My Date with Time

Time and I were walking down the Memory Lane, one nice evening, and the air was cool and wispy. We entered the Garden of Past, full of fragrant and multicoloured flowers of achievements, and thorns of past regrets, glittering milestones of proud moments and pebbles of forgotten time-spans, and in the center of the garden was a pond.

He led me to it, and we sat down on a bench next to the pond, for a while we were silent. I noticed that even though there was no wind, the water in the pond kept flowing and moving around, forming small waves.

"That is the Pond of Thoughts", said Time, "It waters the flowers of Past Achievements and thorns of Past Regrets, though it cannot change the milestones and pebbles, it does keep the other two quite fresh!"

"The pond contains the thoughts of those", he went on, "who dwell on their past mistakes or glorious moments, who are either sulking around because the thorns prick them, or walking a foot higher because the flowers they had sown are beautiful."

Saying this, he got up and started walking, I followed, deeper we went into the garden, and the scene before my eyes slowly changed, from the lush Garden of Past, we had moved onto the Field of Present, there I saw huge oxen tilling a part of the land, the other part was dry and barren, with a dried out river bed adjoining it. The part where the oxen had already ploughed was being watered by rain.

I was still taking in the bizarreness of all this, when Time pointed out, "Look! Do you see that...?" I looked in the direction he was pointing at, and there I saw a beautiful rainbow, it slowly grew and covered the entire land, tilled or not tilled, fertile or barren, under its giant colourful bow.

"That is the Rainbow of Hope.", said Time with a kind smile,"It covers the entire Field of Present and also a bit of the Garden of Past and it extends towards the Void of Future!" I was still staring, my eyes wide open at the Field of Present. I wanted to asked him why only half the land was being tilled, why was the river dry and why was it raining only in a particular area and not on the entire land?

His gazed followed mine as I was looking at the dried river bed and slowly he spoke,"Ah! The River of Productive Thoughts, how dry it has become!" I looked at him, confused; he went on further explaining, "It is here where it all begins, The River of Productive Thoughts, it waters the barren land and makes it bring out produce with the Oxen of Perseverance, which is then watered by the rain of Graces from Above. But alas! You see, all the water has been pooled in the Pool of Thoughts we saw in the Garden of Past. And thus those who are busy pondering on past events have not been able to produce anything in the present."

"Close your eyes, hold my hand, I have got a surprise for you!", he added. I did what I was told, I closed my eyes and held his hand and he started leading me towards an unknown destination. We walked silently for a while and then he stopped abruptly, I could here faintly some music being played.

"Open your eyes", he whispered.

I opened my eyes, and what I saw was beyond words or comprehension.I was standing on nothing, no ground below, no sky above and all around me was plain void. In this void there was something happening all the time, swirls of colours mixing and merging, beautiful flowers being created from fire in a second and destroyed in the next, trees being formed from saplings in an instant only to be replaced by birds of various colours, shapes and size.

In every fraction of a second something was being created form nothing and destroyed. Every thing was changing so fast, so often. It seemed if I blinked I would miss an eternity worth of actions. All was like a long lasting explosion of fireworks which just never ended. This endless vision of creation and destruction of various things was what occupied both of us.

With great effort I turned my eyes towards Time, looking at him I asked,"This is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. What is this place?"

Without taking his eyes off the activities he replied,"The Void of Future. No one can come here, no one knows this place except me. It is an ever changing, ever evolving place. Nothing here is fixed or permanent, nor can anything stay here. But the visions you see are formed from Actions. They do control the Void of Future in a partial way. Actions! Wonderful Actions, see how they create things and destroy them, see how they make and mar the Future, see how they affect the Void of Future by ever changing visions."

We stood, gazing at the Void of Future. Then he spoke again,"Do you want to see where I live?" I nodded and closed my eyes without his asking. We walked again.

And we stopped. I opened my eyes and saw that I was inside a huge hall made of the finest marble. And it had several windows, some looking at the Garden of Past, others at the Field of Present, while a wide sole window was dedicated to stare at the Void of Future.

"Here, is where I live. Forever", said Time.