***Tick, Tick, Tick…***

The ornate, bronze gears of the Eternal Clock spin and click softly under the fading light of the sunset sky. Across the horizon, infinite scores of stars glimmer and shine as the shadows of history stretch ever further behind us. I can’t remember who you are but it feels like in a different time and place – there was something that I deeply wished between you and I.

The soft kiss of the twilight breeze reminds me of past regrets and the permanence of choices made and things that can never change. Softly gripping the rail in front of me, a sigh escapes my lips as a mixture of hope and disappointment fills my heart as I yearn for better things to come.

“Why does everything feel so hopeless?” I bitterly whispered as tears rolling off my cheeks tumbled into the blue reaches of the abyss. Past, present, future – it felt that no matter how hard I fought against destiny, there was no escape from time itself.

“Just take me back – there’s nothing left here.” I said, trying to conceal the storm of emotions in my heart. I realized that this was the final time we could jump through other dimensions and the final chance to reverse everything that had happened that day.

The day that I disappeared from reality.

Closing my eyes from the emotional turmoil of pain in my heart, I felt Emma’s warmth as she wrapped her arm around me without a word but still in acknowledgement that we had failed.

“How much time has passed since that day….?” I painfully winced as memories of the past flashed in the far reaches of my mind as home never felt so far away.

“Wait…!” I heard Alex suddenly say in disbelief as both my eyes and mouth opened in shock. Completely speechless, I was stunned as the swirling canopy of clouds across the sky gave way to other worlds suddenly materializing out of thin air in the spaces of soft, night sky.

“Look! Look at the horizon! The stars! The planets! Everything is converging…!” Emma cried out as she pointed toward the horizon. I felt my heart lurch as a whirlpool of bright light began swallowing everything up in sight.

“Cognitive Paradox…” All three of us whispered in unison as time and space suddenly accelerated without warning. My eyes struggled to keep up as everything and everyone disappeared around me within the flash of a bright, white light.

In the span of a single second, I saw my childhood, adolescence and early adult years pass by me in the form of thousands of small, visual images before they disappeared into oblivion. I could feel every single molecule of my being put under significant pressure as I glanced down and saw my hand slowly disintegrate into dust followed by the rest of my body.

As the last pieces of my mind disappeared, I could feel millions if not billions of other souls beside me traveling forward into this infinite stretch of time that I could only imagine was the collective form of life itself.

The final thought of everyone beside me on this road put my soul at ease as I sped forward into the unknown. I didn’t know where I was going or what was happening to me but deep somewhere in the remnants of my being I was filled with unending resolve to fulfill the unfinished things that I had left behind in the past.

Artist: Martina Stipan