When the Time is Gone

Times change – it is what time does. Time is never still, always rushing away from the now into the future, leaving the past behind. Sometimes, it leaves us behind too.

There was that day when her time left me behind at the station. I turned away, back into a life that became memories and echoes of memories of the times when she lived that life with me.

There were times when I left a life behind too. Sometimes looking back with regret. Seeing someone, whose time and life I’d shared, watching the train leaving the station before turning back to her life, or what remained of it, now I was no longer there with her.

Time is always forging ahead, eager for the next bend. Always wanting to see what lies over those far hills in the distance, craving to see what lies beyond the horizon.

Time drags us along with it. Sometimes tearing us apart, leaving one on the station and one heading off towards that curve in the track.

We walked those beaches together in some other lifetime, holding hands and staring out towards the horizon. Each thinking we had escaped the notice of time, that time was leaving us alone. Neither of us dared turn to look back over our shoulders, both knowing that soon time would come and drag one of us away, over that horizon and gone.

Of course, someone could always stand on the station and wait, or walk those beaches day after day. But we all know, even when we won’t acknowledge it, that the time will never come around again.