained Flos. “How old are you again? Weren’t you just saying you’ve been around for a long time? How could you pick low-hanging fruit?!”
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Audible sigh. “Hah, thank you I truly mean it. You guys always know how to cheer me up.”
“Thank you, I needed that. I can’t laze around forever, time to get back to work”
As I fall into a daze I hear Techne and Flos, talking at once. Their voices merging into one.
“We’ll always be here beside you, just as we prom…”
My breath slowed, slowing my thoughts. I resumed leaving a record of my life, within the tree that once formed my life. I lay in a daze of agony from my past of events that once transpired. Being alive now is a miracle in and of itself. I have risen from who I once was from a pile of corpses and the sins which I have appointed upon myself. After each rearing cliff, I have overcome, I have survived, and lived. But I am no longer alive, only living to protect what I once swore upon.
Surrounded by memories that are a never-ending source of joy and nightmares similar to the two-sided nature of water. Water can bring hope to one dying of thirst in the desert but if one is surrounded by too much water one will be left to drown within. The memories that flashed and danced past my mind were similar in nature. They floated down as a stream with a beautiful dance of nature, changing to a roaring river, yet I endured. Which came to the seas that expanded into the ocean leaving me lethargic within my madness as I lay on the ground.
With the last of my strength, I pulled out another piece of my past, a pocket watch that kept ticking no matter the damage I’d dealt to it, which was hidden within my shirt. When I let it fall to my side to view the engraving, my breath was taken by the workmanship like every time before once again, I was lost in the beauty that I have seen hundreds of times before. The passage of time cannot ruin beautiful things, they stay beautiful. Just as time moves on even if we don’t want it to.