Time of a Life, Life of a Time

Heh, back from work, and deservedly so... Data entry can be sooo boring. I may love the internet access but definitely NOT the work aspect of data entry. Oh well, 3 more days *crosses fingers* Read blogs of friends during free time, and had a good laugh and smile at a lot of them. Makes me think how much I enjoyed their actual presence.
Oh, and as promised, the first story of this blog. This one happens to be the rejected essay for my MPH entry which.... ah, I'm too lazy to go over the details, it's so stupid anyway. Enjoy~

Currently listening to: Shell (Hitomi Mieno , Witch Hunter Robin Opening Theme)

Time of a Life, Life of a Time

She sat alone, working on folding paper stars from ribbons of origami paper. Her nimble fingers found each fold with precision as she idly finished her 999^th star for the day. Absent-mindedly, she let her free hand comb through the long unbraided tresses that framed her almond face. She leaned on a wall as she was sitting, attending to her ritual. Having completed it, she emptied the stars into the glass bottle she had in her lap and, picking up the jar with one hand and brushing the remnants from her denim pants and tank top with the other, she put the jar away gently.

It was the two millionth jar she had completed.

She had done this remarkable feat using what little spare time she had. Most of the time, she was attending to work obligations, which took up a large part of her life. You could almost say that she had too much spare time.

That is, if you didn’t know the fact that she was Time.

The storeroom of stars disappeared from view as she closed the vault, fading back into the void she lived in. She took steps across the infinite void and, despite the infinite length, crossed the room with ease. Her own walls would have impeded her, but they merely sunk back into the nothingness surrounding her room.

She sat on nothing, but with a bit of her time flowing into the space, nothing quickly became something, enough for her to sit comfortably on.

As Time, life was actually quite simple; live. Live, so that creation which inhabited the world could live too. Despite the simplicity though, things weren’t exactly easy on Time. Plants were fine, they played by all the rules. Animals were about the same.

Humans, however….

She rubbed her temples out of sheer annoyance thinking about it. It was a severe mistake to give them knowledge, she reflected. With their advancements, they became more and more audacious in their almost obvious challenge to match God. And now, they thought they could cheat her. Cheat Time. Cryogenics, deep-freezing, the “elixir of youth”… All ways to try and grab more of their fair share of Time. The temerity of it all… She felt lucky that she had, in hindsight, been smart enough to make a pact with Death that would legalize Death to take immediate and proper actions upon the foolish souls regardless of Time’s consent, should any attempt to cheat Time be done by any sentient creature.

“Death…”

Her thoughts flew from the idiocy of the world to him. He was a hard worker, to be sure of that... And yet he’d still find Time and accompany her in making stars once in a while. He was, well, a klutz. Okay, a cute klutz, who’d try to entertain her in all her somberness just to ‘kill Time’. It never worked, but she never did accuse him of being overly enthusiastic about the job.

The ripples in the dark void snagged her attention.

“Well, speak of the Devil...” she thought aloud.

Out of a black curtain stepped a teenage boy, sporting a pair of cargo pants and a T-shirt, with a seven-foot scythe resting on his shoulder as he held it with his seemingly frail limbs, and most exasperating of all, a boyish grin on his face.

“Hey, I send people to heaven too, you know…” Death poked back at Time.

“Point taken. I’m done with my stars for today.”

Death sighed. “Field duty can be so long these days…”

He started walking across the room, forgetting the inconvenient bit of an infinite length.

“Er, Time? A little help here?”

She groaned. It was easy to forget that only she was able to match the infinite distance of her room with an infinite time traveling that distance, condensing it into a single motion. Within one graceful stride, she reached Death.

“So, why’d you come today?”

“Nah, just dropping in. You’re free, right?”

“… I’m Time.”

*

Time was listening, or should have been listening, as Death recounted his field duty experiences for the day. Somehow, she found the topic of humans and their lives to be dull and irksome; how interesting can mortal lives be? She tried listening with apparent intent, hiding the rapidly-increasing lack of it. He did have many interesting stories, she didn’t deny that. Just that all of them were regarding human lives. What was it to him that she did not see inside humans?

“Death?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s with humans that make them so special to you? I mean, aren’t they just the same as any other creation? Why pay so much attention to them?”

Death raised an eyebrow.

“They offer... insight for me, even with the most foolish of their actions.”

Time scoffed, “Insight?”

Death considered her challenge, and then stood up, offering his hand to her.

“Let me take you into the world and we’ll see.”

*

They walked along the streets of a downtown metropolitan city, with people rushing everywhere to their respective destinations. All wishing ‘if only I had more time’. Such murmurs grated on Time’s ears, and she wished she could just shut them out entirely.

“If you wanted me to think humans still are any better than my earlier judgments against them, it’s not working…”

Death cast a glance at her. That glance spoke “You’ve only just arrived here, what did you expect?”

Time just rolled her eyes.

Death gestured around them. “This place, its vibrancy… Don’t you wonder why is it that people here feel that they have such little time?”

Time looked around and, maybe because of the confinement that a human body offered to her, she did feel as though the city was drifting on whirlpools of seconds and minutes, each rushing past by the inhabitants of the city. It whooshed through the streets and avenues, leaving a sensation of breathlessness in its wake.

“It does feel… fast here.”

“Look around you. Everything is moving. Change is omnipresent. People don’t, and can’t, stop to see it because they themselves are also involved in their own hectic lives. It’s not that they don’t appreciate you, but they can’t. They know you exist.”

Time folded her arms petulantly. “Yeah, and?”

Death sighed. It was much easier with ignorant mortal souls.

“Alright. Let’s go somewhere else.”

*

The fields of green beheld the two of them as they walked in the silence of the hidden valley. This time, she felt a waltz of calm, with each blade of grass entrapping its own moment in time, each dandelion seed floating on eddies of hours on end.

“This place feels so…slow.”

“It’s the lack of change. There’s nothing new, everything’s the same here. The same simple changes are repeated over periods of time.”

Death turned to look at Time.

“Do you get it now? How humans feel about time?”

Time contemplated her feeling of mortality.

“I’m all about change?”

“To them, yes. But how would humans know anything about change if they didn’t have a memory? Without one, each moment would be the first and last moment of its kind. There would be no feeling of change, even though change would have occurred, because they have no recall of their past state.”

She stared into the still landscape.

“I’m just… a memory?”

“To them. Your entire significance to humans lies in their memory. You aren’t just any memory. You are the memory which defines all others.”

“But only a memory. A memory can be forgotten.”

Time, for the first time, felt truly humbled.

*

Death led her down the pavement at night. Time hadn’t spoken much since the revelation of her insignificance in human psyche, despite her role. Throughout the day after that, Death saw a certain part of Time he wasn’t sure of; a lonely, sad existence which shouldered in ignominy the burden of doing so much for the world while being ignored by those whom she lived for. Maybe it was just mortal feelings, but Death thought he could almost…

“Well, we’re here.”

Pulling himself away from further worldly emotions, he motioned for Time to enter the chapel.

“Why are we here for?”

“I just want to show you something interesting before we go back.”

The chapel was a quiet place where Time felt the heavy stagnancy of years upon her mortal being. No one else was there. The moonlight cast a faint glow on the tinted glasses, illuminating what was a ruined altar.

“Do you know why there is religion in this world, Time?”

“The belief of mortals sustains many higher powers. I’ve heard that before.”

“Okay, ever wondered what happened to the higher beings that never did get sustained worship?”

“What, they die?”

He chuckled in his maddeningly calm tone. “No. You know we can’t die. We’re all not subject to the mortal concept of death.”

“Then….?”

“We sleep. We fall asleep, waiting for a new believer to stand. If none does…”

A quiet hush descended upon them.

Time whispered hoarsely, “We sleep forever.”

Death could only nod.

“Isn’t it ironic that we who created and govern humans are inevitably subjected to their whim and fancy? However, as with many rules, there are exceptions.”

He stepped closer to Time until they both were bathed in the moonlight.

“You’re the exception.”

Time blinked away her tears. “I feared that.”

“Even though you may be just a memory to humans, you have existed before them. Their concept about you does not show you for who you are. Unlike us,” he gestured to himself, “you don’t need them to survive.”

Time sunk back into the comfort of the shadows, smudging away the lone tear on her cheek.

“But… What about you?”

Death shrugged. “Once I run out of living beings to claim, my purpose is done. Then I sleep and wait for the next Renewal. If it ever comes.”

He caught the next few words in his throat, but managed to barely say them.

“Time… You are eternal.”

She started sobbing. It was hateful, these emotions, but she couldn’t control them, not in her human state of mind.

“What good is an eternity if I have to be alone? I don’t want to continue carrying the burden of living a life for others who don’t care, and eventually see out the end only to live past it by myself!”

She wept uncontrollably.

Death, too, abandoned all restraint. He knelt down and hugged the trembling form of Time, absorbing her tears into his cheek.

“You’ll be fine… We’ll come back. We’ve done it once.”

She cried and cried in the warm, patient embrace of Death.

*

“I’m alright now. Let’s go.”

Time had recovered, recomposing herself to return to her duty.

“Wait.”

Death called out.

“You know… since we’re human and all for now... I won’t be able to do this later, so I might as well try.”

“Eh?” Time seemed curious.

“Would you go out with me?”

Time, quite literally, stood still.

“Er, we don’t have-“

“You and I are here. You’ve got an eternity. We both have time, don’t we?” He grinned cheekily.

Time relented. He was, in his own way, cute after all…

“Okay, but better make it the Time of my Life then.” She smiled.

And the two walked off into the dawn.